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Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

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ELEMENTS 


ART    CRITICISM 


COMPRISING  A  TREATISE  ON 

THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  MAN'S  NATURE  AS 
ADDRESSED  BY  ART 

TOGETHER  WITH  A  HISTORIC  SURVEY  OP 

THE  METHODS  OF  AKT  EXECUTION 

IN  THE  DEPARTME^8*0P 

DRAWING,   SCULPTURE,   ARCHITECTURE,  PAINTING,   LAND- 
SCAPE GARDENING,  AND  THE  DECORATIVE  ARTS. 


A  Text  Book  for  Schools  and  Colleges 


A    HAND-BOOK   FOR   AMATEURS   AND    ARTIST 


By  a.  W.  SAMSON,  D.D., 

MSIDENT   OF   COIiUMBIAN   COLLEGE,   WASHINGTON,    D.  C. 

aw  TBa  ^S9t 

^fO^ECfj^^  PHILADELPHIA 

J.    B.    LIPPINCOTT    &    CO. 

1867. 


i9iS^ 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1867,  by 

G.   W.   SAMSON,   D.D., 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  for  the  District  of  Columbia. 


TO 

W.  W.   CORCORAN, 

WHOSE 

INTELLIGENT  CULTUKE  AT  HOME  AND  ABEOAD, 

WHOSE 

APPRECIATIVE     PATRONAGE     OF     ART, 

AND  WHOSE 

GENEROUS  BENEFACTIONS  IN  EVERY  CHARITY, 

HAVE  MADE   HIM 

A  REPRESENTATIVE  AMERICAN 

IN  DEVOTION  TO 

"THE  TRUE,   THE   BEAUTIFUL  AND   THE  GOOD," 

AND  ESPECIALLY 

THE  NATIONAL   PATRON    OF   ART 

AT   THE 

METROPOLIS  OF  THE  AMERICAN  UNION, 
THIS   volxjm:e 

IS 
BY  HIS  FRIEND, 

THE    AUTHOR. 


INTRODUCTION. 


The  following  Treatise  on  the  Elements  of  Art  Criticism  has  originated  in 
a  conviction  that  the  general  neglect  of  early  instruction  in  the  principles  of 
Art  Execution  is  a  serious  defect  in  American  education ;  which  defect  may  be, 
and  therefore  should  be,  removed.  The  educated  American  tourist  finds  him- 
self mortified  amid  the  galleries  and  before  the  monuments  of  Art  in  the  Old 
World,  because,  unlike  European  visitors,  he  has  no  preparatory  acquaintance 
with  the  first  principles  of  Art,  kindred  to  his  early  instruction  in  Science  and 
Literature,  which  would  make  him  at  home  among  such  treasures,  and  fit  him 
to  appreciate,  to  enjoy  and  to  improve  his  privilege.  The  American  legislator, 
obliged  by  his  position  to  take  action  in  meeting  the  great  and  growing  demand 
for  public  expenditures  in  the  department  of  Painting,  Sculpture  and  Architec- 
ture, is  harassed  with  the  apprehension,  that,  having  no  independent  judgment 
of  his  own,  he  may  be  misled  by  unworthy  and  interested  men,  who  are  ever 
in  advance  of  genuine  artists  in  pressing  their  own  claims.  The  young  Amer- 
ican artist  has  rarely  access  to  technical,  historical  and  critical  treatises  on 
Art,  which  may  give  clearness  and  comprehensiveness  to  his  investigations 
and  conceptions.  To  this  special  lack  of  these  several  special  classes  must  be 
added  the  general  want  felt  by  the  entire  mass  of  the  American  people,  male 
and  female,  youths  and  adults,  pre-eminently  an  educated  and  reading  people; 
who,  though  supplied  with  elementary  treatises  in  every  department  of  science 
and  philosophy,  search  in  vain  in  American  and  even  in  English  libraries  for 
a  condensed  and  comprehensive  work  on  Art,  which  shall  meet  their  general 
need.  The  demand  is  a  peculiar  one ;  and  the  effort  to  meet  it  is  attended 
with  great  diflSiculty. 

The  design  of  this  Treatise,  as  its  title  indicates,  is  to  present  in  their  con- 
nection the  elementary  principles  on  which  is  founded  a  just  criticism  of  Art, 
and  to  illustrate  those  principles  in  the  History  of  Art  Execution.  Criticism 
is  judgment  passed  upon  an  object  considered;  and  Laws  of  Criticism  are  de- 
signed to  guide  the  critic  to  a  just  judgment  in  the  field  of  his  special  observa- 
tion either  of  Science,  Art,  or  Literature.  In  Art  all  cannot  be  practitioners 
or  executers ;  for,  as  in  every  other  profession  so  in  that  of  the  artist,  the 
practical  training  requires  years  of  absorbing  application,  and  skill  in  execution 
can  only  result  from  a  lifetime  of  entire  devotion  of  thought  and  labor.  In 
Art,  however,  all  persons  will  be,  as  in  every  other  department  of  human 
1*  6 


6  INTRODUCTION. 

labor,  judges  of  the  work  of  others ;  and  education  in  the  principles  of  Art, 
though  only  rudimentary  and  partial,  may  guide  to  a  judgment  commendable 
in  the  critic,  invaluable  to  the  artist  and  conducive  to  the  advancement  of  the 
arts.  It  may  be  an  extreme  view  that  any  child,  of  however  dull  an  ear,  may 
be  trained  to  become  a  correct  musical  performer,  either  with  an  instrument  or 
with  the  voice ;  but  it  certainly  cannot  be  an  error  to  suppose  that  if  the  same 
amount  of  training  were  given  in  the  principles  of  Art  as  is  given  by  our  Col- 
leges in  the  rudiments  of  language,  rhetoric  and  logic,  of  mechanical,  physical, 
metaphysical,  political  and  moral  philosophy,  educated  young  men  would  be  as 
well  prepared  to  be  useful  leaders  of  opinion  in  the  one  department  as  in  the 
other. 

That  the  School  and  the  College  may  supply  this  lack  is  manifest  from  the 
experience  of  other  ages  and  nations.  The  age  of  Phidias  and  of  Apelles,  in 
ancient  times,  was  the  result  of  the  matured  growth  of  years  of  popular  cul- 
ture ;  during  which  all  the  youth  taught  in  the  common  schools  of  Greece  were 
trained  in  both  the  theory  and  the  practice  of  Plastic  Art.  The  era  of  Lio- 
nardo  da  Vinci,  of  Michel  Angelo  and  of  Raphael  in  Modern  Italy,  was  devel- 
oped under  the  influence  of  the  theoretical  study  of  Art  by  men  of  all  ranks 
and  classes  in  civil  and  ecclesiastical  life;  the  principles  of  an  intelligent 
criticism  of  Art  being  so  universally  familiar  that  even  the  common  people 
were,  as  they  now  are,  able  to  express  an  independent  judgment  upon  master- 
pieces of  Sculpture  and  Painting.  At  the  present  day  such  is  the  system  of 
University  education  in  England  and  France,  and  even  in  Germany,  that  Art 
is  taught  chiefly  in  separate  schools.  The  popular  system  of  American  educa- 
tion, in  which,  after  the  primary  training  of  the  Common  School,  youth  gen- 
erally, both  male  and  female,  may  aspire  to  an  advanced  course  of  scientific, 
literary  and  philosophic  studies  in  Higher  Schools  and  Colleges,  seems  to 
demand  an  elementary  Text-book,  kindred  to  those  required  in  other  depart- 
ments of  instruction.  Such  a  Text-book,  in  order  to  meet  the  popular  demand, 
must  be  at  once  comprehensive  in  its  range,  clear  in  its  analysis  and  simple  in 
its  statements;  while  at  the  same  time,  in  order  to  satisfy  the  necessities  of 
more  thorough  students,  it  must  add  a  more  extended  view  of  the  principles 
of  Art  Criticism  as  recognized  by  philosophic  writers,  and  of  the  methods  of 
Art  Execution  as  practiced  by  artists  in  different  ages  and  nations. 

To  expect  a  perfect  work  in  the  attempt  to  supply  such  a  desideratum  would 
be  unreasonable  in  the  reader  and  presumptuous  in  the  writer.  Able  artists 
have  seldom  been  authors  of  written  treatises ;  partly  because  the  successful 
employ  of  the  pencil,  of  the  chisel  and  of  the  brush  is  not  consistent  with 
thoroughly  analytic  and  finished  use  of  the  pen ;  chiefly,  however,  because, 
from  the  necessity  of  their  pursuit,  teachers  in  Art  instruct  by  the  eye  and  the 
tongue,  and  address  only  those  who  wish  themselves  to  become  artists  and  to 
be  trained  in  the  master's  own  special  department.  It  is  rare,  in  the  history 
of  Art,  to  find  written  treatises  left  by  such  masters  as  Apelles  and  Lionardo 


INTRODUCTION.  7 

da  Vinci ;  and  all  such  treatises  are  fragmentary  and  technical,  limited  to  the 
department  of  Art  in  which  the  author  excels,  and  designed  only  for  pupils  in 
their  own  special  field.  The  writers  on  Art  for  general  students  and  readers 
have  been  teachers,  like  Plato  and  Aristotle,  Kames  and  Cousin,  or  general 
scholars  like  Pliny  and  Winckelmann. 

(doming  thus  from  theoretic  men,  who  alone  are  prepared  to  undertake  the 
literary  labor,  such  treatises  must  be  imperfect  in  detail ;  with  many  omissions 
important  to  the  practitioner,  and  with  positive  misconceptions  and  misstate- 
ments which  the  thorough  bred  artist  will  immediately  detect.  The  same 
imperfection,  however,  is  met  in  Text-books  in  other  departments  of  College 
education ;  compiled  as  they  usually  are  by  men  versed  in  the  literature  rather 
than  profound  in  the  science  of  which  they  treat.  There  is,  for  this  reason, 
scarcely  a  Text-book  in  Physical  Science,  Mechanical,  Mental  or  Moral  Phil- 
osophy, or  even  in  Law,  Medicine  or  Theology,  in  use  among  students,  all  of 
whose  pages  will  bear  the  scrutiny  of  either  the  profoundest  theorizers  or  of  the 
acutest  practitioners  in  any  one  of  the  departments  discussed.  It  is  to  be 
remembered,  however,  that  the  end  of  education  is  to  teach  the  methods  of 
study  rather  than  to  supply  complete  material  for  a  master ;  and  that  often  in- 
structors are  most  successful  in  making  pupils  who  become  masters,  because 
they  appreciate  the  lack  of  beginners,  and  put  youth  of  special  genius  into  the 
road  that  leads  at  once  to  success. 

The  following  work  is  the  result  of  extended  and  practical  study ;  originating 
in  a  purpose  formed  prior  to  a  tour  of  observation,  made  nearly  twenty  years 
since,  in  Egypt,  Western  Asia,  and  Europe ;  confirmed  among  the  monuments 
and  amid  the  galleries  of  Ancient  and  Modern  Art  in  the  Old  World;  enlarged 
and  enriched  by  twenty-five  years'  study  of  ancient  and  modern  authorities,  and 
of  intercourse  with  able  artists ;  and  digested  during  several  courses  of  Lec- 
tures addressed  to  both  popular  assemblies  and  to  College  classes.  Adepts  in 
metaphysical  research  may  find  discussions  of  principles  which  could  be  more 
thoroughly  analyzed,  more  ably  defended  and  more  fully  illustrated;  and  mas- 
ter-artists, while  deriving  aid  from  the  general  survey  and  condensed  history, 
will  certainly  meet  many  statements  that  show  want  of  practical  knowledge  in 
details ;  and  yet  the  treatise  may  accomplish  its  mission  as  a  Text-book  for 
Schools  and  Colleges,  and  as  a  Hand-book  for  artists  and  amateurs.  An  Apelles 
may  have  occasion  to  say  to  an  intelligent  and  noble  patron  like  Alexander, 
criticising  a  painting,  "Hush,  your  majesty;  the  boys  grinding  my  paints  will 
laugh  at  you ;"  and  yet  without  those  very  criticisms,  even  that  of  the  cobbler 
as  to  the  sandal,  Apelles  would  never  have  reached  the  perfection  he  attained. 
Greek  architects,  sculptors  and  painters  in  the  days  of  the  Eoman  Emperors 
might  think  the  Latin  of  Vitruvius  and  Pliny  did  inadequate  justice  to  the 
transcendent  genius  in  art  whose  works  they  analyzed;  and  yet  Avithout  those 
Latin  treatises  the  methods,  if  not  the  names  of  the  peerless  Greeks  would  be 
unknown  to  modern  students.    If  the  present  work  but  hints  to  students  of 


8  INTBODUCrriON. 

art  the  leading  principles  of  criticism,  and  guides  artists  to  the  sources  of  i»- 
vestigation  as  to  the  methods  of  former  masters,  its  aim  will  be  realized.        '  f^ 

The  work  embraces  seven  distinct  Books;  the  first  Book  treating  of  the 
Principles  of  Criticism  as  developed  in  the  laws  by  which  Art  addresses  the 
nature  of  man ;  the  remaining  six  Books  illustrating  the  application  of  these 
principles  in  the  methods  of  artists  and  in  the  historical  progress  of  the  several 
arts  of  Drawing,  Sculpture,  Architecture,  Painting,  Landscape  Gardening  and 
the  Decorative  Arts.  In  the  present  volume,  or  Text-book  proper,  a  condensed 
and  comprehensive  view  of  the  entire  field  is  attempted ;  embracing  that  ex- 
tent of  statement  and  amount  of  illustration  supposed  to  be  adapted  to  the 
ordinary  pupil  and  to  the  general  reader.  The  quotations  are  generally  brief; 
the  references  to  Hebrew  and  Greek  writers  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament 
being  inserted,  since  they  are  familiar  to  all  readers;  while  citations  from 
Greek  and  Latin  authors  are  quoted  with  the  mere  mention  of  their  names, 
except  in  cases  where  definiteness  of  reference  seems  desirable.  Words  of 
special  importance  introduced  from  the  Hebrew,  Arabic,  Greek  and  German,  as 
well  as  from  the  Sanscrit,  Latin,  Italian  and  French,  are  written  in  Koman  let- 
ters italicized :  because,  first,  their  pronunciation  is  thus  indicated  to  English 
readers ;  second,  their  originals  are  sufiiciently  manifest  to  classical  scholars ; 
and  third,  this  method  of  orthography  has  the  sanction  of  the  most  finished 
ancient  and  modern  writers,  as  of  Cicero  and  Pliny  quoting  from  the  Greek, 
and  of  the  ablest  modern  philologians  of  Europe  quoting  from  the  Shemitic 
as  well  as  the  Indo-European  tongues.  The  volume  is  issued  without  plates  of 
engraved  illustrations;  partly,  because  when  introduced  they  must  occupy  a 
second  volume ;  farther,  because  only  the  experience  of  practical  teachers  can 
determine  what  amount  of  illustration  is  desirable;  yet  more,  because  every 
efficient  teacher  must  have  beforehand,  or  in  addition  to  Text-book  engravings, 
his  own  and  other  easily  accessible  collections  of  works  of  art  which  can  alone 
properly  illustrate  principles ;  and  mainly,  because  the  student  of  art,  like  the 
artist,  and  as  the  student  of  every  science,  must  gain  the  power  of  forming  con- 
ceptions without  any  model,  if  he  really  attains  to  any  true  knowledge  of  the 
subject  of  his  studies.  In  using  the  volume  as  a  class-book  every  teacher's  in- 
dividual judgment  will  be  a  sufficient  guide  in  the  omission  of  what  is  beyond 
the  attainment,  or  unnecessary  because  of  the  advancement  of  his  pupils; 
though  the  entire  field  presented  is  essential  to  a  comprehensive  student. 

It  is  the  design  of  the  author  at  an  early  day  to  add  a  supplemental  volume 
embracing  the  more  important  additional  citations  from  ancient  and  modem 
authorities,  in  their  original  languages,  regarded  as  essential  to  the  teacher  and 
special  student  of  Art;  to  which  may  be  added  lists  of  authorities,  glossaries 
of  technical  terms,  diagrams  illustrative  of  the  Text-book,  and  engravings  of 
master-pieces  in  the  various  arts,  to  such  extent  as  the  merits  of  the  work  and 
future  demand  of  readers  may  seem  to  justify. 


Of  THB  i     •^ 


^TTFITIESITT] 


CONTENTS. 


BOOK  I. 

PRINCIPLES  OF  man's  NATURE  AND   RELATIONS  TO  THE  WORLD  AS  A  BEING 
AFFECTED  BY  ART. 

CHAPTER  I. 

GENERAL  'VIEW  OF  THE  CONSTITUTION  OP  MAN  AS  DESIGNED  TO  BE  ADDRESSED  BY  ART. 

PAGE 

Section  First. — ^The  world  without  us  as  made  for  the  enjoyment  and  employment  of  Art  Sen- 

sibiUty 28 

Section  Second. — The  nature  within  us  to  which  Art  appeals 30 

Section  Third. — The  bodily  organs  through  which  Art  addresses  the  human  mind.- 30 

Section  Fourth. — The  external  and  internal  media  by  which  different  impressions  of  Art  are 

transmitted  from  the  outward  object  to  the  mental  organism 32 

Section  Fifth. — The  methods  by  which  artists  make  their  addresses  to  human  sensibilities 37 

Section  Siocth. — The  classification  of  the  Fine  Arts  in  accordance  with  their  modes  of  appeal 41   ^ 

CHAPTER  II. 

THE  LOWER  SENSES  INDIRECTLY  CONTRIBUTING  TO  THE  IMPRESSIONS  MADE  BT  ART. 

Section  First. — The  general  relation  of  the  Lower  Senses  to  the  appeals  of  Art 43 

Section  Second. — The  impressions  of  the  " Sense  of  Smell"  in  its  relation  to  Art 45 

Section  TTiird.— The  impressions  of  the  "Sense  of  Taste"  in  its  relation  to  Art 49 

Section  Fourth. — The  impressions  of  the  "  Sense  of  Touch"  and  its  relation  to  Art 53 

Section  Fifth. — The  impressions  of  "Muscular  Tension"  in  their  relation  to  Art 67 

Section  Sixth. — The  impressions  of  "  Nervous  Stimulation"  in  their  relation  to  Art 63 

CHAPTER  III. 

THE  IMPRESSIONS  OP  THE  HIGHER  SENSE  OP  HEARING  AS  ADDRESSED  BT  ART. 

Section  First. — Melody;  the  nature  of  sounds  called  musical,  and  the  modes  in  which  by  the 
voice  and  by  instruments  they  are  produced 69 

Section  Second.— Symphony,  or  Accord ;  the  consonance  of  musical  sounds,  the  laws  of  accord 
developed  by  Pythagoras,  and  the  concert  of  diflferent  voices  in  producing  accordant  tones.    71 

Section  Third. — Harmony;  the  three  scales  of  musical  tones  on  which  it  is  founded;  the  delicate 

B  '  9 


10  .  CONTENTS 

PAOS 

shades  of  tone  and  the  tempering  of  musical  instruments  by  which  its  highest  effects  are 
produced 81 

Section  Fourth. — Musical  Composition  ;  the  Impressions  on  the  Sensibilities  sought  by  Music ; 
the  Modes  of  Writing  Music ;  the  Major  and  Minor  Chords  and  their  Esthetic  Effects ;  the 
Keys  and  Ruling  Notes  in  Musical  Composition 86 

Section  Fifth. — Miisical  Expression;  the  adaptation  of  musical  strains  to  the  expression  of  po- 
etic composition,  and  the  classes  of  sentiment  to  whose  expression  music  may  be  adapted...    91 

Section  Sixth. — Musical  Modulation  ;  the  general  relation  of  music  to  pitch  and  cadence  of  voice, 
and  its  special  relation  to  the  enunciation  of  dramatic  composition  in  histrionic  art,  and  of 
didactic  composition  in  oratory 96 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  SENSE  OF  SIGHT,  THE  HIGHEST  OF  THE  SENSES,  AS  ADDRESSED  BT  ART. 

Section  First. — Form;  its  principles,  and  their  concurrence  as  the  ground-work  of  Art 100 

Section  Se,cond. — Color;  its  elements,  and  their  co-operation  as  the  accessories  of  Art 106 

Section  Tliird. — Fixed  Relation;  the  association  of  objects  presented  as  at  rest » Ill 

Section  Fourth. — Changing  Relation;  the  disposition  of  objects  represented  as  in  motion 115 

Section  Fifth. — Physical  Coincidence;  the  law  of  harmonious  proportion  between  tones  pleasing 

to  the  ear  and  forms  and  colors  agreeable  to  the  eye 118 

Section  Sixth. — Moral  Correspondence;  the  harmony  between  objects  presented  and  ideas  repre- 

inArt 124 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  FACULTIES  OP  THE  HUMAN  MIND  AS  AFFECTED  BT  ART. 

Action  First.— Beauty  in  the  abstract;  or  the  nature  of  our  idea  of  the  beautiful 128 

Section  Second. — Taste;  or  the  power  of  the  mind  which  gives  origin  to  the  idea  of  the  beautiful.  131 
^    Section  Third. — Beauty  in  the  concrete;  or  the  elements  in  objects  which  give  the  impression  of 

beauty 136 

Section  Fourth. — u^thetic  Judgment;  the  process  of  the  mind  by  which  we  decide  that  an  object 

is  beautiful 144 

Section  Fifth.— Comparative  Taste;  the  varied  development  of  the  idea  of  beauty  among  men; 

its  probable  absence  in  beings  inferior,  and  its  possible  perfection  in  beings  superior  to  man.  147 

CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  CLASSES  OF  IMPRESSIONS  PRODUCED  ON  MAN  BT  WORKS  OF  ART. 

Section  First.— Cl&SBi&cation  of  mental  sensibilities;  and  designation  of  impressions  properly 
aesthetic,  or  capable  of  being  addressed  by  Art 152 

Section  Second.— The  Beautiful  proper;  and  ideas  allied,  as  the  delicate,  the  exquisite,  the  fair, 
the  brilliant,  the  graceful,  the  pretty :  in  which  beauty  of  substance,  form,  color,  lustre,  mo- 
tion and  moral  loveliness  severally  predominate 155 

Section  Third.— The  Grand;  beauty  united  to  massiveness;  and  the  associated  ideas,  the  noble, 
the  elegant,  the  superb,  the  magnificent,  the  sublime,  the  majestic ;  in  which  substance,  form, 
color,  lustre,  motion,  and  moral  dignity  are  severally  prominent 161 

Section  FouHh.— The  Picturesque;  beauty  in  separate  parts,  so  grouped  as  to  secure  grandeur  in 
the  combined  whole. 1"* 


CONTENTS.  11 

PAGE 

Sedim  Fifth.— The  Novd;  beauty  of  a  lower  order,  awakening  emotions  of  surprise  by  newness 

of  form,  color,  or  relation 166 

Section  Sixth. — The  Grotesque;  beauty  in  distorted  forms  and  incongruous  relations,  giving  rise 

to  impressions  of  novelty,  horror,  or  ludicrousness 167 

Section  Seventh. — The  Tragic;  beauty  and  its  kindred  ideas,  accompanied  by  human  passion  or 

action  awakening  sorrowful  emotions 168 

Section  Eighth.— The  Comic;  beauty  in  distorted  forms  and  incongruous  relations,  accompanied 

by  human  passion  or  action  awakening  mirthful  emotions. 169 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THK  miXUKNCK  OF  NATTOAL  CHARACTERISTICS  AND  OF  DEGREES  OF  CULTURE  IN   MODIFYING   THE  IMPRES- 
SIONS PRODUCED  BT  ART. 

Section  First. — The  influence  of  national  character  and  social  customs  on  the  sensible  impres- 
sions produced  by  Art 172 

Section  Second. — The  general  influence  of  advancing  civilization  on  critical  appreciation  of  Art.  177 
Section  Third. — ^The  special  influence  of  forms  of  political  organization  on  the  patronage  of     ^,- 

Art 179  \ 

Section  Fourth.— The  special  influence  of  intellectual  progress  in  science  and  literature  on  the 

style  of  Art 181 ' 

Section  Fifth. — The  special  influence  of  moral  refinement  on  the  accessories  of  Art 184 

Section  Sixth. — The  special  influence  of  religious  culture  on  the  subjects  of  Art 187 

Section  Seventh.— Special  Means  of  improving  popular  taste,  and  of  developing  and  sustaining 

genius  in  Art 192 

y  Section  Eighth. — The  Nature  of  Art-study,  and  the  place  it  should  take  in  liberal  education. 193 


BOOK  II. 

DRAWINa;    THE  REPRESENTINa  OF  FORMS  ON  A  PLANE  SURFACE. 

CHAPTER  I. 

PLANE  drawing;    THE  REPRESENTING  OP  FORMS  ON  A  PLANE. 

Section  First. — Lines  as  the  elements  of  drawing. 199 

Section  Second. — Proportion  in  the  outline  of  plane  drawings 201 

Section  Third. — Elementary  Shading ;  the  representing  of  the  third  dimension  in  plane  draw- 
ing   203 

Section  Fourth. — Chiaroscuro;  the  gradation  of  light  and  shade 204 

Section  Fifth. — Binocular  vision ;  and  its  influence  in  giving  apparent  reality  to  the  projection 

represented  by  shadows 205 

Sixth. — The  applications  of  plane  drawing 206 


12  CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  II. 

PKBSPECTIVB  DRAWING;    THE  REPRESENTING   OF   FORMS  AS  LOCATED  IN  PLANES  MORE  OR  LESS  REMOTE. 

PAGE 

Section  First. — The  nature  of  perspective,  and  of  foreshortening 209 

Section  Second. — The  Practical  Execution  of  Drawing  in  Perspective ;  and  Artificial  Methods  of 

illustrating  its  Principle. 211 

Section  Third. — The  lines  and  points  to  be  first  fixed  in  perspective  drawing. 212 

Section  Fourth. — Principles  of  Descriptive  Geometry  relating  to  perspective  drawing. 217 

Section  Fifth. — Principles  of  Optics  and  of  Trigonometry  as  they  relate  to  perspective  drawing..  222 

Section  Sixth. — The  perspective  of  shadows 224 

Section  Seventh. — Aerial  perspective,  and  its  relation  to  chiaroscuro 227 

Section  Eighth. — Curvilinear  perspective ;  and  the  relation  which  the  actual  curve  of  perspective 

lines  in  nature  has  to  their  representation  in  drawing 228 

Section  Ninth. — Binocular  vision  in  its  relation  to  perspective 283 

Section  Tenth.— The  history  of  drawing  in  perspective.- 236 


CHAPTER  III. 

engraving;    the  transfer  of  drawings  to  engraved  PLATES  FOR  THE  MULTIPLYING   OP  COPIES. 

Section  First— The  nature  and  history  of  Engraving 238 

Second. — Xylography;  engraving  on  wood 240 

I%ir«i.— Chalcography ;  engraving  on  copper. 242 

Section  Fourth.— 'Etching;  engraving  on  copper  by  acid  reaction.- 244 

Section  Fifth, — Siderography;  engraving  on  steel 246 

Section  Sixth. — Lithography;  engraving  on  stone 246 

Section  Seventh. — Printing  of  Engravings ;  the  wear  and  renewal  of  plates;  Proof  Impressions 

and  their  graduated  value 247 

Section  Eighth.— TieneyraA  of  Plates;  Electrotyping,  or  the  multiplying  of  engraved  copper 

plates .>.-.- « 249 

Ninth.— The  place  of  Engraving  among  the  Fine  Arts 251 


CHAPTER  IV. 

photoqrapht;  or  drawing  by  light. 

Section  First.— The  coloring  influence  of  light,  which  led  to  the  Art  of  Photography 252 

Section  Second.— The  Daguerreotype ;  and  the  early  applications  of  photography 253 

Section  Third. — The  Ambrotype;  and  printing  of  multiplied  engravings  by  Photography 254 

Section  Fourth. — The  chemical  action  which  takes  place  in  photographing 256 

Fifth.— The  claim  of  Photography  as  a  Fine  Art ~ 267 


CHAPTER  V. 

DESIGN  IN  DRAWING. 

Section  I^rst. — Conception;  the  originating  of  the  idea  to  be  embodied  in  drawing 260 

Section  Second. — Invention;  the  elaborating  of  conceptions 261 

Section  2%iVd.— Composition ;  the  grouping  of  details  when  invented 263 

Section  Jbiertt.— Expression;  or  the  giving  of  life  and  reality  to  composition 266 


CONTENTS.  13 


BOOK   III. 


^.tiV 


sculpture;  the  executing  op  forms  in  all  their  dimensions, 
chapter  i. 

OKNKEAL  PRINCIPLES  RELATING  TO  THE  EXECUTION  AND  CLASSIFICATION  OP  WORKS  OF  SOULPTURl!. 

PAGE 

Section  JfVrrf.— Technical  terms  expressive  of  different  methods  of  executing  and  of  classifying 

works  of  sculpture 269 

Section  Seco7id.—1\ie  material  of  sculpture 271 

Section  Third.— The  Objects  of  Design;  as  specially  adapted  to  the  Art  of  Sculpture. 273 

Section  Fourth. — Proportion  as  securing  symmetry  in  works  of  Sculpture 278 

Section  Fifth. — Position  as  related  to  balance  in  sculpture 280 

Section  Sixth.— Verspectiye  as  affected  by  distance  and  angular  elevation  in  works  of  sculpture..  282 

Section  &venth.— Anatomy  as  it  relates  to  action  and  expression  in  sculpture 285 

Section  Eighth.— MBthetic  harmony ;  or  the  law  of  analogous  proportions  in  pleasing  tones  and 

lines,  as  illustrated  in  sculpture 289 

Section  Ninth. — Practical  methods  of  executing  sculpture 292 


CHAPTER  II. 

PRIMITIVE  sculpture;    ILLUSTRATED  IN  THE  EGYPTIAN. 

Section  First. — Different  forms  of  Egyptian  sculpture 295 

Section  Second. — The  processes  of  the  Egyptian  sculptor 296 

Section  Third. — The  anatomical  skill  displayed  in  Egyptian  sculpture 297 

Section  Fourth. — The  moral  tone  characterizing  Egyptian  sculpture 299 

Section  Fifth. — The  History  of  Egyptian  Sculpture ;  its  rude  Native  originals ;  its  ennoblement 
by  Superior  Artists  from  Asia ;  its  refinement  from  Grecian  influences ;  and  its  decline  un- 
der the  Roman  sway 301 

Section  Sixth. — The  sculpture  of  Eastern  Asia;  the  descending  scale  of  primitive  sculpture;  in- 
cluding that  of  India,  China,  Polynesia,  and  Central  and  Southern  America 303 

Section  Seventh. — The  sculpture  of  Western  Asia;  the  ascending  scale  of  primitive  sculpture ;  in- 
cluding the  Arabian,  Hebrew,  Assyrian,  and  Persian - 306 

CHAPTER  III. 

CLASSICAL  sculpture;    IN  WHICH  THE  GRECIAN  IS  THE  PREDOMINANT  TYPE. 

Section  First. — General  characteristics  of  Grecian  sculpture 313 

Section  Second.— The  Bold  style  of  Grecian  Sculpture;  beginning  with  Dsedalus 317 

Section  Third.— The  Athletic  style,  matured  by  Ageladas ;  statues  of  victors  in  feats  of  strength : 

illustrated  in  the  Boxer  and  Quoit  Thrower 319 

Section  Fourth. — The  Grand  style,  ennobled  by  Phidias ;  majestic  ideals  of  hero-worship  in  the 

age  of  Greek  culture;  illustrated  in  the  Minerva  and  Jove  of  Phidias 320 

SkcHon  Fifth.— The  Graceful  style ;  perfected  by  Praxiteles ;  ideals  of  physical  beauty  illustrated 

in  the  Venus  de  Medici ;  of  intellectual  grace  in  the  Apollo  Belvidere,  and  of  composite 

symmetry  in  the  Amazon  and  Hermaphrodite 324 

Section  Sixth.— The  Historical  style,  dignified  by  Lysippus ;  sculptui-ed  likenesses  of  living  men 

with  ideal  accessories ;  illusti-ated  in  the  busts  and  statues  of  Alexander  the  Great 330 


14  CONTENTS. 

PAOl 

Section  Sevenih. — The  Impassioned  style,  introduced  by  Scopas,  and  culminating  in  Agesander; 
statues  embodying  the  ideas  of  physical  agony  and  of  mental  anguish ;  illustrated  in  the 
Laocoon  and  the  Niobe 332 

Section  MgMh.— The  Colossal  style,  culminating  under  Chares;  the  efifort  to  make  gigantic  mas- 

siveness  truly  artistic;  illustrated  in  the  Colossus  of  Rhodes 336 

Section  Ninth. — Roman  Sculpture ;  linked  with  the  Grecian,  in  the  early  perfected  Etruscan,  in 
the  collections  captured  in  Greece,  and  in  the  Grecian  taste  characterizing  Roman  Sculp- 
tors   338 


CHAPTER  IV. 

MODERN  sculpture;    PLASTIC  ART  AS  AFFECTED  BY  CHRISTIAN  CIVILIZATION. 

Section  First. — The  transition  period  from  ancient  to  modern  sculpture ;  illustrated  specially  in 
the  change  of  subjects  for  Art  introduced  by  Christianity 343 

Section  Second.— The  chaste,  though  rude  style  of  the  sculpture  prevalent  in  the  early  ages  of 

Christianity.... 345 

Section  Third. — The  artificial  style  and  illegitimate  use  of  sculpture  characterizing  the  Mediae- 
val Ages  of  the  Christian  Church 349 

Section  Fourth. — The  majestic  grandeur  to  which  sculpture  arose  at  the  revival  of  science,  of 

letters,  of  art,  and  of  religion  in  the  fifteenth  century 351 

Section  Fifth. — The  embodiment  of  Christian  sentiment  in  forms  of  classic  grace,  characterizing 
modern  sculpture  in  Southern  Europe 353 

Section  Sixth. — The  union  of  simplicity  in  design,  natural  beauty  of  form,  and  liveliness  of  ex- 
pression distinguishing  modern  sculpture  in  Northern  Europe 367 

Section  Seventh. — The  scope  of  subject  and  vigor  of  conception  seen  in  the  early  growth  of  Eng- 
lish and  American  sculpture 350 


BOOK  IV. 

ARCHITECTURE;     THE    COMBINING    OP    FORMS,    WITH    THE    UNITED    ENDS    OP 
UTILITY  AND  BEAUTY. 

CHAPTER  I. 
ORIGIN  OF  ARCHITECTURE  AS  AN  ART;    AND  THE  PRINCIPLES  CONTROLLINa  ITS  FORMS. 

Section  J?Vrs<.— Circumstances  determining  the  structure  of  private  dwellings 369 

Section  Second. — The  demands  of  man's  social  nature  giving  origin  to  Architecture  as  an  art 371 

Section  Third. — Principles  originating  and  giving  form  to  Columnar  Architecture 377 

Section  Fourth. — Local  causes  and  national  traits  of  aesthetic  culture  and  moral  convictions  giv- 
ing origin  to  leading  Styles  in  architectiure 379 

CHAPTER  II. 

EGTPTUN,  THE  TYPE  OP  ASIATIC  ARCHITECTURE;    IN  WHICH  MA8SITENESS  IS  THE  AIM. 

Section  First.— The  uses  of  Egyptian  structures  called  Temples ;  giving  character  to  their  forms 
of  architecture 381 


CONTENTS.  15 

PAOK 

Section  Second. — General  arrangement  of  the  parts  of  the  Egyptian  temple.- 383 

Section  Third. — The  three  orders  of  columns  and  the  form  of  cornice  peculiar  to  the  Egj'ptian 

Temple 384 

Section  Fourth. — The  structure  of  Egyptian  Tombs,  the  fecades  of  Rock-hewn  Temples,  and  the 

Labyrinth 387 

Section  Fifth. — The  Obelisk  and  Pyramid  as  types  of  the  massive  in  the  architecture  of  Egypt..  388 
SexAion  Sixth. — The  History  of  Egyptian  Architecture ;  the  Permanent  Type,  massive  in  mate- 
rial, and  Permanent  in  its  rude  and  sombre  cast;  its  simple  massive  originals ;  its  Asiatic 

Gorgeousness ;  its  Grecian  refinement ;  and  its  Roman  grandeur 390 

Section  Seventh.— The  architecture  of  India,  Eastern  Asia  and  Western  America ;  the  declining 

phase  of  the  massive  style 393 

Section  Eighth.— The  architecture  of  Arabia,  Palestine,  Syria,  Assyria,  and  Persepolis ;  the  ad- 
vancing phase  of  the  Egyptian  or  massive  style 396 


CHAPTER  III. 

GRECIAN  ARCHITECTCRE ;    CHAKACTERIZED  BT   MATHEMATICAL   EXACTNESS   IN  FORMS  AND  DEUCATE  ORACB 

IN  ADORNMENT. 

Section  First. — The  influence  of  face  of  country  and  climate  in  giving  character  to  the  general 

cast  of  Grecian  architecture 401 

Section  Second. — The  material  used  by  Grecian  architects  as  affording  facility  for  finish  in  their 

work 401 

Section  Third. — Early  developement  of  the  peculiar  ideal  of  Grecian  architecture 402 

Section  Fourth.— The  ideas  originating  the  three  orders  of  Grecian  columnar  architecture 403 

Section  Fifth. — The  three  Grecian  orders  as  comprehensive  types  of  true  proportion  and  adorn- 
ment in  every  age  and  class  of  architecture 406 

Section  Sixth. — The  arrangement  of  columns  with  their  intercolumniations,  on  which  the  desig- 
nations of  styles  in  Grecian  architecture  is  founded 408 

Section  Seventh. — The  several  parts  of  the  Greek  temple  and  their  finish,  conspiring  to  give  its 

characteristic  grace  to  Grecian  architecture 409 

Section  Eighth.— The  Parthenon  as  the  embodiment  of  Grecian  genius  in  architecture 415 

Section  Ninth. — A  historic  notice  of  Grecian  architects  and  of  their  works  till  the  decline  of 

their  art 418 


CHAPTER  IV. 

ROMAN    ARCHITECTURE;     CHARACTERIZED    BT    STATELINESS    IN    DIMENSIONS    AND    PROFUSE    ELEGANCE    IN 

ORNAMENTATION. 

Section  First. — The  introduction  of  curved  lines  in  ground-plot  and  elevation,  giving  breadth  and 
stateliuess  to  Roman  architecture 423 

Section  Second. — Modifications  of  the  Greek  columnar  orders ;  giving  increased  profusion  of  ele- 
gant ornamentation  to  Roman  edifices 425 

Section  Third. — Varied  classes  of  buildings  and  modes  of  structure  required  by  the  circum- 
stances, character  and  habits  of  the  Roman  people 428 

Section  Fourth.— History  of  Roman  Taste  in  Architecture;  the  Curvilinear  Etruscan  under  the 
kings ;  the  rectangular  and  columnar  Grecian  under  the  Republic  and  earlier  Emperors ; 
and  the  adaptation  of  both  these  to  the  new  faith  under  Christian  Emperors 430 

Section  Fifth. — Influence  of  the  Roman  civil  domination  on  the  styles  of  architecture  in  the  Ro- 
man provinces 433 


16  CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  V. 

SACRED  ARCHITECTURE  AS   CONTROLLED  BY   THE   SPIRITUAL  WORSHIP  AND  THE   PRACTICAL  CHARITY  OF  THE 

CHRISTIAN  FAITH. 

PAGE 

Section  First. — The  Romanesque  style  of  church  architecture ;  founded  on  that  of  the  Roman 
BasUica. 438 

Section  Second. — The  Byzantine  style  of  church  architecture;  having  the  Greek  cross  as  its 
ground-plot  and  the  Roman  dome  for  its  elevation 440 

Section  Third.— The  Gothic  style  of  church  architecture ;  characterized  by  steepness  of  roof  with 
bracing  buttresses,  and  by  pointed  windows  and  spires  for  ornament 444 

Section  Fourth. — The  Saracenic,  or  style  of  Muhammedan  sacred  architecture ;  having  the  He- 
brew ground-plot  and  the  Byzantine  elevation 449 

Section  Fifth. — The  revived  Grecian  style  in  sacred  Christian  architecture ;  having  the  Latin 
cross  as  its  ground-plot,  the  Byzantine  dome  as  its  elevation,  and  the  pure  Grecian  orders  in 
its  columnar  decoration- 452 

Section  Sixth. — The  modifications  of  form  and  style  in  church  edifices  suggested  in  the  progress 
of  Christianity 457 


CHAPTER  VI. 

SECULAR    ARCHITECTURE    AS    INFLUENCED   BT    THE    SOCIAL    AND    INTELLECTUAL,    THE    CIVIL    AND    DOMESTIC 
WANTS  INDUCED  BT  CHEISTLAN  CIVILIZATION. 

Section  First. — Castellated  styles;  as  a  Model  for  palatial  residences 460 

Section  Second. — Capitoline  styles;  for  State  houses  and  halls  of  legislation 467 

Section  Third. — Conventual,  including  College,  Hotel,  Hospital  and  Prison  styles;  designed  as 
congregated  homes  for  the  education  of  youth,  the  accommodation  of  travelers,  the  care  of 

the  infirm  and  the  restraint  of  the  vicious 469 

Section  Fourth. — Villa  and  Cottage  styles;  designed  as  private  residences, .suburban  retreats  and 
country  residences 474 


BOOK  V. 

painting;    THE  ADDING  OP  COLOR  TO  FORM. 

CHAPTER  I. 

THE  ANALYSIS  AND  COMPOSITION  OP  COLORS. 

Section  First. — ^The  simple  or  elementary  colors.. 481 

Section  Second. — The  artificial  or  compound  colors 483 

Section  Tfiird — Complementary  and  Contrasted  colors 487 

Section  Fourth. — The  distinction  between  Hues  and  Tints ;  and  the  nature  and  laws  of  tone  and 
of  Harmony  in  colorings 489 


CONTENTS.  17 

CHAPTER  II. 

GENERAL  PEINCTPLES  AS  TO  THE  EMPLOY  OF  COLORS  IN  PAINTING. 

PAGE 

Section  First. — The  colors  of  objects  in  nature  to  be  copied  in  painting 492 

Section  Seamd. — The  relation  of  color  to  form ;  and  the  demands  of  anatomy  and  general  sym- 
metry in  painting ^ 497 

Sectum  I7drd.— The  relation  of  color  to  light  and  shade,  and  the  execution  of  chiaroscuro  in 

painting 499 

Sectum  Fourtfi. — The  relation  of  color  to  perspective  and  aerial  effects  in  painting 501 

Section  Fifth. — The  relation  of  color  to  human  sensibilities,  and  the  address  of  varied  emotions 

by  painting. 503 

Section  Sixth.— The  relation  of  color  to  design,  and  its  special  applications  in  painting. 505 

CHAPTER  III. 

MATERIALS  AND  SPEaAL  METHODS  OF  USING  THEM  IN  COLORING;    AND  CONSEQUENT  CLASSIFICATION  OF 
AGES,  STTLES  AND  SCHOOLS  IN  PAINTING. 

Section  First. — Pigments;  or  materials  used  as  colors 508 

Section  Second. — Vehicles  and  "Varnishes ;  or  materials  used  for  spreading  colors  and  giving  them 

clearness,  brilliance  and  durability 513 

Section  Third. — Grounds;  or  surfaces  on  which  paintings  are  executed 518 

Section  Fourth. — Subjects  of  painting;  the  objects  in  nature  and  themes  in  thought  or  history 

susceptible  of  being  represented  by  the  painter 621 

Section  Fifth. — The  Uses  of  paintings ;  the  ends  sought  by  painters,  and  the  classes  of  works 

designed  for  different  effects 524 

Section  Sixth. — Styles  of  painting;  the  methods  of  coloring  characterizing  different  ages  and 

nations,  and  originating  different  schools  among  painters 528 

CHAPTER  IV.. 

ASUTIC  painting;    RUDIMENTART  COLORING  DEVOID  OF  TRUE  ART  IN  FORM  AND  SHADING. 

Section  First. — The  rudimentary  stages  in  the  early  history  of  painting 533 

Section  Second. — Egyptian  painting;  the  type  of  simple  coloring,  without  perspective,  shading  or 

propriety  of  hues 535 

Section  Third. — The  painting  of  Eastern  Asia;  the  declining  phase  of  rudimentary  coloring 538 

Section  Fourth. — The  painting  of  Western  Asia;  the  advancing  phase  of  rudimentary  coloring..  540 


CHAPTER  V. 

GRECUN  painting;    NATURAL  COLOR  UNITED  TO  IDEAL  FORM. 

Section  First.— The  Formative  period  of  Grecian  painting,  during  the  ages  of  the  Greek  Lyric 

and  Epic- 546 

Section  Second. — The  advancing  development  of  Grecian  painting,  under  Aglaopho  and  Damophi- 

lus  in  the  age  of  the  Greek  drama 547 

Section  Third. — The  recognition  of  painting  as  a  sister  Art,  under  Micon  and  Polygnotus  in  the 

age  of  perfected  sculpture  and  architecture 551 

Section  Fourth. — The  first  received  schools  of  Grecian  painting,  under  Apollodorus  and  Eupom- 

pus,  in  the  age  of  Greek  philosophy 554 

2  «-  C 


18  CONTENTS. 

PAGK 

Section  Fifth. — The  perfecting  of  Grecian  painting,  under  Zeuxis  and  Parrhasius,  in  the  age  of 

Grecian  oratory- 567 

Section  Sixth. — The  culminating  era  of  Grecian  painting,  under  its  greatest  masters  Apelles  and 
Protogenes,  in  the  age  of  the  political  unity  of  Greece  under  Alexander  the  Great 566 

Section  Seventh. — The  declining  period  of  Grecian  painting,  in  the  decline  of  the  Greek  political 
supremacy,  culture  and  power ►. 577 


CHAPTER  VI. 

ROUAN  AND  MEDIEVAL   PAINTINa;    CHARACTERIZED  BT  ARTIFICIAI,  COLOR  AS  AN  ADJUNCT  AND  ORNAMENT 
OP  ARCHITECTURAL  FORMS. 

Section  First. — Collection  of  Greek  paintings  and  employ  of  Greek  painters  at  Rome.'. 684 

Section  Second. — Native  Roman  painters  and  their  productions— 585 

Section  Third. — Roman  taste  in  painting  characterizing  early  Christian  Art. 687 

Section  Fourth. — The  Byzantine  style  of  painting ;  rigid  in  outline  and  excessive  in  coloring; 

permanently  established  in  the  Eastern  Church„ 593 

Section  Fifth.— The  Romanesque,  or  rude  native  style  of  painting;  long  predominant  in  North- 
ern Italy.. 697 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  RISE  OP  MODERN  PAINTING  IN  SOUTHERN  EUROPE,  INCLUDING  ITALY  AND  SPAIN;  PRE-EMINENTLY  RE- 
UGIOUS  IN  ITS  THEMES,  CLASSIC  IN  FORMS,  AND  SPECLALLY  CHARACTERIZED  BY  PERFECTION  OF  LIGHTS 
IN  COLORING. 

Section  First. — The  early  reaction  of  the  love  of  nature  and  of  genius  in  Art  against  formalism 
and  dogmatism  in  Northern  Italy 602 

Section  Second. — The  natural  style  established  under  Giotto  and  the  rise  of  distinct  schools  under 
its  influence 604 

Section  Third. — The  Tuscan  Schools ;  the  dramatic  of  Florence,  and  the  contemplative  of  Siena.  607 

Section  Fourth.— The  School  of  Padua  distinguished  by  classic  forms;  the  directly  associated 
Schools  of  Verona  and  Ferrara,  and  the  indirectly  connected  Schools  of  Milan,  Bologna, 
Modena  and  Parma 613 

Section  Fifth.— The  School  of  Venice ;  devoted  to  the  attainment  of  richness  and  brilliance  of 

coloring. 616 

Section  Sixth. — The  Umbrian  School  of  Central  and  the  Neapolitan  of  Southern  Italy ;  formal 
in  style  and  mystic  in  religious  spirit 618 

Section  Seventh. — The  age  of  the  three  great  masters,  Lionardo  da  Vinci,  Michel  Angelo  and  Ra- 
phael Sanzio 624 

Section  Eighth.— The  Schools  of  Northern  Italy  as  influenced  by  Lionardo,  and  of  Central  and 
Southern  Italy,  by  M.  Angelo  and  Raphael 633 

Section  Ninth. — The  Spanish  Schools ;  formal  and  mystic  in  style ;  historically  associated  with 
the  Schools  of  Southern  and  Central  Italy;  culminating  in  Velasquez  and  Murillo  of  Se- 
ville   641 

Section  Tenth.— The  Eclectic  School  of  Bologna,  imitative  though  select ;  established  by  the  Ca- 
racci,  adorned  by  Domenichino  and  Guido,  and  closing  with  Carlo  Dolce 650 

Section  Eleventh. — The  Reactionary  Natural  School  preceding  the  decline  of  Italian  Art;  origin- 
ating with  Caravaggio,  and  adorned  by  Salvator  Rosa 656 


CONTENTS.  19 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THB  ADVANCE  OP  MODERN  PAINTING  IN  CENTRAL  EUROPE;    INCLUDING  GERMANT,  THE   NETHERLANDS,   HOL- 
LAND, AND  FRANCE;    EMINENTLY   SECULAR  IN   SUBJECTS,  NATURAL   IN   STYLE  AND  CHARACTERIZED  BY 

PERFECTION  OF  SHADES  IN  COLORING. 

PAGE 

Section  First.— The  rudimentary  history  of  painting  in  Germany  to  the  sixteenth  century 661 

Section  Second. — The  establishment  of  the  native  German  School  under  Albert  Durer  and  Hans 
Holbein 663 

Section  Third. — The  revival,  at  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century,  of  the  formal  and  mystic 
style  by  Overbeck ;  and  of  the  ideal  historic  by  Cornelius ;  and  the  restoration  of  the  natu- 
ral style  by  the  Dusseldorf  School 666 

Secticn  Fourth.— The  establishment  of  the  Flemish  School  by  H.  and  J.  Van  Eyck ;  character- 
ized by  lifelike  naturalness  and  labored  coloring 669 

Section  Fifth. — The  culminating  era  of  the  Flemish  School  under  Bubens ;  distinguished  by 
boldness  of  invention  and  richness  of  coloring 672 

Section  Sixth. — The  Dutch  Schools  ;  the  exaggerated  natural  style  originating  with  Rembrandt ; 
the  low-life  or  "genre "  style  with  the  Breughels ;  and  the  pastoral  landscape  favorite  with 
the  best  Dutch  Masters 676 

Section  Seventh. — The  early  history  of  the  native  French  School ;  its  modification  under  Giotto 
and  Lionardo ;  the  classic  style  of  Poussin  and  the  landscape  of  Claude  in  the  seventeenth 
century 678 

Section  Eighth. — The  operatic  style  of  Le  Brun  under  Louis  XIV.;  the  ffete  style  of  Watteau  un- 
der Louis  XV.;  the  temporary  reaction  of  the  natural  style  of  J.  Vernet,  Geuze,  and  others ; 
the  gross  tragic  style  of  David  during  the  revolution ;  and  the  restoration  of  the  natural 
style  under  Delaroche  and  H.  Vernet 682 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THE  LATE  DEVELOPEMENT  OF  MODERN  PAINTING  IN  ENGLAND  AND  AMERICA;  COMPREHENSIVE  IN  SUBJECT 
AND  AIM,  AS  WELL  AS  IN  THE  NATIONALITY  OF  ITS  ARTISTS;  NATIVE  IN  CONCEPTION  BUT  CULTURED 
IN  STYJ^. 

Section  First. — The  early  English  taste  in  painting  as  developed  first  by  Italian  and  later  by 
Flemish  artists 689 

iSfeciion  (Sscond.— The  early  native  English  masters,  beginning  with  Hogarth;  the  first  English 
Schools  originating  with  Sir  J.  Reynolds  in  portrait  and  Gainsborough  in  landscape 691 

Section  Third. — The  English  Schools,  masters  and  critics  in  painting  in  the  nineteenth  century..  695 

Section  Fourth. — The  history  of  American  painting  prior  to  the  War  of  American  Independence ; 
with  its  chief  masters,  West  and  Copley 700 

Section  Fifth.— The  American  painters  of  the  half  century  succeeding  the  era  of  National  Inde- 
pendence   703 

Section  Sixth. — The  characteristics  of  American  nationality  and  Christianity,  as  developing  a 
comprehensive  type  and  elevated  style  of  native  Art  in  Painting 711 


20  CONTENTS. 


BOOK   VI. 


LANDSCAPE  GARDENING;    THE  GROUPING  OF  NATURAL,  OBJECTS  TO  SECURE 
ARTISTIC  EFFECTS  OF  FORM,   COLOR,   RELATION,   AND   MOTION. 

CHAPTER  I. 

THE  EFFECTS  TO  BE  SOUGHT  IN  LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 

PAGE 

Section  First. — The  general  end  of  order  and  symmetry,  coinciding  with  utility,  in  landscape 
gardening 717 

Section  Second. — The  general  aim  of  grandeur  in  extent  and  picturesqueness  in  grouping,  con- 
spiring with  elegance  in  forms  and  richness  in  color. 718 

Section  T/drd. — The  special  effects  of  association;  the  novel  or  venerable,  the  native  or  foreign, 
the  enlivening  or  depressing. 720 

Section  Fourth. — The  special  effects  of  motion  apparent  or  real ;  in  undulation  of  soil,  in  run- 
ning water,  in  waviug  forms  and  susceptibilities  of  trees,  and  in  animate  creatures 723 

Section  Fifth. — ^The  rare  resort  to  fictitious  effects ;  as  the  imitative,  the  deceptive,  the  gro- 
tesque   724 

Section  Sixth. — Studies  in  Science  and  Art  relating  to  landscape  gardening  and  requisite  to  the 
master  in  this  Art 726 


CHAPTER  II. 
THK  MATEEIAM  BY  WHICH  THE  EFFECTS  OP  LANDSCAPE  GAKDENISG  ARE  SECURED. 

Section  First. — The  two  classes  of  objects,  natural  and  artificial,  combined  in  landscape  garden- 
ing.   728 

Section  SecoTid. — The  structure  of  the  surface  of  the  ground  to  be  adorned  as  the  controlling 
natural  feature  in  landscape  gardening. 729 

Section  Third. — The  style  of  buildings  to  be  erected  as  the  leading  artificial  feature  in  landscape 
gardening 731 

Section  Fourth. — The  bounding  limits  of  grounds ;  fences,  sunken  or  raised,  ditched  or  terraced ; 
palings  of  wood  or  of  iron  ;  walls  of  brick  or  of  stone;  and  hedges  of  shrubbery 733 

Section  Fifth. — The  walks  and  drives ;  dependent  as  to  direction  and  curvature  upon  inequali- 
ties and  obstructions  of  grounds,  and  on  the  position  of  principal  buildings 734 

Section  Sixth. — The  conduct  of  water,  dependent  on  slope  of  grounds ;  and  its  employ  in  foun- 
tains, rills  and  pools 735 

Section  Seventh.— The  location  of  tilled  lands  and  useful  plants ;  as  vegetable  gardens,  fruit  or- 
chards, wheat  fields,  grass  and  pasture  lands 737 

Section  Eighth. — The  relative  positions  of  ornamental  plants ;  the  arrangement  of  lawns,  flower 
beds,  borders  of  shrubbery,  and  the  combination  of  all  according  to  laws  of  harmony  in 
dimension,  form  and  color 738 

Section  Ninth. — The  grouping  of  ornamental  trees  as  to  juxtaposition  in  groves,  avenues,  or 
clumps ;  according  to  class,  as  deciduous  or  evergreen ;  according  to  form,  as  conical,  oval, 
or  drooping ;  according  to  color,  as  light  or  dark ;  according  to  mobility,  as  rigid,  waving 
or  tremulous 740 

Section  TeniA.— Artificial  accessories ;  as  sculptured  forms ;  rustic  seats,  arbors  and  grottoes  for 
rest;  and  swings,  vehicles  and  boats  for  motion 742 


CONTENTS.  21 

PAQS 

Section  Eleventh.— Ammal  accessories ;  smaller  and  larger  quadrupeds,  wild  and  domestic ;  birds, 
free  or  caged  ;  fish  and  reptiles 744 

Section  Twelfth.— The  regard  which  must  be  paid  to  climate,  to  alternation  of  seasons  and  to 
bleak  or  sunny  exposures,  in  the  choice  of  plants  and  in  the  style  of  finish  for  buildings 746 


CHAPTER  III. 

ANCIENT  AND  ASIATIC  STTIES  OF  LANDSCAPE  GAEDENING. 

Section  First. — The  primitive  "Garden  of  Eden"  as  the  perfection  of  Nature  and  Art 749 

Section  Second. — Egyptian  and  Assyrian  gardens ;  controlled  in  their  featiures  by  the  sameness  of 
surface  and  richness  of  soil  belonging  to  level  river  bottoms 752 

Section  Third.— ?sjna.n.  and  Persian  gardens ;  illustrated  specially  at  Jerusalem  and  Persepolis ; 
allowing  the  variety  of  features  belonging  to  a  rocky  hill  country 755 

Section  Fourth. — Ancient  Grecian  and  Roman  gardens;  characterized  by  geometric  exactness  of 

outline  and  elegance  of  forms  in  adornment 758 

Section  Fifth. — Gardens  of  the  Middle  Ages ;  Christian  and  Muhammedan ;  Roman  in  arrange- 
ment and  Asiatic  in  adornment 766 

Section  Sixth.— Modem  Chinese  gardens ;  characterized  by  fondness  for  the  diminutive  in  dimen- 
sions and  the  grotesque  in  forms 767 

Section  Seventh. — Modern  Turkish  gardens ;  distinguished  by  luxuriance  in  natural  adornment 
and  voluptuousness  in  artificial  accessories.^ , 769 


CHAPTER  IV. 

MODERN  EUROPEAN  LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 

Section  First. — ^Italian  landscape  gardening ;  villa  and  palace  gardens,  as  influenced  by  climate, 
surface  of  country,  and  by  fondness  for  ancient  forms  and  architectural  accessories 771 

Section  Second. — French  landscape  gardening ;  metropolitan,  suburban  and  chateau  gardens ; 
modified  from  the  Italian  by  a  naturally  wooded  country,  and  by  native  taste  for  lively  forms 
and  colors 775 

Section  Third.— Datch  landscape  gardening ;  controlled  by  lowland  scenery ;  characterized  by 
straight  lines  in  roads  and  canals,  in  field-bounds,  bank  terraces  and  shaded  avenues 779 

Section  Fourth. — English  landscape  gardening ;  characterized  specially  by  lawns,  parks,  and  ani- 
mal collections ;  in  style  the  early  Roman,  modified  by  the  ancient  Dutch,  and  then  super- 
seded by  three  successive  native  schools,  the  bald  of  Kent,  the  picturesque  of  Price  and  the 
gardenesque  of  Repton 781 

Section  Fifth.— ATaeTic&n  landscape  gardening;  afibrding  a  field  for  unlimited  variety,  and  re- 
quiring a  native  thj^ugh  chastened  taste 786 


-'y>*'    Of  TOM     '-^ 


22  CONTENTS. 


BOOK  VII. 

THE    DECORATIVE    ARTS;     ARTIFICIAL    ACCESSORIES    AND    ORNAMENTS   OF 
OBJECTS  IN  NATURE  AND  OF  WORKS  IN  ART. 

CHAPTER  I. 

THE    KXTENDED   FIELD   OF    THE    DECORATIVE    ARTS,   INDICATED   BY    THE    NUMEROUS    HUMAN    WANTS    TO    BE 

SUPPLIED  BY  them;    AND  THEIR   MULTIFORM   STYLES   REQUIRED  BY  THE  VARIED  MATERIAL  EMPLOYED 

AND  TASTE  EXERCISED. 

PAGE 

Section  First.— Them ;  its  material  and  form  as  dependent  on  national  customs  and  individual 
taste;  its  artificial  coloring  and  elaboration  by  needle  work 790 

Section  Second. — Personal  ornaments ;  their  classes  as  rings,  bracelets,  anklets,  breast-pins,  lock- 
ets, watches ;  their  material  as  shell,  wood,  ivory,  gold  and  precious  stones ;  and  their  work- 
manship as  carved,  wrought,  polished  and  engraved 794 

Section  Third. — Implements  of  business  and  household  utensils ;  their  forms  and  material  as  of 

wood,  iron,  clay,  porcelain  and  glass 796 

Section  Fourth. — House  furniture ;  its  uses  for  convenience  and  decoration ;  its  material  as  wood, 
iron,  marble;  and  its  varied  styles  in  different  ages  and  climes 797 

Section  Fifth. — Wall  decorations  and  architectural  ornament ;  tapestried,  paneled,  frescoed  and 
papered  walls ;  carved,  stuccoed  and  painted  borders ;  paneled,  carved  and  cast  doors,  win- 
dow frames  and  balcony  railings 799 

Section  Sixth. — Traveling  equipage ;  its  forms  as  bridles,  saddles,  harness,  and  carriages ;  its 
styles  adapted  to  different  burden  animals  as  the  horse,  the  camel,  the  elephant ;  and  to 
different  regions  as  plains  and  deserts,  hilly  and  mountainous  countries 800 

Section  Seventh. — Book  illustrations;  designed  to  meet  an  intellectual  want;  illuminated  and  or- 
namental letters  to  adorn,  and  engraved  pictures  to  explain  the  text„ 802 

Section  Eighth. — Borders  and  picture  frames ;  designed  to  supply  an  aesthetic  want ;  gilt,  inlaid, 
carved  and  stuccoed  frames  for  easel  pieces ;  stuccoed,  carved  and  painted  pedestals,  and 
niche-borders  for  statuary.. 804 

Section  Ninth. — Insignia  of  personal  rank  and  of  nationality,  to  meet  a  civic  want  as  crowns, 
chaplets,  stars,  rosettes,  batons,  the  emblems  of  personal  rank;  and  standards,  banners, 
flags,  as  symbols  of  nationality 809 

Section  Tenth. — Armor  and  weapons  of  war ;  designed  for  defense,  as  helmets,  shields,  coats  of 
mail,  greaves  and  buskins ;  and  for  offense,  as  swords,  spears,  battle  clubs  and  axes,  bows 
and  fire-arms. 812 

Section  Eleventh. — Religious  vessels  and  symbols ;  instruments  and  utensils  for  sacrifices  and  of- 
ferings, as  altars,  censers,  tripods ;  ornamented  appliances  for  spiritual  worship,  as  choir 
and  pulpit  decorations,  candelabras  and  book  stands,  fonts,  bowls,  chalices,  plates  and 
cups 813 

Section  Twelfth. — Festal  and  stage  decorations;  floral  designs,  as  wreaths,  garlands  and  hang- 
ings ;  architectural  designs,  as  geometric  and  arborescent  arches  and  canopies 813 

Section  Thirteenth. — Funeral  tablets  and  monuments ;  slabs,  columns,  urns,  statues  and  sarco- 
phagi, as  single  works;  and  mausolea,  tombs  and  cemeteries  as  collected  memorials. 814 

CHAPTER  II. 

ASIATIC  DECORATIVE   ART;    RUDIMENTARY   IN    STYLE,   DEFECTIVE    IN   FORM,   EXCESSIVE   IN   ORNAMENT,   BUT 

ELABORATE  IN  FINISH. 

Section  First. — Egyptian  decorative  art;  the  best  known  Asiatic  type 816 


CONTENTS.  23 

PAGE 

Section  Second. — ludiau  decorative  art;  the  originating  source  of  the  Asiatic  style 817 

Section  Third. — Chinese  and  Japanese  decorative  art;   the  degenerating  stage  of  the  Asiatic 

style 818 

Section  Fouiih. — Polynesian  and  American  decorative  art ;  the  lowest  degradation  of  the  Asiatic 

style 819 

Section  Fifth. — Hebrew  decorative  art  the  central  and  hallowed  type  of  the  Asiatic  style 819 

Section  Sixth. — Arabian,  Phenician  and  Assyrian  decorative  art ;  the  first  stage  of  advance  in 

the  Asiatic  style 821 

Section  SevaUh. — Persian  and  Greek  colonial  decorative  art;  the  most  advanced  Asiatic,  and  the 

connecting  link  to  the  Grecian  type 823 

CHAPTER  III. 

EUROPEAN  DECORATIVE   ART;    CONTROLLED  BY  THE  ALTERNATING    PROGRESS  AND  DECLINE  OF  SCIENCE  AND 
ART,   OF  SOCIAL,  INTELLECTUAL,  MORAL  AND  RELIGIOUS  IMPROVEMENT. 

Section  First. — Grecian  decorative  art;  mathematically  exact  in  form,  chaste  in  ornamentation 
and  finished  in  workmanship 824 

Section  Second. — Roman  decorative  art ;  varied  in  detail,  rich  in  ornamentation,  and  elaborate  in 
workmanship 825 

Section  Third.— ^a.Tly  Christian  decorative  art ;  marked  especially  by  symbols  of  religions  ideas 
peculiar  to  the  new  faith 826 

Section  Fourth. — Later  and  Mediaeval  decorative  art;  secular,  sometimes  irreverent  and  undigni- 
fied in  design,  and  excessive  in  ornamentation 829 

Section  Fifth. — Modern  changes  in  materials  used  in  constructive  art ;  modifying  the  form  and 
style  of  ornamental  work 833 

Section  Sixt'i. — Modern  improvements  and  deterioration  in  handicraft :  influencing  the  finish  of 

decorative  detail 834 

Section  Seventh. — Modern  methods  of  locomotion ;  varying  the  form,  color  and  decoration  of  ve- 
hicles for  land  carriage  and  of  vessels  for  marine  transportation 834 

Section  Eighth. — Modern  engines  of  destruction  in  war ;  revolutionizing  the  style  in  decoration 
of  armor  and  of  offensive  weapons .' 835 

Section  Ninth. — Modern  views  of  popular  equality  and  of  official  prerogatives ;  giving  a  new 
character  to  the  insignia  of  rank 836 

Section  Tenth.— Modern  advances  in  the  methods  of  diffusing  knowledge ;  tending  to  unlimited 
multiplication  and  improvement  in  picture  illustration 837 

Section  Eleventh.— Modern  refinements  in  metaphysical,  moral  and  theological  science;  origin- 
ating modified  principles  of  design  and  of  devices  represeutative  of  spiritual  tinith 838 

Section  Twelfth. — The  prevalence  of  spiritual  views  of  the  future  life ;  influencing  the  style  and 
the  accessories  of  funeral  monuments 839 


Art  Criticism. 


BOOK   I 


AS   A   BEING   AFFECTED    BY   ART. 

It  is  through  a  material  body  that  man  as  a  spiritual  being  in  his 
present  stage  of  existence  derives  impressions.  These  impressions  are 
twofold  in  their  nature,  and  accomplish  a  twofold  end  for  us.  In 
eating,  the  impression  of  taste  is  corporeal,  made  directly  on  the 
bodily  organ ;  but  in  viewing  an  object  with  the  eye  the  impres- 
sion is  directly  recognized  in  the  mind ;  these  two  impressions 
being  thus  distinct  in  their  nature.  In  their  design,  again,  there 
is  a  double  end  secured  by  all  impressions  made  upon  the  mind 
through  the  body ;  for  when  sensations  of  corporeal  delight  accom- 
pany the  taking  of  food  whose  nourishment  is  necessary  to  our 
existence,  and  when  pleasant  ideas  in  the  mind  are  associated  with 
the  guiding  office  of  the  eye  in  a  toilsome  journey  through  a  pleasant 
country,  we  are  just  as  certain  that  we  are  made  to  seek  pleasure  as 
to  secure  utility  during  our  life  in  this  world. 

Art  addresses  the  mind  through  some  one  of  the  bodily  organs. 
Its  appeals  are  distinguished  from  mere  corporeal  impressions,  such 
as  those  of  heat  and  cold,  hunger  and  satiety,  in  that  they  aifect  the 
mind  as  well  as  the  body,  and  affect  it  with  pleasurable  emotions. 
These  appeals  again  are  distinguished  from  purely  intellectual  or 
spiritual  impressions,  such  as  the  delight  of  Newton  in  mathematical 
calculations,  and  the  rapture  of  Descartes  in  metaphysical  inquiries 
in  that  they  are  always  accompanied  by  and  are  projduced  through  a 
sensation  on  the  bodily  organs ;  as  of  sight,  or  hearing. 

The  eye  is  the  chief  organ  through  which  art  addresses  men ;  yet 

27 


28  ART   CRITICISM. 

the  other  organs  of  sense,  especially  the  ear,  have  their  own  classes 
of  art  to  appeal  to  them ;  while  it  is  the  combination  and  co-operation 
of  all  these  that  gives  the  highest  delight  possible.  When,  for 
instance,  in  a  ride  through  a  beautiful  country  in  spring,  the  fanning 
of  the  warm  breeze  is  a  soothing  luxury  to  the  touch,  the  exhilara- 
tion of  gentle  motion  gives  a  delightful  play  to  every  muscle,  the 
fragrance  of  the  flowers  refreshes  the  sense  of  smell,  the  flavor  of 
the  first  ripe  fruits  feasts  the  palate,  the  singing  of  the  birds  makes 
melody  for  the  ear,  and  the  ever  varied  forms  and  hues  of  hill  and 
vale,  mountain  and  meadow,  leaf  and  flower,  insect  and  bird,  beasts 
and  passing  human  beings,  unlike  the  slightly  changing  impressions 
on  all  the  other  senses,  give  a  never  ending  variety  in  their  address 
to  the  eye,  we  are  satisfied,  that  while  all  our  senses  were  given  for 
our  pleasure,  the  organ  of  vision  is  the  one  to  which  the  broader 
field  has  been  assigned.  These  suggestions  hint  the  appropriate 
order  to  be  followed,  and  the  proportionate  consideration  to  be  given 
in  treating  of  the  powers  in  us  to  which  Art  makes  its  appeal. 


CHAPTER    I. 


GENERAL  VIEW   OF    THE    CONSTITUTION    OF    MAN   AS    DESIGNED   TO 
BE   ADDRESSED    BY   ART. 

There  is  in  us  a  nature  implanted  by  the  Creator  which  prompts 
an  admiration  of  Art.  By  implanting  it  the  "Father  of  Spirits" 
declared  His  design  that  this  capacity  should  be  cultured.  If 
neglected.  His  purpose  is  frustrated ;  a  source  of  happiness  remaining 
undeveloped,  or  being  perverted  to  our  injury. 

There  is  also  created  within  us  a  fondness  for  the  imitation  of  Art, 
as  its  appeals  address  our  eye  and  ear  in  the  forms  of  beauty  and 
sounds  of  melody  seen  and  heai'd  amid  the  Creator's  works.  This 
faculty,  also.  He  sufiiciently  shows,  by  having  implanted  it,  should 
be  exercised;  otherwise  a  power  most  efficient  for  promoting  the 
happiness  and  virtue  of  others  is  lost. 

Sect.  1.  The  WoRiiD  without  us  as  made   for   the  enjoyment  and 

THE   EMPLOYMENT   OF   ArT   SENSIBILITY. 

When  God  made  man  in  his  own  image,  and  he  was  perfect  in  all 


BEAUTY   AND   ART   IN   EDEN.  29 

his  powers,  we  read  that  He  made  every  tree  first  "pleasant  to 
the  eyes,"  then  "  good  for  food."  The  eye  saw  the  beauty  of  the  fruit 
before  the  palate  tasted  its  sweets ;  the  intellect  was  addressed  more 
than  the  mere  bodily  sense ;  the  delights  of  the  mind  were  made  both 
to  precede  and  to  exceed  those  of  the  flesh.  The  love  of  art,  and  the 
power  it  exerts  to  promote  man's  happiness  and  welfare,  was  the  first 
which  God  made  to  bless  and  govern  us.  In  the  temptation  to  evil 
this  order  of  man's  original  impulses  was  inverted ;  for  we  read  that 
"  when  the  woman  saw  that  the  tree  wais"  first  "  good  for  food,"  and 
second,  "pleasant  to  the  eyes,''  "  she  took  of  the  fruit  thereof  and  did 
eat."  Still,  in  all  Eve's  progeny,  the  first  intellectual  development  is 
the  germ  of  the  love  of  art,  addressing  the  eye  in  forms  of  beauty, 
or  the  ear  in  sounds  of  melody.  The  infant  is  stilled  as  readily  by 
a  pretty  toy,  or  by  the  nurse's  song,  as  it  is  by  the  luxury  of  its 
mother's  milk.  This  is  the  first  element  entering  into  our  love  of 
Art  and  our  impulse  to  make  it  our  study. 

We  read  again  that  man  was  placed  in  Eden  where  every  tree  was 
already  "  pleasant  to  the  eye,"  "  to  dress  and  to  keep  it."  There  were 
additional  forms  of  beauty  and  grandeur  that  man  was  made  to 
conceive  and  execute ;  which,  even  amid  the  Creator's  perfect  works, 
might  be  studied  and  put  into  shape.  Among  the  countless  forms 
which  each  tree  might  have  taken,  their  Maker  had  chosen  one,  from 
which  man  might  by  pruning  make  variations.  Among  the  endless 
arrangements  in  the  grouping  of  those  trees  their  Designer  had 
selected  one  alone ;  while  man  was  invited  to  study  and  execute 
others.  In  all  Adam's  posterity,  the  love  of  doing  and  of  making  is 
a  natural  impulse ;  the  conceiving  and  executing  new  forms  of 
beauty  is  just  as  much  implanted  in  us  by  the  Creator  as  the 
admiration  of  beauty  in  works  already  formed  by  Him.  The  child 
loves  to  draw  and  to  make  letters  before  he  cares  to  learn  their 
names  and  their  connections  in  words.  The  first  impulse  of  even  the 
maturest  mind  on  taking  up  a  work  in  Philosophy,  History,  or  even 
of  Poetry,  is  to  examine  the  artistic  illustrations;  for  the  artist 
speaks  quicker  to  the  eye  than  the  pages  of  the  author  can  speak  to 
the  mind. 

The  range  of  this  power  of  the  human  mind  was  strikingly  illus- 
trated in  its|  first  employ.  Man's  first  lesson  in  art  was  its  highest, 
most  complicated  and  most  impressive  form,  "  Landscape  Garden- 
ing." As  this  is  the  originating  and  shaping  of  individual  forms, 
the  tinging  of  each  with  varied  colors,  and  then  the  grouping  of 
those  forms  and  the  harmonious  intermingling  and  blending  of  those 

3  ^' 


30  ART   CRITICISM. 

colors,  the  whole  range  of  man's  faculties  for  the  creation  of  art, 
was  at  once  and  together  called  into  requisition. 

Sect.  2.  The  Nature  within  us  to  which  Art  appeai^s. 

Philosophers  of  eminence  in  ancient  and  modern  times  have 
divided  the  elementary  principles  entering  into  our  impressions  of 
things  and  beings  within  and  about  us  into  three  distinct  classes ; 
"  The  True,  the  Beautiful,  and  the  Good."  The  love  of  the  true, 
the  beautiful  and  the  good,  with  the  aspiration  to  attain  them,  as  a 
personal  possession,  forms  the  ideal  of  a  complete  man.  To  this 
analysis  Ethical  Philosophy  adds  "  The  Right ;"  the  love  of  which, 
or  "  Holiness,"  is  the  crowning  moral  attribute  of  the  All-perfect 
Creator,  and  the  ultimate  and  climactic  attainment  of  all  spiritual 
beings.  Truth  speaks  to  the  intellect,  beauty  to  the  sensibilities, 
goodness  to  the  interests,  and  righteousness  to  the  conscience  of  man. 

Under  the  idea  of  the  beautiful  is  included  an  extended  class  of 
emotions ;  as  the  admiration  of  the  delicate  and  the  graceful,  of  the 
melodious  and  the  harmonious,  of  the  sublime  and  the  grand. 
These  emotions,  when  produced  by  objects  appealing  either  to  the 
eye,  or  to  the  ear,  or  to  the  conception  of  the  mind,  make  up  what  is 
properly  termed  "the  love  of  art;"  and  the  objects  of  perception  and 
conception,  which  man  has  created  in  order  to  awaken  these  emotions, 
come  under  the  designation  of  "  The  Fine  Arts." 

The  Fine  Arts  as  distinguished  from  the  Useful  Arts  are  those 
that  appeal  to  the  love  of  beauty  in  distinction  from  the  love  of 
utility.  Art  is  properly  human  skill  in  constructing.  When  the 
end  sought  and  the  result  secured  in  the  employ  of  human  skill  is 
an  article  for  man's  use,  without  regard  to  its  beauty,  that  skill  in 
constructing  belongs  to  the  class  of  tiseful  arts.  AVhen  the  end 
sought  and  the  result  secured  by  this  skill  is  an  object  that  awakens 
pleasurable  emotions  without  reference  to  the  idea  of  utility,  that 
work  of  skill  belongs  to  the  Fine  Arts. 

Sect.   3.    The  Bodily  Organs    through   which    Art   addresses    the 

Human  Mind. 

We  are  accustomed  to  speak  of  man  as  having  five  organs  of 
sense;  through  each  of  which  are  received  impressions  leading  to 
distinct  classes  of  conceptions  and  affording  different  kinds  of  plea- 
sures. These  are  smell  and  taste;  touch  to  which  some  add  the 
muscular  sense ;  and  hearing  and  sight.  The  analysis  of  the  elements 
of  nature  as  they  affect  these  several  organs  of  sense  was  early  and 


OT.ASSIFIOATION   OF   ORGAlSrS   OF   SENSE.  31 

ingeniously  made  by  the  most  ancient  Hindoo  philosophers  Kapila 
and  Kanada.  They  recognized  five  elements  in  nature :  earth,  water, 
air,  fire  or  light,  and  ether.  Earth  the  grossest  of  material  principles 
affects  the  lowest  in  order  of  the  senses,  smell,  giving  forth  odor; 
water  affects  taste;  the  air  impresses  the  touch;  light  gives  sight, 
and  the  etherial  fluid  produces  hearing. 

In  this  very  early  analysis  is  to  be  recognized  the  foundation  of 
permanent  truth  since  developed.  The  practical  and  discriminating 
Grecian  philosopher  Aristotle  grouped  the  senses  into  two  classes, 
those  which  receive  impressions  from  objects  by  immediate  bodily 
contact  with  them,  as  taste,  touch,  and  the  muscular  impressions 
associated  with  touch;  and  those  which  receive  knowledge  of  objects 
at  a  distance,  as  sight,  hearing,  and  smell.  It  is  an  instructive  fact 
that  not  only  sound,  but  also  light  and  odor  were  at  so  early  a  day 
believed  to  be  transmitted  by  the  agitation  of  an  etherial  medium 
intervening  between  the  object  and  the  organ;  a  fact  which  must  be 
kept  in  mind  in  order  to  an  understanding  of  Grecian  theories  as  to 
the  principles  of  Art. 

While  Science,  which  addresses  the  intellect,  classifying  facts  and 
searching  for  their  principles,  may  adopt  the  order  of  the  senses  above 
stated.  Art  appealing  to  the  sensibilities  points  to  another  division, 
one  which  regards  effects  rather  than  causes.  Regarding  the  character 
of  the  knowledge  derived  from  them  and  the  manner  in  which  it  is 
gained,  but  more  especially  the  nature  of  the  pleasures  attending  their 
exercise,  the  senses  are  appropriately  ranged  in  three  classes ;  first,  smell 
and  taste;  seconc^,  touch  and  muscular  pressure;  ^/wVc?,  hearing  and  sight. 

To  the  first  of  the  three  classes  just  mentioned,  smell  and  taste, 
belong  the  grosser  and  purely  material  pleasures.  It  is  only  by  a 
direct  meeting  and  mingling  of  the  material  bodies  not  belonging  to 
our  organism  with  the  organs  that  taste  can  address  us;  while  smell 
is  made  chiefly  to  be  a  servant  and  subordinate  to  this  sense  which 
gives  only  corporeal  gratification.  Yet  even  these  lower  senses,  as 
we  shall  see,  in  the  feasts  that  cement  human  friendships  and  in  the 
incense  which  was  of  old  called  an  "  odor  well  pleasing  to  God,"  were 
dignified  as  associates  of  the  higher  impressions  of  Art,  and  ministers 
of  love  to  God  and  man. 

Next  to  these  lower  and  material  pleasures  come  those  of  touch, 
including  the  whole  range  of  muscular  and  nervous  sensation,  com- 
mon to  the  entire  bodily  frame ;  which  as  Hobbes^  has  suggested  may 


«  Called  "Physica"  in  Hobbes'  Leviathan. 


32  ART   CRITICISM. 

be  called  physical.  The  impressions  received  through  these  sensa- 
tions, hereafter  to  be  classified,  embracing  the  luxury  of  the  fanning 
breeze  and  of  the  laving  bath,  the  gambols  of  the  lamb  and  of  the 
child,  and  the  luxury  of  action  and  toil  in  every  stage  and  depart- 
ment of  human  life,  seem  designed  to  minister  to  the  health  and 
comfort  of  man's  physical  nature,  and  hence  indirectly  to  the  mind's 
pleasant  and  successful  employ. 

Yet  above  these,  belonging  to  the  class  of  directly  intellectual  im- 
pressions and  pleasures,  are  those  derived  from  the  eye  and  the  ear. 
Lord  Kames^  in  making  this  distinction,  alludes  to  the  following 
facts.  In  smelling  and  tasting,  and  also  in  touching,  we  are  conscious 
of  contact  with  the  object  producing  the  impression ;  hence  we  natu- 
rally refer  the  pleasures  derived  from  tjiese  sensations  to  the  organs 
themselves ;  and  therefore  we  properly  as  well  as  naturally  regard 
these  pleasures  as  corporeal.  In  pleasures  derived  through  the  eye 
and  ear,  however,  we  do  not  at  all  think  of  the  eye  and  the  ear  as 
the  seat  of  the  sensation  experienced;  we  refer  the  delights  of  sight 
and  hearing  immediately  to  the  mind  itself.  The  materialistic  philo- 
sophy adopted  by  Lord  Kames  influenced  him  however  to  rank  the 
pleasures  of  the  eye  and  the  ear  not  as  purely  intellectual,  since  a 
bodily  organ  is  employed  in  obtaining  the  impressions  of  sight  and 
sound;  and  hence  he  ranked  them  as  intermediate  between  purely 
intellectual  and  corporeal  impressions  and  pleasures.  It  is  not,  how- 
ever, the  special  designation  given,  but  the  relative  rank  assigned  to 
these  affections  that  is  to  be  regarded  in  the  study  of  Art. 

Sect.   4.    The  external  and  internal    media  by  which   different 

IMPRESSIONS   OF    ArT   ARE   TRANSMITTED   FROM   THE   OUTWARD   OBJECT    TO 
THE  MENTAL  ORGANISM. 

The  organs  of  sense  receive  impressions  from  objects  outside  of  the 
human  body,  of  which  those  organs  are  a  part ;  and  those  impressions 
are  conveyed  inward  from  the  organs  of  sense  to  the  mental  nature. 
Here  are  three  points  to  be  connected,  and  two  chasms  between 
these  three  points.  We  are  assured  there  is  a  bridge  of  passage,  a 
medium  of  communication,  both  between  the  object  and  the  organ 
and  betw^een  the  organ  and  the  mind ;  and  philosophy  has  always 
sought  to  lay  hold  on  this  unseen  bond  of  connection  so  as  to  assure 
itself  of  its  nature. 

In  the  inquiry  two  classes  of  theoretical  problems  are  involved, 


Elements  of  Criticism — Introduction. 


MEDIA   BETWEEN   OBJECTS    AND   ORGANS    OF   SENSE.  33 

whose  solution  may  be  beyond  the  reach  of  human  apprehension. 
The  practical  necessity  of  their  brief  consideration  in  the  study  of  the 
principles  of  Art  Criticism  is  two-fold.  In  the  first  place,  among  the 
earlier  representatives  of  our  race  who  attained  the  highest  excellence 
in  art,  principles  of  design  and  of  criticism  are  found  so  interwoven 
into  the  texture  of  their  philosophic  opinions  on  the  points  here 
alluded  to,  that  without  due  attention  to  these  it  is  impossible  to 
gain  clear  conceptions  of  the  ideas  on  which  as  a  foundation  their 
works  are  executed  and  their  treatises  on  Art  written.  Yet  again, 
among  the  philosophic  students  and  masters  in  Art  in  modern  his- 
tory and  in  our  own  times,  there  is  a  higher  region  of  thought 
belonging  to  theirs  as  to  other  professions,  which  the  uninitiated  in 
vain  try  to  penetrate  so  as  to  have  a  clear  vision,  until  by  careful 
and  long  attention  the  new  range  of  ideas  of  the  Art  fraternity  begins 
to  break  upon  their  comprehension. 

The  nature  of  the  media  through  which  objects  without  make 
impressions  on  our  organs  of  sense,  in  every  age  discussed,  has  always 
presented  substantially  the  same  observed  facts  recognized  by  all 
classes  of  thinkers;  while  theories  in  explanation  of  these  facts  have 
shown  common  grounds  of  difference  in  all  ages.  Indian  philoso- 
phers, not  able  to  carry  their  analysis  farther,  recognized  four  mate- 
rial elements  in  nature,  and  one  immaterial  or  etherial ;  and  these 
five  elements  they  regarded  as  the  media  through  which  impressions 
pass  from  outward  objects  to  address  the  five  senses.  The  most  subtle 
of  these,  the  immaterial  or  etherial  element,  is  the  only  one  that 
affects  the  hearing  alone.  The  next  in  subtleness,  light  or  fire, 
addresses  itself  to  sight  while  it  also  produces  sound,  thus  acting  on 
the  hearing;  the  third  in  order  of  tenuity,  air,  is  the  first  to  be  the 
medium  of  touch,  while  it  affects  also  hearing  and  sight;  the  fourth 
taking  on  grossness,  water,  or  matter  in  a  liquid  form,  is  the  medium 
without  which  taste  cannot  be  affected,  while  it  also  is  a  medium  of 
hearing,  touch,  and  sight;  and  lastly,  the  grossest  of  all,  earth,  or 
matter  in  a  solid  form,  is  the  necessary  medium  of  smell,  while  more- 
over it  addresses  all  the  other  senses.  It  was  a  natural  observation 
that  the  grossness  of  these  senses  is  in  the  main  proportionate  to  the 
grossness  of  their  media. 

Among  the  Greeks,  Aristotle,  the  practical  philosopher  of  his 
nation,  applied  logical  analysis  to  this  general  theory.  So  far  as 
their  external  media  are  concerned,  Aristotle  classes  touch  and  taste 
together,  because  their  impressions  are  not  made  on  the  mind  except 
by  direct  contact  of  the  object  with  the  body:  the  flesh  of  man  being 

E 


34  ART   CRITICISM. 

the  medium  of  transmitting  their  aifections  to  the  mind ;  and  the  two 
differing  only  in  this  that  while  the  medium  of  taste  is  local  and 
partial,  situated  only  in  the  tongue  and  restricted  to  one  class  alone 
of  affections,  touch  has  the  whole  body  as  its  common  organ  and 
embraces  many  affections  of  each  part  of  the  body.  The  other  three 
senses  Aristotle  classed  together  as  those  which  have  their  impres- 
sions transmitted  from  objects  at  a  distance  and  not  in  contact  with 
the  person  receiving  the  impressions.  As  to  these  senses  Aristotle 
contended  that  it  was  not  particles  thrown  off  from  the  object  of  sight, 
sound,  or  smell,  but  vibrating  waves  in  the  intervening  media,  that 
produce  these  affections.  That  vibrations  in  air  are  the  medium  of 
sound  he  thinks  manifest  since  it  is  seen  in  the  rush  of  air  from  a 
vibrating  trumpet ;  it  is  illustrated  by  echoes ;  and  it  is  confirmed  by 
the  fact  that  sound  passes  readily  through  substances  having  pores 
like  wood,  along  which  the  vibrations  of  air  may  be  propagated, 
while  water  that  has  no  such  pores  arrests  those  vibrations.  Sight, 
he  urges,  is  communicated  by  similar  vibrations  in  a  medium  which 
must  be  more  subtle  than  air ;  since  rays  of  light  proceed  readily 
through  water  and  glass,  which  substances  obstruct  the  transit  of 
sound.  Smell  too  he  urges  with  equal  conviction  is  not  produced  by 
particles  thrown  off  from  its  objects,  but  by  vibrations  in  a  medium, 
intervening  between  the  object  and  the  organ:  which,  as  he  thinks,  is 
proved,  among  others,  by  these  reasons;  that  the  odorous  object  as 
musk  is  not  diminished  in  bulk  by  a  continuous  filling  of  an  immense 
area  with  its  odor;  while  again  the  impressions  of  smell  are  not  the 
strongest,  when  the  object  is  located  nearest  to  the  organ,  but  when 
at  an  intermediate  distance,  which  seems  to  depend  on  a  law  of 
vibratory  harmonies. 

It  is  interesting  to  observe  that  in  the  main  points  of  difference  as 
to  the  media  of  sensation,  the  two  classes  of  theorists  in  India  corres- 
ponded strikingly  with  kindred  classes  in  Greece.  Both  classes 
agreeing  that  the  communication  of  impressions  from  material 
objects  to  the  senses  was  through  vibrations  in  intervening  media, 
the  main  point  of  dispute  was  this;  'at  which  end  of  the  line  do  these 
agitations  of  the  media  originate?  at  the  object  perceived,  or  at  the 
organ  of  sense  perceiving?'  Kapila,  the  able  Indian  philosopher, 
who  made  human  knowledge  to  originate  in  sensation,  taught  that  it 
is  from  the  object  that  the  agitation  of  the  medium  begins.  On  the 
other  hand,  Gotama,  the  Indian  advocate  of  the  opinion  that  the 
mind  itself  is  the  origin  of  true  knowledge,  contended  that  the  organ 
itself,  by  its  spontaneous  action,  produces  agitations  in  the  medium 


MEDIA   BETWEEN   THE   MIND   AND   ORGANS   OF   SENSE.       35 

which  reach  the  object:  the  eye  darting  forth  a  ray  which  goes  to 
and  takes  hold  of  the  object;  as  he  said  was  seen  in  the  eyes  of  the 
cat  when  in  the  dark.  Aristotle,  among  the  Greeks,  with  the  keenest 
metaphysical  acumen,  argues  against  Plato,  that  every  impression  on 
the  senses  made  by  an  object  is  an  influence  coming  from  "the  sen- 
sible object"  and  falling  upon  "the  organ  of  sense;"  and  that  "sen- 
sation is  produced  by  the  vibrations  of  the  medium  which  is  between 
the  organ  of  sense  and  the  sensible  object."  Later  writers  following 
Aristotle,  as  Galen  the  great  physician,  developed  these  principles 
even  more  at  length  than  Aristotle,  adding  accumulating  proofs  of 
the  correctness  of  his  theory. 

The  second  and  yet  more  fathomless  gulf,  that  which  separates 
between  the  material  organ  of  sense  and  the  immaterial  spirit,  the 
ancients  given  to  metaphysical  study,  sought  yet  more  carefully  to 
explore,  that  they  might  trace  the  passage  by  which  impressions  pass 
over  it;  and  in  the  web  of  their  theories  on  this  point  their  theories 
of  Art  are  so  interwoven  that  the  one  cannot  be  successfully  studied 
without  considering  the  other.  The  acute  Indian  philosopher,  Avho 
amid  the  dreamy  rationalism  of  his  ancient  day  showed  a  power  of 
metaphysical  analysis  which  has  begun  to  be  appreciated  in  our  day 
when  that  same  rationalism  is  again  rife,  presented  this  connection 
of  principles ;  which  seems  almost  to  have  attained  to  the  ripe  results 
of  physiological  study  in  modern  times.  Between  consciousness  and 
the  organs  of  sense  there  are  five  etherial  agents ;  which  five  agents 
are  allied  to  spirit  from  the  fact  that  they  are  immaterial,  and  are 
thus  prepared  to  serve  as  media,  through  w^hose  agency  the  soul  acts 
on  the  body.  Next  to  these  etherial  agents  are  eleven  organs  of 
sensation  and  of  action ;  including  first,  the  five  organs  of  sense  with 
their  nervous  connections  to  their  centre  the  seat  of  consciousness; 
second,  five  corresponding  inward  organs  by  which  the  mind  acts 
outward  on  the  parts  of  the  body;  and  third,  one  internal  organ, 
called  "manas,"  apparently  seated  in  the  brain,  towards  which  all 
these  other  organs  concentrate;  which  latter  is  at  the  same  time  the 
seat  of  sensation  and  the  origin  of  action  in  man.  Ai'istotle  as  a 
comprehensive  philosophical  writer  only  repeated  the  theory  of  this 
Indian  philosopher;  but  Hippocrates,  who  lived  before  Aristotle, 
and  Galen  who  flourished  in  the  times  of  the  Koman  emperors,  and 
expounded  the  writings  of  Hippocrates,  developed  fully  the  doctrines 
of  his  own  and  of  other  ages.  The  Greek  physiologists  taught  that 
there  is  a  four-fold  nature  in  man ;  first,  the  spirit  proper,  having  the 
power  of  reason,  indestructible  in  its  very  nature,  and  possessed  by 


36  ART  CRITICISM. 

no  creature  of  earth  except  man ;  second,  the  animal  soul,  including 
the  passions  and  instinct  which  guides  animals ;  third,  the  physical 
nature,  an  immaterial  subtle  fluid,  which,  intermediate  between 
matter  and  mind,  is  the  agent  by  which  they  reciprocally  act  on  each 
other ;  and  finally  the  body  which  alone  is  matter  proper.  The  seat 
of  the  spirit  proper  they  regarded  as  the  brain ;  arguing  this  from  the 
fact  that  all  the  special  organs  of  sense  are  seated  in  the  head  and 
connect  directly  with  the  brain,  while  the  organ  of  the  general  sense 
touch  is  distributed  over  the  entire  frame.  The  seat  of  the  animal 
nature,  the  passions  especially,  these  philosophers,  who  were  the 
teachers  of  the  ancient  artists,  regarded  as  seated  in  the  trunk  of 
man;  the  upper  portion  or  chest  being  the  centre  of  the  higher  sen- 
sibilities, the  heart  acting  as  their  organ  and  beating  with  impulses 
proportionate  to  the  excitement  of  passion ;  while  the  abdomen  and 
lower  part  of  the  trunk  was  the  seat  of  the  sensual  appetites.  The 
result  of  these  theories  on  Art  show  themselves  in  the  intellectual 
brow  and  features  of  Apollo,  in  the  heaving  chest  of  the  gladiator 
and  of  Prometheus,  and  in  the  bloated  abdomen  and  bulging  thighs 
of  Bacchus. 

The  most  important  part  of  these  ancient  theories  as  to  the  internal 
media  of  impressions  made  on  the  mind  by  outward  objects,  in  its 
bearings  on  Art,  is  the  belief  in  the  existence  of  a  subtle  fluid  which 
was  the  medium  of  intercourse  and  reciprocal  action  between  the 
material  and  spiritual  part  of  man.  Suggested  by  Kapila  in  India, 
developed  by  Hippocrates  and  Aristotle  in  Greece,  kept  alive  in  the 
Greek  and  Latin  languages  and  literature  by  distinctive  technical 
terms,  revived  in  the  theory  of  the  "animal  spirits"  by  the  French 
Descartes,  and  presented  at  the  present  day  by  modern  physiologists 
under  the  designation  "the  nervous  principle,"  it  has  become  the 
basis  of  a  practical  philosophy  maintaining  for  ages  its  influence  on 
human  opinion  and  conduct.  Sublimated  in  the  pantheism  of  the 
Indian  Gotama,  idealized  and  made  the  basis  of  a  refined  deistic 
spiritualism  by  Plato  and  subsequent  philosophers  of  his  school,  it 
has  been  the  philosophy  of  the  Fine  Arts  in  the  ages  of  their  highest 
culture  and  the  source  of  that  mystical  language  belonging  to  the  eso- 
teric theories  of  artists  as  a  class  which  has  shut  them  out  more  than  the 
professors  of  any  of  the  Technic  Arts  from  the  channels  of  common 
human  sympathy.  It  is  this  that  is  set  forth  in  the  popular  ideas  of 
"the  inspiration  of  genius;"  "the  divine  that  dwells  within  and 
moves  upon  the  spirit  of  the  artist;"  that  possesses  him  with  enthu- 
siasm in  the  hours  of  his  most  successful  invention  and  execution ; 


NATUEE   OF   i:5fSPIRAT10N   IN   ARTISTS.  37 

and  which,  yet  more,  glows  with  such  a  fervor  in  the  extatic  mo- 
ments of  his  completed  conceptions  and  of  the  finished  touches  given 
by  his  chisel  and  brush  that,  not  only  the  artist  himself,  but  even 
dispassionate  beholders  may  well  think  him  sw^ayed  by  a  power  more 
than  human.  The  practical  man  and  philosopher  will  still  contend 
with  Aristotle  and  Galen  that  there  are  fixed  rules  of  Art,  which  the 
sciences  of  Mathematics,  Anatomy,  Optics,  Physiology,  Psychology, 
and  Rhetoric,  may  develope  for  the  guidance  of  the  artist ;  that  the 
power  that  arouses,  animates  and  guides  the  artist  in  his  highest 
efforts  is  a  nervous  energy  concentrated,  a  judgment,  taste  and  imagi- 
nation cultured,  refined,  and  ennobled,  and  now  for  the  moment 
quickened  and  stimulated  by  its  own  fervor  of  action;  while,  too, 
some  of  the  very  ablest  of  their  own  fraternity,  as  Apelles  the 
Athenian,  and  Lionardo  the  Florentine,  will  establish  this  by  the 
development  of  the  rules  which  have  guided  them  in  their  master- 
pieces of  design  and  execution.  Others,  however,  artists  as  well  as 
poets,  will  carry  to  its  extreme  the  statement  that  "the  poet"  and 
artist  are  "born"  to  inspiration,  though  "the  orator  is  made;"  and 
they  will  contend  that  their  successes  are  achieved  under  an  impulse 
which  they  themselves  can  neither  arouse,  guide,  or  control ;  that  if 
there  be  laws  of  truth  in  form  and  coloring,  of  design  and  execution 
in  Art,  they  are  learned  by  intuition  if  found  out,  and  they  are  hit 
upon  by  men  of  genius  without  even  knowing  what  they  are.  The 
discussion  of  the  truth  of  either  of  these  theories,  the  eflTort  to  estab- 
lish the  one  or  the  other,  is  beyond  the  province  of  the  Art  critic ; 
as,  perhaps,  it  is  beyond  the  region  of  legitimate  metaphysical 
inquiry.  Since,  how^ever,  a  large  class  of  the  ablest  artists  have 
learned  their  philosophy  in  the  school  of  Plato,  and  are  ideal  and 
transcendental  in  thought  and  expression  when  communicating  with 
men  of  other  professions,  it  is  important  in  the  study  of  Art  to  know 
the  source  whence  they  draw  their  theories  and  the  origin  of  their 
technical  expressions. 

Sect.  5.    The  methods  by  which  Artists  make  their  addresses  to 

HUMAN    sensibilities. 

A  glance  at  the  earth  as  created  with  the  design  to  produce  in  us 
pleasant  impressions  has  show^n  that  we  are  made  to  be  affected  by 
Art.  A  refereiice  to  the  capacities  and  susceptibilities  of  the  human 
mind  has  hinted  the  nature  of  Art  which  thus  affects  us.  A  survey 
of  the  bodily  organs  through  which  Art  addresses  the  mind  has  sug- 
gested to  us  the  extent  of  the  study  on  which  we  have  entered. 


38  ART   CRITICISM. 

A  brief  review  now  of  the  methods  by  which  artists  have  gained 
power  over  man  as  an  individual  and  as  a  race  may  guide  us  to  a 
natural  order  in  tracing  the  influence  of  art  over  human  nature, 
and  may  stimulate  our  zest  for  the  study  by  a  conviction  of  its 
value. 

The  power  of  art  to  sway  men  may  be  traced  in  every  age  and 
clime.  It  is  seen  in  its  exuberant  and  even  irreverent  rivalry  of  the 
Great  Creator's  own  vast  works  in  the  perished  tower  of  Babel  which 
was  to  reach  Heaven  with  its  top,  and  the  scarcely  less  aspiring 
monuments  of  ancient  Egyptian  grandeur,  whose  artists  cut  statues 
out  of  mountains,  and  reared  new  mountains  in  their  place,  as  is 
beheld  in  the  Sphynx  and  the  Pyramids  at  Memphis,  and  in  the 
temples,  statues  and  obelisks  at  Thebes.  It  is  observed  in  its  hum- 
bler form  in  the  nicely-carved  articles  of  ebony  and  ivory  brought 
now  from  the  centre  of  Africa,  in  the  coral  and  shell  ornaments  of 
the  simple  Islanders  of  Polynesia,  and  in  the  hideously  adorned  pipes 
and  tomahawks  of  the  rude  natives  of  our  own  land.  It  is,  however, 
in  the  special  home  of  Art,  in  Ancient  Greece  and  Modern  Italy, 
that  its  power  for  good  or  evil  is  most  seen. 

The  Greeks  spoke  of  the  origin  of  art  and  of  its  power  among  their 
ancestors  under  the  legend  of  Orpheus,  who  charmed  the  forest  trees 
and  wild  beasts  with  the  music  of  his  lyre.  The  idea  cloaked  under 
this  imagery  is  the  power  of  mental  culture,  beginning  with  the 
attractive  instruction  that  comes  through  the  fine  arts,  to  influence 
men  from  childhood  to  old  age.  In  that  early  era  all  arts  were 
united  in  one ;  there  was  no  classification  of  them.  Afterwards  phi- 
losophers began  to  analyze  the  principles  entering  into  the  arts ;  and 
the  Muses,  the  spirits  supposed  to  preside  over  Art  were  separated, 
first  into  three,  and  afterwards  into  nine.  The  original  and  natural 
divisions  were  ife^efe,  thought ;  Mneme,  memory;  Sind  Acede,  expres- 
sion. At  a  later  day  when  Art  became  more  elaborate,  and  when 
the  sensibilities  to  which  it  appeals  became  more  linked  with  the 
grosser  and  animal  impulses  the  subdivisions  of  the  third,  Acede, 
reached  no  less  than  nine.  Their  names  and  representations  were  as 
follows:  Clio,  History,  pictured  with  an  open  scroll  in  her  hand; 
Melpomene,  Tragedy,  veiled,  leaning  on  a  pillar,  and  holding  in  her 
left  hand  a  tragic  mask;  Thalia,  Comedy,  holding  in  one  hand  a 
comic  mask,  in  the  other  an  augur's  wand ;  Euterpe,  Music,  holding 
two  flutes;  Terpsichore^  the  Dance,  in  a  dancing  attitude  playing 
upon  a  seven-stringed  lyre ;  Erato,  Amatory  Poetry,  holding  a  nine- 
stringed  lyre;    Galliopey  Epic  Poetry,  a  roll  of  parchment  in  one 


ANCIENT   ART   EDUCATION.  39 

hand  and  a  straight  trumpet  sometimes  in  the  other ;  Urania,  Astro- 
nomy, a  globe  in  her  left  hand  and  a  pointing  rod  in  her  right; 
Polyhymnia,  Histrionic  Art  or  Eloquence,  with  the  forefinger  of  her 
right  hand  on  her  lips  or  a  scroll  in  her  hand. 

It  was  the  same  Greeks,  who,  after  the  age  of  fable  when  history- 
became  authentic,  gave  the  name  poietes,  or  Creator,  to  the  master  in 
poetic  composition ;  and  the  name  glyphos  or  carver  to  the  sculptor 
of  material  forms  of  beauty  and  nobleness.  At  a  very  early  day  the 
before  fabled  Muses  were  inaugurated  as  chief-teachers  in  the  schools 
of  Greece.  Pythagoras  about  B.  C.  500,  having  learned  in  Egypt's 
advanced  schools  the  methods  of  instruction,  introduced  onusie  into 
his  school;  that  term  including  the  whole  range  of  philosophic  and 
artistic  studies.  So  far  did  he  carry  his  idea  that  the  Muses,  or  the 
spirits  of  Art,  preside  everywhere  in  nature,  that  he  associated  the 
higher  mathematics  as  applied  in  Astronomy  with  the  fine  arts. 
Thus  as  a  figure  of  the  harmony  of  the  Universe,  he  taught  the 
"music  of  the  spheres;"  that  the  heavenly  bodies  in  their  steady 
sweep  through  space  produce  as  on  an  ^olian  harp,  a  beautiful  and 
sublime  harmony.  Nearly  one  hundred  years  before  Plato,  Eumol- 
phus,  of  Sicyon  northwest  of  Corinth,  introduced  into  the  common 
schools  of  Greece  instruction  not  only  in  the  principles  of  Art,  but 
also  in  its  execution;  so  that  all  the  boys  thus  trained  could  not  only 
appreciate  and  justly  criticize  the  works  of  their  artists,  but  could 
even  execute  themselves  works  of  plastic  art.  Athens  was  not  long 
in  copying  such  a  suggestion.  Plato  speaks  of  education  as  it  was 
given  in  his  time  in  words  which  show  the  extent  to  which  Art  Edu- 
cation, absorbing  all  intellectual  training  was  carried;  "Education, 
first  for  the  body  gymnastic,  then  for  the  soul  musical"  Pericles, 
and  cultured  men  generally,  as  Plutarch  and  other  writers  plainly 
teach  by  their  allusions,  were  trained  to  the  highest  degree  of  skill 
in  art.  The  influence  of  this  training  in  chastening  the  sensibilities 
and  moulding  the  character  was  most  powerful  and  most  happy. 
The  religion  of  the  Greek  was  love  of  art;  their  deities  were  embodi- 
ments of  Art  ideas ;  and  the  common  property  of  the  state,  the  res 
publica,  consisted  of  collections  of  art  in  temples  and  statues,  to 
w^hose  increasing  fund  the  Athenian  people  willingly  devoted  half 
their  time  and  labor,  while  their  own  private  houses  were  of  the 
plainest  style.  Art  education  raised  the  Greek  people  to  the  highest 
rank  in  intellectual  advancement,  and  in  moral  refinement.  Most 
of  all,  it  begat  in  them  that  exalted  religious  yearning  which  made 
them  the  first  people  to  appreciate  and  embrace  "the  truth  as  it  is 


40  ART   CRITICISM. 

in  Jesus,"  as  well  as  "the  beauty  of  holiness"  exemplified  in  Him 
and  secured  by  His  religion. 

The  early  "Romans,  followed  the  Greeks  as  cultivators  of  the  arts, 
and  that  because  of  their  moral  influence.  Sterner  however  than 
the  Greeks,  in  their  maxims  and  habits  of  external  morality,  as  the 
demands  of  their  national  life  as  a  nation  were  rougher  and  more 
practical,  they  rejected  some  branches  of  Grecian  art.  The  Greeks 
had  held  the  nine  Muses,  so  very  different  in  their  character  and 
office,  in  equal  esteem ;  as  is  indicated  by  Herodotus  in  his  use  of 
their  names  for  the  heading  of  the  nine  successive  books  of  his  histo- 
ries. The  Romans,  however,  in  their  better  days  made  a  wide  dis- 
tinction between  them.  "Melpomene"  and  "Thalia,"  the  drama 
both  tragic  and  comic,  they  rejected  as  cultivating  a  fictitious  and 
unpractical  virtue;  and  "Terpsichore,"  the  dance,  they  utterly  ex- 
pelled as  an  open  enemy  to  healthful  physical  development,  and  as  a 
secret  foe  to  moral  purity.  When,  however,  the  Republic  with  its 
sages  and  moralists  was  gone,  and  the  first  days  of  the  Empire  with 
its  bright  lights  of  literature  had  set  in  twilight,  Roman  artists  became 
even  more  licentious  than  Roman  historians  and  poets.  And  then, 
according  to  the  wise  and  kind  law  of  Him  who  guards  the  world 
from  moral  even  more  carefully  than  from  physical  corruption  the 
putrefying  carcase  from  which  the  life  of  true  art  had  departed  was 
buried  beneath  the  ashes  of  Vesuvius  in  Southern  Italy  or  Magna 
Grecia,  and  by  the  ravages  of  the  stern  Goths  in  Northern  Italy  or 
old  Etruria ;  until  a  people  breathing  the  purer  air  of  Christianity 
should  arise  to  exhume  the  bones,  cleansed  by  the  baptism  of  earth, 
and  to  make  them  true  models  upon  which  modern  artists  might 
revive  the  ancient  Grecian  perfection  in  art. 

Since  the  days  of  the  Romans  the  love  of  art  has  lingered  in  the 
south  of  Europe,  especially  in  Italy.  At  times  the  spirit  of  error 
and  of  evil  has  triumphed  over  man's  better  impulses  so  much  as  to 
pervert  even  art  itself  As  the  comic  and  even  the  tragic  muse 
became  odious  at  Athens  and  were  banished  from  Rome,  and  as 
Terpsichore,  the  leader  of  the  dance  w^as  discarded  as  a  harlot  among 
the  stern  Romans,  so  the  quicker  moral  sense  of  Christian  artists  has 
been  a  safe  censor  of  public  morals.  Such  is  the  inherent  and 
natural  power  of  Art  to  purify  man's  desires,  that  its  permanent 
perversion  is  impossible.  As  their  name  indicates,  the  Fine  Arts 
are  and  must  be  agencies  for  human  refinement.  In  Italy,  they 
still  exert  a  moulding  influence  which  one  thoroughly  acquainted 
with  the  Italian  character,  learns  to  appreciate.     The  French  as  a 


CLASSIFICATION   OF   FINE   ARTS.  41 

people  have  received  a  new  intellectual  and  moral  impulse  amid  the 
galleries  of  art  gathered  by  Napoleon  and  thrown  open  once  a  week 
to  the  public.  In  England,  too,  a  growing  influence  from  art  in 
refining  the  mass  of  the  people  educated  and  uneducated  may  be 
traced ;  while  the  American  republic,  specially  requiring  this  power 
as  a  social  bond  and  as  a  moral  refiner,  though  in  its  youth  as  a 
nation,  is  just  awaking  to  the  importance  of  Art  study,  and  just 
beginning  to  realize  its  influence  for  good. 

Sect.  6.   The  Classification  of  the  Fine  Arts  in  accordance  with 

THEIR   modes   of   APPEAL. 

As  we  have  seen,  according  to  our  Creator's  wise  and  kind  ap- 
pointment, Art  makes  its  appeal  to  the  human  mind  for  good 
through  all  the  avenues  of  sensation;  but  chiefly  through  the  two 
organs  of  sense  highest  in  their  nature  and  mission,  the  ear  and 
the  eye. 

Cousin,  the  eminent  French  metaphysician,  remarks  in  his  Lec- 
tures on  "the  True,  the  Beautiful  and  the  Good,"  that  "all  classifi- 
cation pre-supposes  a  principle"  on  which  classes  are  arranged; 
"which  principle  serves  as  a  common  measure."  In  the  fine  arts,  he 
says,  "  this  common  measure  is  nothing  else  than  expression ;"  a  word 
which  he  compares  with  the  Greek  "  logos"  "  Expression,"  he  adds, 
"being  the  supreme  end,  the  art  which  most  approaches  this  is  the 
first  of  all  arts."  He  makes  sculpture  and  music  the  extremes;  the 
former  the  least,  the  latter  the  most  expressive  of  the  arts  proper. 
Painting  he  ranks  as  intermediate,  being  the  art  "nearly  as  precise 
as  sculpture,  and  nearly  as  touching  as  music."  Poetry  he  regards 
the  highest  of  all,  though  not  strictly  a  fine  art  proper. 

The  Fine  Arts  which  address  human  emotions  through  the  ear 
are  in  their  elementary  forms  Music,  Eloquence,  and  Poetry.  Music 
proper  addresses  the  ear  with  pleasant  sounds  disconnected  from  sen- 
timent; eloquence,  in  sounds  that  may  be  indifferent  or  agreeable, 
addresses  the  reason  by  sentiment  alone ;  poetry  appeals  to  our  emo- 
tional nature  by  the  combined  influence  of  the  sentiment  it  embodies, 
and  of  the  grace  of  its  diction  and  the  melody  of  its  rythm.  Each 
of  these  has  its  own  divisions  and  subdivisions,  as  well  as  its  combina- 
tions with  one  or  more  of  its  own  or  of  different  classes.  Music  is 
melody  when  one  voice  alone  is  heard,  or  one  part  alone  is  per- 
formed ;  and  it  is  harmony  when  different  but  concordant  parts  unite. 
Instrumental  music  is  simple  music ;  and  vocal  music  is  music  and 
poetry  combined.  So  eloquence  and  poetry  have  their  classifications 
4*  F 


42  ART  CRITICISM. 

and  combinations.  The  histrionic  art  is  eloquence  combined  with 
the  charm  of  that  "Action"  of  which  Demosthenes  spoke;  or  of  this 
art  joined  with  scenery  addressing  the  eye.  The  opera,  again,  is 
music  added  to  the  histrionic  art. 

As  to  order  of  development  music  seems  to  have  become  an  art, 
and  as  such  to  have  reached  comparative  perfection  much  earlier 
than  the  Arts  which  address  the  eye.  Jubal,  who  was  "the  father 
of  all  such  as  handle  the  harp  and  organ  "  is  mentioned  before  Tubal- 
Cain  the  "instructor  of  every  artificer  in  brass  and  iron;"  as  also 
Orpheus  the  leader  in  Grecian  musical  art  preceded  Dsedalus  the 
father  of  Grecian  sculpture.  Still  more,  in  rank,  the  arts  addressed 
to  the  ear  are  superior.  Poetry,  associated  with  music  is  made  the 
chief  of  the  Fine  Arts  by  Plato  in  ancient,  and  by  Cousin  in  modern 
times.  Plato  presents  this  in  his  picture  of  the  last  hours  of  Socrates, 
who  speaks  of  the  dreams  he  had  had  from  his  youth,  in  which  a 
voice  said  to  him  "  Socrates  cultivate  the  Muses ;"  a  mandate  which 
in  his  youth  he  sought  to  obey  as  a  sculptor,  in  his  mature  manhood 
as  a  philosopher,  and  in  the  last  hours  of  life  as  a  poet;  writing  in 
his  prison  before  he  drank  the  hemlock,  first  a  hymn  to  Apollo,  and 
then  as  the  highest  of  all  possible  attempts  a  poem  of  fiction.  Cousin 
says,  "  The  art  par  excellence,  that  which  surpasses  all  others  since 
it  is  incomparably  the  most  expressive,  is  poetry." 

The  Fine  Arts  addressing  emotions  through  the  eye  are  more 
numerous.  Draiving  is  the  first  and  simplest,  and  has  its  classes  of 
outline,  and  shaded,  plane  and  perspective,  mechanical,  architectural 
and  topographical ;  to  which  are  to  be  added  engraving  in  its  varied 
branches  and  photographing.  Sculpture  presents  single  figures  or 
composite  designs  as  decorations  of  architectural  structures ;  and  its 
finished  works  are  reliefs  or  complete  statuary.  Fainting  has  its 
subdivisions;  according  to  the  material  employed^in  coloring,  as 
pastelle  or  colored  crayon,  water  and  oil  colors ;  according  to  the 
subject  chosen  as  animal,  portrait  and  landscape  painting;  and  yet 
again  according  to  the  design  of  the  painting  or  the  object  for  which 
it  is  to  be  employed,  as  miniature  and  life  size,  scenic  and  finished. 
Architecture  is  the  moulding  and  grouping  of  forms  of  plastic  art  in 
union  with  mechanical  structures  belonging  to  the  useful  arts. 
Landscape  Gardening  is  the  union  of  the  architect's  with  the  paint- 
er's arts ;  the  constructing  of  varied  forms  of  nature  into  one  vast 
w^hole,  and  the  shading  and  harmonizing  of  the  tints  distributed  in 
nature  as  the  painter  arranges  and  blends  them  on  his  canvass.  The 
Decorative  A7't'i  embrace  fragmentary  details  of  all  the  Fine  Arts, 


RELATION   OF   LOWER   TO   HIGHER   SENSES.  43 

adding  a  wide  range  of  inferior  works  not  belonging  properly  to 
either  the  Fine  or  Useful  Arts.  The  Study  of  Art  opens  thus  a  wide 
field  for  investigation. 


CHAPTER    II. 


THE    LOWER    SENSES    INDIRECTLY    CONTRIBUTING    TO    THE    IMPRES- 
SIONS  MADE    BY  ART. 

The  general  division  of  the  senses  into  five,  and  the  recognition 
of  the  distinct  sources  of  knowledge  and  of  pleasure  furnished  by 
each  of  these  senses  may  be  observed  in  the  opinions  of  men  at  every 
stage  of  philosophic  advancement,  among  all  nations  and  in  all  ages. 
There  has,  moreover,  been  a  virtual  division  of  one  of  these  five, 
touch,  into  two  orders  of  impressions,  indicating  a  recognition  of  six 
distinct  sources  of  knowledge  residing  in  the  different  parts  of  which 
the  body  is  made  up. 

Sect.  1.  The  General  Kelation  of  the  Lower  Senses  to  the  Appeals 

OF  Art. 

We  have  remarked  that  Kapila  the  great  light  of  philosophy  in 
India  recognized  the  five  senses  of  mankind  and  five  elementary 
substances  in  nature,  through  which  as  means  the  senses  gain  know- 
ledge of  the  external  world.  As  the  Indian  philosophers,  metaphy- 
sical in  intellectual  cast,  made  this  theoretical  distinction  in  philo- 
sophy, so  the  Egyptian  "wise  men,"  truly  physical  in  their  mental 
tendencies,  embodied  the  same  in  art.  While  the  Egyptian  artists 
sought  to  address  the  eye  by  the  massiveness  of  their  Architecture 
and  Sculpture  and  by  the  gorgeousness  of  their  Painting,  they  made 
the  impression  of  all  these  to  be  heightened  by  adding  an  appeal  to 
the  lower  senses.  The  walls  of  their  tombs,  made  to  be  the  home 
of  departed  spirits  still  united  to  sentient  bodies,  covered  with  scenes 
of  all  forms  of  sensual  delight,  true  to  nature  and  admirable  in  art, 
not  only  show  how  in  their  life  on  earth  the  ancient  Egyptians 
sought  pleasure  through  every  avenue  formed  by  the  Creator  for  its 
entrance  to  the  soul ;  but  they  are  also  living  witnesses  of  the  fact 
that  the  true  artist  must  be  master  of  the  whole  range  of  human 
sensibilities,  both  the  lower  and  the  higher,  and  must  make  his  work 
appeal  to  each  of  the  human  senses. 

There  is,  as  we  might  expect  to  find,  a  general  relation  existing 
between  the  different  senses  so  far  as  the  laws  of  pleasure  derived 


44  ART  Criticism. 

from  them  are  concerned.  This  relation  was  the  subject  of  frequent 
discussion  among  the  ancients.  Thus  Cicero,  seeking  to  illustrate 
the  charm  of  a  voice  well  modulated  in  the  orator/  says,  "How  much 
more  lively  in  beauty  and  variety  of  colors  are  many  parts  in  new 
than  in  old  pictures!  which  nevertheless,  although  they  arrest  us  at 
first  sight,  do  not  delight  us  for  any  length  of  time,  while  we  are 
permanently  attracted  by  the  very  uncouthness  and  old-fashioned 
look  which  belongs  to  ancient  paintings.  How  much  softer  and 
more  delicate  in  song,  the  minor  key  and  falsetto  tones,  than  the 
sharp  and  shrill  notes  against  which  not  only  critics  but  the  multi- 
tude itself  exclaim  if  they  are  oft  repeated.  The  same  may  be  seen 
in  the  other  senses ;  that  we  are  not  so  long  pleased  with  ointments 
prepared  with  the  strongest  and  most  pungent  odor  as  with  those  of 
a  medium  character,  and  that  what  seems  to  smell  of  wax  is  more 
praised  than  that  which  smells  of  saffron ;  that  in  touch  itself  there 
is  a  limit  both  as  regards  lightness  and  softness.  Yes,  even  the  taste, 
which  is  the  sense  most  voluptuary,  and  the  one  which  is  moved 
more  than  the  other  senses  are  by  sweetness,  how  quickly  it  spurns 
and  spits  out  that  which  is  excessively  sweet!"  Thus  too  Young,  the 
somewhat  stern  interpreter  of  Christian  morals,  finds  a  designed  office 
for  each  of  the  senses  in  their  combined  delights. 

"In  senses,  which  inherit  earth  and  heaven, 
Enjoy  the  various  riches  nature  yields. 
Give  taste  to  fruits,  and  harmony  to  groves. 
Their  radiant  beams  to  gold  and  gold's  bright  fire. 
Our  senses,  as  our  reason  are  divine  I" 

The  laws  controlling  the  pleasures  of  the  lower  and  higher  senses  are 
thus  parallel  because  they  are  a  family  together;  and  the  power  of 
the  Fine  Arts  over  human  sensibilities  can  never  be  appreciated 
unless  regard  be  paid  to  the  important  relation  which  the  gratifica- 
tion of  the  lower  senses  may  be  made  to  furnish  as  an  auxiliary  to 
the  delights  of  the  higher  senses. 

In  considering  each  of  the  senses  in  its  relation  to  art,  the  general 
distinction  between  the  useful  and  the  fine  arts  must  be  kept  in 
mind;  that  the  former  are  designed  to  secure  utility,  the  latter  to 
promote  pleasure.  The  popular  voice  determines  that  Cookery  and 
the  preparation  of  Odoriferous  Compounds  shall  be  styled  arts.  If 
we  inquire  to  which  of  the  two  classes  mentioned  these  so-called  arts 
belong,  we  seem  compelled  to  refer  them  to  the  circle  of  the  Fine 


Cicero  de  Oratore,  III.  25. 


OFFICES   OF   SENSE   OF   SMELL.  45 

Arts,  since  the  aim  of  the  professional  caterer  is  not  so  much  to  pro- 
mote utility  as  to  minister  to  pleasure  alone.  Yet  the  conviction  is 
an  instinctive  one  that  the  pleasures  of  taste  and  smell  are  of  a  low 
order;  that  when  combined  with  the  higher  pleasures  they  are  sub- 
sidiary ;  and  that  w^ien  their  sole  gratification  is  sought,  it  is  a  mark 
of  the  degradation  not  of  the  elevation  of  the  mind.  It  is  only  when 
these  pleasures  are  associated  with  those  higher  in  rank  that  they 
become  dignified;  and  then  they  may  even  aspire  to  be  courtly 
refinements. 

Sect.   2.  The  Impressions  of  the  Sense  of  Smell  in  its   relation 

TO  Art. 

The  sense  of  smell  seems  to  be  restricted  to  the  higher  orders  of  the 
animate  creation ;  while  as  a  power  for  cultivated  delight  it  belongs 
only  to  man.  It  seems  evident  that  smell  is  not  enjoyed,  unless  with 
few  exceptions,  in  the  three  lower  grand  divisions^  of  the  animal 
creation ;  while  it  is  very  imperfect,  if  it  exists  at  all,  in  three  out  of 
four  of  the  subordinate  classes'^  of  that  higher  division.  The  gift  of 
this  sense  is  therefore  a  specially  restricted  one,  at  least  so  far  as  its 
serving  as  a  source  of  pleasure  is  concerned;  and  this  consideration 
alone  is  sufiicient  to  take  this  sense  out  of  the  class  of  mere  corporeal 
agents  made  for  simple  utility,  and  to  elevate  it  to  the  rank  of  those, 
which,  as  attributes  of  intelligent  beings  only,  are  made  to  be  minis- 
ters to  art  and  to  its  culture. 

The  office  of  this,  as  of  the  other  senses  in  man,  is  two-fold ;  its  first 
end  being  that  of  utility.  As  such  it  is  made  to  be  a  guide  in  the 
avoiding  of  that  which  is  injurious  to  the  system ;  either  when  taken 
into  the  stomach  in  eating,  or  into  the  lungs  in  breathing.  It  would 
be  natural  therefore  for  us  to  pre-suppose  that  animals  of  lower 
organism  would  have  no  need  of  this  sense,  and  therefore  that  they 
would  not  be  gifted  with  it.  In  some  of  the  higher  animals,  as  the 
dog,  it  is  a  greatly  developed  organ  and  of  essential  service ;  in  other 
animals,  as  the  swine,  its  existence  is  only  occasionally  apparent. 
It  may  be  doubtful,  but  of  course  it  cannot  be  certainly  determined, 
whether  in  any  organized  being  it  has  the  secondary  office,  which  in 
the  human  organism  it  certainly  performs,  that  of  ministering  to 
intelligent  pleasure. 


*  The  Kadiates,  Molluscs,  and  Articulates  seem  to  lack  smell ;  the  Verte- 
brates alone  having  this  sense. 

"  Fishes,  Birds,  and  Reptiles,  seem  to  have  no  proper  sense  of  smell. 


46  ART   CRITICISM. 

So  far  as  this  sense  is  the  source  of  simple  pain  as  when  affected 
by  nauseous  effluvia,  its  office  is  manifestly  that  of  utility.  In  the 
peculiar  delight  given  }^  the  odors  of  flowers,  when  the  honeysuckle 
and  the  orange-blossom  load  the  air  with  fragrance,  we  must  regard 
this  sense  as  mainly,  if  not  wholly,  designed  to  minister  to  pleasure. 
When  an  odor  is  of  that  middle  character,  illustrated  in  the  pungent 
spirits  of  ammonia,  the  half  nauseous  musk,  and  the  cultivated  fond- 
ness for  an  atmosphere  impregnated  with  tobacco  smoke,  the  office 
of  this  sense  may  be  doubtful  or  double;  while,  moreover,  it  may 
have  a  relation  of  importance  to  those  classes  of  works  of  art  which 
appeal  to  the  emotion  of  horror,  pity,  or  disgust. 

As  the  Author  of  all  our  pleasures  has  made  the  gratification  of 
this  sense  seldom  to  serve  its  purpose  alone,  but  whether  for  utility 
or  pleasure  to  act  but  as  a  subordinate  aid  to  its  superior,  so  when 
art  has  attempted  to  copy  the  Creator's  work  and  to  extend  the 
application  of  His  design,  human  skill  has  found  it  wise  to  follow 
the  Divine  method.  As  the  plants  but  gather  the  elements  of  plea- 
sant odors,  and  distil  and  concentrate  them,  so  the  manufacturer  of 
unguents  and  odorous  compounds  collects,  refines,  sublimes  and  fixes 
the  scattered  fragrance  of  organized  plants  and  flowers,  and  of  unor- 
ganized material  elements.  And  this  the  professional  perfumer  does 
in  order  that  the  dweller  in  any  one  clime  may  have  the  odors  of  the 
Indies,  just  as  he  may  have  the  flavor  of  fruits  from  the  Ocean  Isles, 
and  as  he  may  listen  to  the  melody  of  the  music  and  poetry,  and 
may  gaze  on  the  beauty  of  sculpture  and  painting  brought  from 
foreign  lands  and  handed  down  from  remote  past  ages. 

The  classes  of  sensibilities  which  pleasant  odors  have  been  made 
to  address,  are  those  common  to  the  appeals  of  the  higher  arts. 
Their  offices  are  mainly  three;  to  minister  to  social  luxury  and 
refinement ;  to  arouse  religious  incitement  and  devotion ;  and  to  serve 
as  tributes  of  affection  and  as, counter  reliefs  amid  the  struggle  of 
attachment  which  clings  to  and  the  disgust  which  puts  away  the 
corrupting  form  once  loved.  When  Esther,  the  Jewish  maiden,  was 
"purified,  six  months  with  the  oil  of  myrrh,  and  six  months  with 
sweet  odors,"  ^  that  she  might  be  acceptable  as  a  companion  to  the 
pampered  Persian  monarch,  and  when  Mary  poured  over  the  head 
of  Jesus  the  "box  of  precious  ointment  of  spikenard,"  and  even 
"anointed  his  feet"  with  it,  till  "the  house  was  filled  with  the  odor 
of  the  ointment,"  ^  these  were  the  natural  expression  of  the  conviction 


Esther  ii.  12.  «  Mark  xiv.  3;  John  xii.  3. 


DIGNITY   OF   PLEASURES   OF   SMELL.  47 

common  to  all  men  that  the  fondness  for  agreeable  odors  has  been 
implanted  in  us  to  be  gratified  as  an  instrument  of  social  refinement ; 
and  that  not  simply  amid  the  luxury  attending  upon  artificial 
society,  but  as  the  prompting  of  every  sensitive  spirit  when  moved  by 
generous  impulses.  When,  in  the  Old  Testament  at  the  first  recorded 
offering  by  fire  we  are  told  that  in  the  smoke  of  Noah's  sacrifice 
"the  Lord  smelled  a  sweet  savor,"  when  we  read  that  God  directed 
Moses  to  tell  the  people  of  Israel  to  bring  for  the  service  of  his  sanc- 
tuary "spices  for  anointing  oil  and  for  sweet  incense,"  and  when 
again  in  the  New  Testament  the  great  apostle  to  the  nations  can  find 
no  more  expressive  designation  of  the  comforts  for  the  body  sent 
from  pious  friends,  than  this,  "an  odor  of  a  sweet  smell,  a  sacrifice 
acceptable,  well  pleasing  to  God,"^  we  are  assured  that  it  is  not 
simply  a  Jewish  notion,  nor  the  fancy  of  a  refined  philosophy,  but  a 
power  for  good  implanted  in  human  nature  which  has  suggested  that 
the  agreeable  impression  produced  by  pleasant  odors  may  aid  in 
bringing  man's  spirit  into  a  fit  temper  for  devotional  service.  Yet 
again  when  as  a  model  of  filial  devotion  a  Hebrew  son  of  princely 
resources  resorted  to  an  Egyptian  art,  to  which  his  family  were 
strangers,  in  order  to  express  his  pious  regard  to  a  deceased  father, 
as  we  read  in  the  record,  "  Joseph  commanded  his  servants,  the  phy- 
sicians, to  embalm  his  father,"  and  when,  again,  to  honor  the  burial 
of  him  who  in  all  things  was  a  pattern  for  universal  man,  not  only 
women  moved  by  the  impulse  of  feeling,  but  senators  in  their  wis- 
dom, "brought  a  mixture  of  myrrh  and  aloes,"  and  "wound  the 
spices  in  the  linen  cloths  about  the  body  of  Jesus"  on  the  night  of 
his  death,  and,  yet  more,  "prepared  ointments  and  spices"  "^  additional, 
and  brought  them  on  the  morning  of  the  third  day  to  his  tomb,  this 
again  is  a  confirmation  of  the  fact  that  we  are  made  as  rational 
beings  to  be  addressed  for  the  highest  spiritual  ends  through  the 
lowest  of  the  bodily  senses  with  which  our  Maker  has  endowed  us. 

A  place  must  then  be  given  by  the  student  of  art  to  the  considera- 
tion of  this  lowest  sense  in  man.  Its  appeal  is  distinct  though  asso- 
ciated ;  for  the  rose  is  admired  and  always  has  been  more  than  the 
peony,  the  dahlia,  the  camelia,  which  have  equal  beauty  but  no  fra- 
grance. Even  the  "  lily  of  the  valley "  mentioned  by  Hebrew  poets, 
loses  to  our  imagination  half  its  loveliness,  when  the  rules  of  strict 
Biblical  interpretation  compel  us  to  renounce  the  idea  of  the  fragrant 


'  Genesis  viii.  21;  Exodus  xxv.  6;  Phil.  iv.  18. 
»  John  xix.  39,  40;  Luke  xxiii.  56. 


48  ART  CRITICISM. 

delight  of  our  childhood,  and  oblige  us  to  think  of  it  as  a  gem  of  the 
sod  equally  fair  indeed  but  without  spicy  odor.  Still  the  claim  of 
agreeable  odors  is  recognized  as  subordinate  in  this  association ;  for 
the  modest  pink,  mignonette  and  heliotrope,  with  mild  but  exquisite 
spiciness  of  odor  are  outshone  by  the  glaring  stateliness  of  the  althea, 
the  trumpet  creeper,  or  the  multiflora;  even  more  than  the  peacock 
outshines  the  nightingale. 

As  a  study  in  art  the  power  of  this  humbler  sense  has  called  forth 
genius  to  a  remarkable  degree.  Among  the  Asiatics  of  every  age 
and  tongue,  its  influence  for  good  has  been  perhaps  most  recognized ; 
and  therefore  among  Egyptians  and  Hebrews,  Persians  and  Arabians, 
Indians  and  Chinese,  the  "  art  of  the  apothecary"  has  been  celebrated 
by  such  men  as  Moses  and  Solomon^  as  a  worthy  one ;  while  among 
Greeks  and  Romans  and  nations  of  modern  Europe  just  in  proportion 
to  the  general  advancement  and  culture  of  a  people  has  always  been 
the  dignity  given  to  this  same  art.  The  wondrous  extent  to  which 
art  has  carried  the  perfection  and  cost  of  fragrant  confections  is  seen 
in  the  vases  of  alabaster  found  in  the  Egyptian  tombs,  still  retaining 
after  twenty-five  centuries  the  precious  odors  imprisoned  within  them ; 
and  in  the  extracts  made  now  in  Arabia  from  our  common  garden 
flower  called  "Attar  of  Roses,"  so  concentrated  as  to  weigh  even 
against  pearls  in  its  extreme  value. 

The  question  may  still  be  an  open  one,  whether  this  appeal  in  any 
of  the  three  respects  mentioned  is  best  made  by  the  artificially 
extracted  and  concentrated  essences  of  the  odors  distributed  in 
nature,  or  by  the  natural,  simple,  easy  and  graduated  means  which 
the  Author  of  nature  has  employed  in  strewing  flowers  so  profusely 
and  universally  over  the  world  we  inhabit.  There  are  principles  of 
manifest  truth,  however,  which  the  more  we  consider  them  seem  the 
more  decisive  in  their  reply  to  this  inquiry.  One  of  these  is  the  sug- 
gestion of  Cicero  that  moderate  and  unconcentrated  odors  such  as 
those  of  flowers,  are  most  pleasing.  Another  is  the  principle  that  an 
appeal  to  the  sense  of  smell  when  alone  addressed,  as  it  is  in  concen- 
trated odors,  seems  low  and  unworthy;  while  when  it  is  but  subd- 
diary,  as  it  is  in  the  flower  that  impresses  more  by  its  beauty  than  by 
its  fragrance,  the  enjoyment  of  this  lower  sense  becomes  an  elevated 
pleasure.  A  yet  more  important  principle  of  decision  is  the  univer- 
sally recognized  fact  that  God  has  made  his  own  works  to  lead  us  to 
thoughts  of  Himself,  while  man's  lead  us  to  think  rather  of  men ; 


Exodus  XXX.  25,  35  and  xxxvii.  29 ;  Eccl.  x.  1. 


OFFICES  OF  SENSE  OF  TASTE.  49 

the  natural  flower,  with  its  fragrance  and  beauty,  speaking  directly 
of  its  Author  to  man's  soul,  while  the  artificial  flower  has  only  an  indi- 
rect and  faintly  echoing  voice  calling  us  to  the  Great  Maker  of  all 
being.  So  far  as  the  sense  of  smell  is  concerned,  art  must  rather 
employ  than  copy  nature  to  produce  its  impression.  The  poet  has 
struck  the  chord  that  vibrates  in  universal  human  nature  in  the  call, 
"Bring  flowers;"  "flowers"  for  the  joyous,  and  "flowers"  for  the  sad; 
"flowers  for  the  bridal  wreath,"  and  "flowers  for  the  early  dead." 
To  perfume  as  well  as  to  adorn,  the  flowers  themselves,  the  Creator's 
own  carved  and  scented  vases,  have  been  and  ever  will  be  chosen  for 
the  festal  board  and  convivial  hall,  for  the  cofiin  and  the  bier,  for 
the  altar  of  prayer  and  the  temple  of  praise.  At  the  ancient  Egyp- 
tian feast  servants  stood  with  flowers  and  held  them,  when  desired, 
to  the  nostrils  of  the  guests ;  in  Turkish  cities  the  corpse  of  the  dead 
is  borne  through  the  streets  uncoffined  but  loaded  with  flowers ;  the 
simplest  shrine  of  the  Madonna  at  an  Italian  cross-road  is  festooned 
with  flowers ;  and  modern  advancement  and  Western  refinement  has 
found  no  method  of  improving  the  simple  custom  suggested  alike  by 
refined  philosophy  and  by  rustic  intuition.  The  artist  that  has  most 
success  in  taking  captive  by  his  works  "the  whole  man,"  will  be 
found  to  be  the  one  who  has  not  "  despised  these  little  ones,"  the 
flowers,  in  his  estimate  of  the  power  of  art ;  but  who  has  carefully 
studied  both  when  and  where  to  introduce  them  into  the  productions 
of  his  pencil,  and  what  kinds  will  speak  best  to  the  two  combined 
senses  of  smell  and  of  sight. 

Sect.  3.  The  Impressions  of  the  sense  of  Taste  in  its  relation  to 

Art. 

The  sense  of  taste  in  man,  as  that  of  smell,  performs  a  double  mis- 
sion ;  the  first  ofiice  being  that  of  utility.  Ordinarily  fruits  of  which 
we  might  be  tempted  by  hunger  to  partake,  but  which  would  be  inju- 
rious if  taken  into  the  stomach,  are  made  to  have  an  offensive  flavor 
which  makes  them  distasteful.  Generally  the  most  nourishing  and 
healthful  food  is  not  specially  agreeable  but  simply  not  disagreeable ; 
possessing  no  special  flavor,  and  offering  no  temptation  to  the  palate 
when  the  need  of  food  is  once  supplied.  It  is  perhaps  hardly  proper, 
strictly  speaking,  to  attribute  to  ordinary  food  the  power  of  address- 
ing the  sense  of  taste ;  for  it  is  the  craving  of  hunger,  a  mere  organic 
muscular  discomfort,  that  prompts  us  to  take  food  or  drink  when 
needed.  This  craving  is  opposed  to,  rather  than  identical  with,  the 
pleasure  of  the  palate;  since  we  reject  unsubstantial  delicacies,  how- 
6  G 


60  ART   CRITICISM. 

ever  tempting  at  other  times,  and  choose  the  simplest  beverage 
water  and  the  plainest  aliment  bread  till  hunger  and  thirst  are  sated. 
The  pleasures  of  taste  proper  seem  to  begin,  rather  than  to  end,  when 
hunger  is  sated. 

It  is  doubtful  whether  taste  in  its  stricter  signification  is  applicable 
to  any  creature  but  man.  The  lower  orders  of  creation,  even  up  to 
the  bird,  seem  as  destitute  of  taste,  even  in  the  first  sense  referred  to, 
as  they  are  of  smell.  And  when  the  very  highest  class  of  quadrupeds 
are  regarded,  the  indications  of  the  possession  of  taste  as  a  designed 
minister  to  pleasure  seem  to  be  wanting.  As  their  necessities  are 
only  corporeal,  and  not  spiritual,  we  can  see  no  end  to  be  accom- 
plished by  the  gift  of  a  source  of  gratification  designed  for  an  intel- 
lectual and  a  moral  being.  As  their  indulgence  of  the  palate  ceases 
when  food  sufficient  is  partaken,  the  sense  of  taste  in  them  seems  to 
be  rather  that  lower  one  immediately  associated  with  the  relief  of  an 
organic  craving,  the  merely  indifferent  flavor  of  our  ordinary  food. 
Certainly  the  Creator  has  given  them  no  capacity  to  culture  the 
higher  gift  like  man ;  they  do  not  gather  and  store  the  green  and 
sweet  fruits  of  summer  for  winter  gratification ;  they  do  not  go  over 
the  sea  to  seek  new  luxuries ;  nor  have  they  any  scientific  cooks,  or 
convivial  banquets  with  viands  studiously  compounded  for  an 
increased  appeal  to  the  sense  of  taste.  We  seem  compelled,  there- 
fore, as  a  just  deduction,  to  place  taste,  using  the  word  in  its  higher 
and  truer  signification,  as  we  did  smell,  among  the  attributes  of  man 
as  man,  designed  by  the  Creator  to  minister  to  a  higher  than  cor- 
poreal delight;  and  we  must  regard  it  as  indirectly  at  least  an  art 
sensibility. 

For  manifest  reasons  this  sense  has  been  more  cultivated  as  a 
source  of  pleasure,  and  its  gratification  more  studied  as  an  art  than 
the  sense  of  smell.  As  smell  in  its  lower  office  of  utility  is  but 
secondary  to  taste,  designed  to  be  an  aid  in  guiding  the  palate  to 
appropriate  food,  so  smell  as  a  source  of  pleasure  is  made  subordinate 
to  taste.  A  feast  is  not  made  mainly  to  delight  the  nostril  with 
odors;  and  if,  either  from  mistaken  judgment  or  from  a  less  com- 
mendable reason,  the  lack  of  that  which  satisfies  the  palate  be  covered 
up  with  a  profusion  of  floral  decoration  there  is  a  demand  in  human 
nature  which  can  hardly  be  reconciled  to  the  great  void. 

The  ends  sought  by  an  appeal  to  this  sense  are  the  same  as  those 
suggested  by  art  in  its  higher  walks.  These  are  the  same  three 
already  alluded  to ;  individual  gratification,  social  culture,  and  reli- 
gious refinement.     That  is  in  any  age  or  land  a  happy  home  where 


DIGNITY   OF   PLEASURES   OF   TASTE.  51 

the  skill  and  industry  of  a  ready  Sarah^  spread  every  day  a  taste- 
fully prepared  though  frugal  meal ;  as  that  household  is  always  a 
cheerful  one  among  whom  a  fondness  for  flowers  or  music  reigns. 
From  the  days  of  Job,^  in  the  Occident  as  well  as  in  the  Orient, 
birth-day  feasts  are  scenes  of  pleasure  filling  up  the  whole  year  with 
bright  anticipations  and  pleasant  recollections.  Yet  more  the  simple 
custom  among  shepherd  princes  of  softening  and  subduing  prejudices 
and  animosities,  and  of  awakening  and  fostering  ties  of  brotherhood 
and  neighborhood  by  the  sacred  social  bond  of  a  feast  has  found  no 
preferred  substitute  since  the  days  of  Isaac  ;^  but  to  this  day  at 
European  as  at  Asiatic  courts,  from  the  greatest  and  oldest  of  aristo- 
cratic capitals,  that  of  China,  quite  round  the  world  to  the  metropo- 
litan city  of  the  youngest  and  most  democratic  of  States,  nothing  has 
been  found  to  take  the  place  of  the  banquet  as  a  power  to  heal  old 
grudges  and  bring  to  a  point  pending  negotiations  either  of  personal 
or  of  national  importance.  While,  moreover,  these  two  lower  ends 
have  always  been  subserved  by  this  sense.  He  who  knew  the  nature 
which  He  has  formed,  not  only  enjoined  on  His  ancient  people  the 
attendance  of  every  man  at  the  three  annual  feasts,*  because  of  the 
religious  influence  they  would  exert,  but  He  also  established  as  a 
permanent  power  for  religious  remembrance  the  Lord's  Supper  to  be 
observed  as  long  as  man  is  an  inhabitant  of  earth.  So  important 
indeed  did  the  three-fold  end  of  the  gratification  of  the  palate  appear 
to  the  Divine  Author  of  the  perfect  moral  system  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment that  the  Great  Teacher  himself  set  the  example  of  attending 
not  only  on  the  established  public  feasts  at  their,  regular  seasons,  but 
also  of  partaking  private  banquets,  whether  spread  by  one  of  his 
disciples  or  by  personal  friends,  whether  invited  by  a  Pharisee  or  a 
publican  f  while  too  the  chief  expounder  of  his  system  taught  Chris- 
tians that  they  should  still  attend  upon  the  secular  and  religious 
festivals  of  their  Grecian  and  Roman  neighbors  and  fellow-country- 
men.® 

The  dignity  to  which  this  sense  may  be  made  to  rise  is  seen  in  the 
fact  that  its  culture  has  been  most  advanced  by  men  most  devoted 
to  philosophy,  to  literature,  to. oratory,  and  to  the  pursuits  nearest 
allied  to  true  art.  Socrates  and  Plato,  though  so  different  in  tem- 
perament, were  drawn  out  in  highest  discourse  at  the  banquet  table; 


»  Gen.  xviii.  6.  "  Job  i.  4. 

*  Gen.  xxvi.  30;  xliii.  16,  34.  ■•  Exod.  xxxiv.  22,  23. 

«  Luke  ii.  42;  v.  29;  vii.  36;  xiv.  2,  12.     «  1  Cor.  viii.  8;  x.  27;  1  Tim.  iv.  3. 


52  ART   CRITICISM. 

Aristotle,  whose  genius  embraced  the  whole  range  of  science  and 
philosophy  in  his  day,  cultivated  his  taste  to  the  nicest  delicacy  in 
judging  of  the  flavor  of  a  fish.  Around  the  honored  board  of  Maecenas 
as  gathered  in  the  Augustan  age  not  only  poets  and  artists,  but  also 
sages  and  orators  of  the  greatest  name ;  and  even  Cicero  was  never 
happier  when  retired  for  his  philosophical  studies  than  amid  the 
dinner  table  disputations  which  have  made  the  name  "  Tusculanum  " 
forever  famous.  Not  only  such  men  as  Garrick,  Curran,  and  Sheri- 
dan, but  also  the  scholarlike  Johnson  and  Burke,  gathered  their 
inspiration  amid  the  tempered  convivialities  of  the  club-room  supper. 
No  one  can  doubt  that  there  has  been  often  an  excess  in  the  resort 
to  the  pleasures  of  the  palate ;  and  that  this  excess  has  tended  to 
render  its  voluptuousness  a  means  of  degrading  instead  of  refining 
man's  nature.  Such  an  instance  is  found  in  the  extravagance  of 
Cleopatra's  feasts  given  to  Antony  at  Alexandria,  in  Egypt,  when 
the  queen  dissolved  precious  pearls  in  vinegar,  and  drank  the  liquid 
to  add  to  the  reputed  costliness  of  the  banquet.  An  instance  some- 
what kindred  is  found  in  the  dedicatory  ovation  at  the  opening  in 
1518  of  the  celebrated  Farnesian  palace  of  Kome,  erected  by  a  rich 
banker,  to  be  a  museum  as  well  as  itself  a  Monument  of  Art ;  when, 
as  part  of  the  banquet  at  which  Pope  Leo  and  other  dignitaries  were 
present,  three  fish  were  served  up  whose  cost  was  two  hundred  and 
fifty  crowns,  while  the  golden  dish  that  held  them,  after  they  had 
been  served,  was  thrown  into  the  Tiber.  The  abuse  of  the  banquet 
however,  is  like  the  adulteration  of  coin ;  it  is  a  concession  to  the 
real  value  of  that  which  it  counterfeits. 

The  close  association  of  this  sense  with  the  intellectual  has  in  part 
perhaps  led  to  its  employ  as  the  expressive  designation  of  that  power, 
by  which  the  mind  forms  a  judgment  of  beauty  in  art.  Ever  since 
the  earliest  known  Oriental  penman  conceived  and  thrice  recorded 
the  expressiv-e  comparison,  "The  ear  trieth  words  as  the  mouth 
tasteth  meat,"*  the  word  "taste,"  borrowed  from  the  corporeal  sense 
allied  so  strongly  to  art,  has  been  the  almost  universally  chosen 
figure  of  speech  by  which  to  designate  that  power  of  the  mind  which 
judges  of  the  beautiful.  The  artist  should  study  the  manifestation 
of  this  corporeal  sense  that  he  may  in  his  works  appeal  to  it  in  itself; 
and  more  especially  that  he  may  appreciate  its  high  relationship  to 
that  purely  intellectual  nature  in  man  which  he  must  strive  to 
address  in  his  works. 


Job  vi.  30;  xii.  11;  xxxiv.  3. 


DIVISION   OF   IMPRESSIONS   OF   TOUCH.  53 


Sect.  4.  The  Impressions  of  the  sense  of  Touch  and  its  relation 

TO  Art. 

Dr.  Reid,  whom  so  recently  the  acute  Sir  William  Hamilton  has 
tacitly  admitted  to  be  the  great  master  in  the  Scotch  School  of  Meta- 
physics by  devoting  so  large  a  measure  of  time  and  genius  to  his 
works  as  an  Editor  and  Annotator,  begins  his  chapter  upon  "  Touch  " 
with  this  paragraph  ;  "The  senses  which  we  have  hitherto  considered, 
are  very  simple  and  uniform ;  each  of  them  exhibiting  only  one  kind 
of  sensation,  and  thereby  indicating  only  one  quality  of  bodies.  By 
the  ear  we  perceive  sound,  and  nothing  else ;  by  the  palate,  tastes ; 
and  by  the  nose,  odors.  These  qualities  are  all  likewise  of.  one  order, 
being  all  secondary  qualities ;  whereas,  by  touch  we  perceive  not  one 
quality  only,  but  many,  and  those  of  very  different  kinds.  The  chief 
of  them  are  heat  and  cold,  hardness  and  softness,  roughness  and 
smoothness,  figure,  solidity,  motion,  and  extension."^ 

This  complex  character  of  what  was  necessarily  comprehended 
under  this  general  sense  indicated,  of  course,  that  a  nicer  analysis  was 
required,  and  that  a  classification  of  effects  so  difierent  should  be 
made  which  would  group  them  under  causes  or  sources  that  are  dis- 
tinct in  the  human  organism.  An  attempt  at  this,  though  discursive 
and  too  controversial,  by  Dr.  Brown,^  the  Scotch  critic  upon  Reid, 
was  the  modern  reviving  of  an  analysis,  as  Hamilton  shows,  the  germ 
of  which  can  be  traced  back  to  Aristotle  and  his  predecessor  Demo- 
critus.  This  analysis  is  founded  upon  the  manifest  distinction  between 
the  mere  tactual  impression  made  upon  the  skin  by  heat  and  by 
contact  with  external  bodies,  and  that  entirely  distinct  impression 
produced  by  pressure  upon  and  tension  of  the  muscles ;  though  even 
Hamilton^  has  not  devoted  to  this  subject  his  ordinary  care  in  dis- 
crimination. A  new  light  is  thrown  upon  this  whole  field  of  meta- 
physical inquiry,  the  necessity  for  careful  discrimination  is  made 
more  manifest,  and  the  nature  and  extent  of  a  just  analysis  becomes 
more  apparent  when  this  sense  called  "touch"  with  its  multiform 
elements  is  viewed  in  its  relation  to  Art.  It  will  be  found  necessary 
in  considering  the  pleasures,  as  distinguished  from  the  hnowledge, 
derived  through  this  compound  sense,  to  make  a  three-fold  division. 


»  The  works  of  Thomas  Eeid,  D.  D.,  with  Notes  and  Supplementary  Disser- 
tations by  Sir  Wm.  Hamilton,  Bart.     Edinburgh,  1854. 
«  See  Lects.  23d  to  25th  in  Brown's  Phil,  of  Human  Mind. 
■  See  Note  on  Dissertation  D,  in  Appendix  to  Reid. 

5* 


54  ART   CRITICISM. 

There  are  most  manifestly  three  classes  of  agreeable  sensations 
made  upon  the  human  organism,  aside  from  those  derived  through 
the  senses  of  taste  and  smell,  of  hearing  and  sight.  The  first  of  these 
is  the  pleasing  impression  made  upon  the  surface^  on  the  shin,  by 
gentle  heat  or  the  slight  stroke  of  a  soft  body,  solid,  liquid,  or  gase- 
ous, as  of  smooth  fur,  of  lukewarm  water,  or  of  a  spring  zephyr ;  and 
these  are  the  pleasures  of  touch  proper.  The  second  is  the  agreeable 
sensation  of  pressure  more  or  less  gentle  on  the  muscles,  as  in  em- 
bracing, and  of  action  in  them  as  called  forth  by  the  gambols  of 
animals  and  children,  and  by  gymnastics  and  the  dance  in  youth ; 
and  these  are  the  pleasures  of  what  may  be  called  muscular  tension, 
or  for  brevity's  sake  simply  "  tension."  The  third  is  the  exhilarating 
excitement  arising  from  any  stimulus  acting  upon  the  nerves,  and 
thence  upon  the  brain ;  the  seat  of  this  impression  being  neither  the 
superficial  skin  or  the  muscles  underlying  the  skin,  but  the  nervous 
fibres  imbedded  within  the  muscular  system,  centering  in  the  brain ; 
its  producing  cause  being  either  a  material  stimulant  acting  through 
the  digestive  organs,  or  mental  excitement  operating  through  the 
brain  on  the  nervous  system ;  while  its  distinctive  character  may  be 
perhaps  appropriately  designated  by  the  term  "nervous  stimulation," 
or  simply  "stimulation."  It  is  the  first  of  these  three  classes  of 
pleasurable  sensations,  the  sense  of  touch  proper,  whose  relation  to 
art  is  in  this  section  to  be  considered. 

The  sense  of  touch  is,  as  Aristotle  argues,  common  to  all  animals ; 
its  possession,  in  fact,  being  the  discriminating  test  by  which  plants 
and  animals  are  separated  one  from  the  other.  The  most  perfect 
development  of  touch,  the  same  philosopher  argues,  is  found  in  man  ; 
and  man  is  dignified  as  a  higher  being  than  any  mere  animal  even 
so  far  as  the  knowledge  to  be  derived  from  this  sense  is  concerned. 
It  indeed  seems  a  wonderful  faculty  when  the  blind  child  is  heard 
reading  by  touch  with  all  the  fluency  of  one  possessing  eyes;  and 
when  the  man  of  mature  years  entirely  without  sight  is  seen  to  distin- 
guish the  different  metals  and  woods,  and  even  the  colors  of  paints 
simply  by  their  feeling.  While  thus  superior  to  any  animal  in  the 
power  of  touch  as  a  source-  of  utility,  man  is  not  only  superior  to  but 
distinct  from  animals  in  the  pleasures  derived  from  this  sense ;  since 
in  him  it  ministers  not  simply  to  corporeal  delight,  but  is  an  aid 
to  the  higher  and  intellectual  pleasures  of  Art. 

Touch  proper  is  but  a  surface  impression ;  whether  ministering  to 
utility  or  pleasure.  These  impressions  seem  limited  to  two  classes. 
The  first  of  these  is  the  affection  of  heat  either  external  or  internal. 


TWO   CLASSES   OF   PLEASURES   FROM   TOUCH.  55 

When  the  atmosphere  without  is  either  very  much  warmer  or  colder 
than  the  ordinary  natural  temperature  of  the  body,  an  impression  of 
pain  is  produced ;  and  the  seat  of  this  unpleasant  sensation  seems  to 
be  the  skin  or  surface  of  the  body.  When  again  upon  a  cold  day 
the  rays  of  the  sun  or  the  glow  of  a  warm  fire  falls  on  the  body,  a 
sensation  peculiarly  agreeable  is  experienced ;  the  seat  of  which  plea- 
sure, as  of  the  pain  just  noticed,  is  the  skin.  Since,  however,  a  similar 
pleasurable  sensation  pervades  and  permeates  the  entire  body  when 
the  genial  heat  arises  from  within,  either  from  the  digestion  of  a 
nourishing  meal,  from  imbibing  a  warm  and  stimulating  draught, 
from  deep  inhaling  of  the  fresh  morning  air,  or  even  from  the  cover- 
ing of  a  warm  bed,  it  is  doubtful  whether  the  pleasurable  impres- 
sion of  heat  can  be  restricted  to  touch  proper. 

The  second  class  of  impressions-  belonging  to  touch  proper  are  those 
arising  from  gentle  contact,  accompanied  always  with  motion,  of  a 
material  agent  upon  the  surface  of  the  body.  The  agent  may  be  in 
a  gaseous,  liquid  or  solid  form.  A  most  agreeable  sensation  is  expe- 
rienced from  the  soft  brushing,  the  mere  "kissing"  as  it  has  been 
poetically  called,  of  the  passing  breeze ;  and  that  entirely  aside  from 
its  character  either  for  warmth  or  coolness.  This  is  one  of  the  luxu- 
ries of  sea  life;  the  gentle  fanning  of  the  light  breeze,  and  the  rude 
yet  exhilarating  friction  of  the  sweeping  gale.  Dr.  Franklin  is  said 
to  have  regarded  a  cold  air  bath,  received  for  a  length  of  time  in  a 
strong  gale  on  the  naked  body,  both  for  healthfulness  and  pleasure, 
next  to  a  cold  water  bath.  Of  the  same  nature  is  the  luxury  of  the 
bath  in  water ;  in  which,  again,  the  agreeable  sensation  arising  from 
heat  or  cold  in  the  water  is  to  be  kept  distinct  from  the  pleasant 
impression  produced  by  the  motion  of  the  water.  This  appeal  to  the 
touch  may  arise  either  from  laving  the  skin  in  washing  with  the 
hand,  or  from  the  dripping  of  the  water  over  the  person  in  the 
shower,  or  from  its  coursing  past  us  in  the  river  current,  or  from  our 
cutting  through  it  in  swimming.  Still  again  when  any  soft  or  smooth 
solid  substance  as  the  sponge  or  towel  in  washing,  the  flesh  brush  in 
rubbing,  the  comb  in  cleaning,  the  hand  in  fondling,  is  made  to  pass 
gently  over  any  portion  of  the  body,  the  pleasure  of  this  sense  is  more 
or  less  exquisite. 

Every  portion  of  the  body  is  capacitated  for  this  pleasure ;  but 
each  portion  has  its  special  amount  of  susceptibility,  and  some  their 
special  forms  of  pleasurable  excitement.  It  is  worthy  of  note  that 
the  portions  of  the  skin  most  susceptible  and  most  employed  when 
touch  is  a  source  of  utility  are  very  little  if  at  all  affected  by  any 


56         ^  ART   CRITICISM. 

source  of  pleasurable  impressions.  Thus  the  lips  which  are  &"o  sensi- 
tive as  to  be  sometimes  employed  by  the  blind  as  the  nicest  tests  in 
touching,  and  the  inside  of  the  fingers  the  chief  instrument  of  this 
sense,  seem  to  have  no  share  in  the  pleasant  impressions  of  the  rest 
of  the  skin ;  or  if  they  are  indeed  common  partakers  with  the  rest  of 
the  skin  in  affording  agreeable  sensations  we  are  so  accustomed  to  the 
impressions  of  utility  that  those  of  pleasure  are  there  lost.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  cheek  and  back  of  the  hand  though  least  sensitive  to 
impressions  that  would  indicate  the  presence  of  anything  injurious 
because  constantly  exposed,  are  the  common  recipients  of  the  com- 
forts of  the  fanning  breeze,  of  the  laving  stream,  and  of  the  fondling 
caress. 

The  exquisiteness  of  the  pleasure  which  may  be  derived  from  this 
sense  when  that  of  any  other  is  denied,  is  the  true  indication  of  the 
value  and  capacity  of  this  susceptibility.  Children  deprived  of 
sight  show  this  in  their  inclination  to  feel  of  and  rub  over  their 
hands  any  soft  substance,  such  as  velvet  or  fur,  glass  or  ivory.  In 
the  rare  cases,  where  both  sight  and  hearing  are  absent,  and  the 
higher  pleasures  springing  from  both  these  senses  are  unknown,  this 
only  source  of  gratification  left,  mediate  as  it  is  between  the  highest 
and  the  lowest  senses,  and  united  with  or  separate  from  its  allied 
muscular  attendant,  appears  to  be  a  never  exhausted  source  of  varied 
delight.  The  blind  deaf-mute  will  sit  or  stand  for  hours  holding  a 
piece  of  fur,  rubbing  it  with  apparent  ecstasy  over  every  portion  of 
the  body  that  they  can  lay  bare ;  the  Creator  having  opened  to  them 
a  universe  of  delight  in  a  field  never  entered  by  those  absorbed  in  the 
pleasures  of  the  other  senses.  Were  the  emotions  awakened  by  the 
Fine  Arts  limited  to  the  impressions  of  sight  and  sound,  then  this 
most  intelligent  class,  deprived  of  the  two  higher  senses,  could  have 
no  Art  sensibility. 

The  relation  of  "  Touch"  proper  to  Art  is  perhaps  the  least 
intimate  and  important  of  any  of  the  lower  senses ;  though  that  of 
its  attendant  sense,  the  muscular,  is  the  closest  and  broadest.  The 
artist,  however,  can  never  forget  that  touch  has  a  relation  to  art. 
When  studying  his  design  and  grouping  the  conceptions  that  are  to 
enter  into  his  work  the  representation  of  this  form  of  delight,  in  the 
evening  breeze  or  the  summer  shade,  in  the  endearing  caress  of 
animals  or  men,  will  hardly  escape  the  thought  of  the  true  student 
of  nature  and  of  the  power  of  art  to  move.  Lightness  of  touch,  and 
its  exquisite  efiect  on  marble  or  canvass,  as  well  as  on  the  viol  string 
or  the  organ  key,  will  be  constantly  suggesting  to  the  painter,  the 


KNOWLEDGE   DERIVED    FROM   MUSCULAR   TENSION.  57 

sculptor,  the  musician,  the  relation,  by  analogy  at  least,  which  the 
sense  of  touch  has  to  his  art.  Most  of  all  the  gentle  impulses  of  the 
soul  that  fall  pleasantly  on  kindred  spirits,  of  which  those  of  the 
zephyr,  the  stream,  the  hand  are  the  types,  must  always  be  present 
to  control  the  mind  and  the  heart  of  the  artist  in  conceiving  as  well 
as  in  executing  his  works;  and  if  he  has  studied  thoroughly  the 
theory  of  the  sense  of  touch  and  of  its  pleasure,  the  chastening 
influence  of  a  right  mental  bent  early  received,  will  prove  a  habit 
in  his  art  that  will  give  the  charm  of  a  subdued  tone  to  everything 
he  touches. 

Sect.  5.  The  Impeessions  of  Musculae,  Tension  in  their  Eelation 

TO  Akt. 

The  seat  of  the  Sense  of  Tension,  as  already  observed,  is  in  the 
muscles  underlying  the  skin,  having  their  attachment  to  the  bones 
and  general  internal  structure.  The  track  of  the  impressions  made 
upon  this  sense  is  not  therefore,  as  in  touch,  superficial,  upon  the 
extremities  of  the  nervous  fibres  whose  minute  and  delicate  termina- 
tions in  the  skin  are  so  peculiarly  sensitive ;  but  it  is  a  dull  pressure 
felt  on  the  body  of  the  nerves  imbedded  in  the  mass  of  the  muscles. 
These  impressions  arise  from  two  classes  of  muscular  action;  the 
pressure  of  an  external  object  from  without,  and  the  tension  of  self- 
action  from  within. 

The  knowledge  obtained  through  muscular  tension  is  of  two  kinds ; 
knowledge  of  qualities  of  material  things  distinct  from  our  bodies 
communicated  to  the  mind  by  the  pressure  of  those  objects  on  our 
muscular  and  bony  framework;  and  knowledge  of  the  position 
actual  and  relative  of  different  portions  of  our  bodies  by  their 
angular  separation,  their  gravity  and  other  muscular  impressions. 
The  blind  man  learns  the  form  of  a  body,  as  we  in  the  dark,  by 
clasping  it ;  he  ascertains  its  composition  as  hard  or  soft  by  pressing 
upon  it,  and  its  weight  by  lifting  it.  From  the  amount  of  pressure 
exercised  by  the  will  on  the  muscles  which  move  the  eye,  the  tongue, 
the  shoulders,  the  elbow,  the  thigh,  or  the  knee,  we  know  so  perfectly 
how  to  adjust  the  direction  and  amount  of  their  angular  motion,  that 
not  only  the  skill  of  the  engineer,  of  the  pianist,  and  of  the  gymnast, 
but  the  ordinary  powers  of  a  child  in  directing  his  eye  and  his  hand, 
and  of  preserving  his  balance,  are  a  wonder  to  us.  It  is  not  by 
touch  proper,  but  by  the  impression  of  muscular  tension,  that  this 
knowledge  is  gained  and  employed.  In  fact,  the  sense  of  touch,  so 
called,  in  almost  all  animals,  except  man,  is  but  an  impression  of 

H 


58  ART   CRITICISM. 

pressure  on  the  shell,  the  feathers,  or  the  thick  hide  which  covers 
them ;  like  to  the  impression  on  man  when  the  sense  of  touch  proper 
is  lost  underneath  thick  clothing.  As  Sir  Wm.  Hamilton  has 
clearly,  and  yet  only  partially,  shown  from  the  treatises  of  Aristotle, 
Galen,  and  a  line  of  acute  thinkers  succeeding  them,  this  source  of 
knowledge  has  ever  been  recognized  in  metaphysical  analysis; 
Aristotle  designating  it  "motion,"  the  Germans  following  him  "the 
muscular  sense,"  while  Hamilton  unites  both  designations  in  the 
characteristic  expressions  "locomotive  energy"  and  "muscular 
tension." 

As  the  knowledge  derived  from  muscular  impressions  are  of  two 
classes,  so  are  their  pleasured.  The  first  of  these  is  that  produced 
by  pressure  from  without.  It  is  seen  in  the  manifest  pleasure  of  the 
infant  who  has  as  yet  attained  no  power  of  muscular  self-action, 
when  it  coos  with  satisfaction  at  the  scrubbing  of  the  bath,  and 
crows  with  delight  at  the  fondling  hug  of  its  nurse.  The  pleasure 
of  the  kiss  and  the  embrace  in  youth  and  mature  years  is  of  the 
same  character.  Their  dignified  office  as  the  natural  accompaniment 
of  the  joy  of  meeting  and  the  sorrow  of  parting,  has  made  the 
pressure  of  the  hand,  of  the  lip,  and  of  the  breast,  a  pure  and  noble 
gratification ;  a  delight,  indeed,  dignified  by  the  allusions  of  the  best 
and  the  wisest  of  men  guided  by  Divine  inspiration.^  It  may  be 
added  that  the  cleansing  kneading  of  the  muscles  practiced  in 
Oriental  baths,  so  exquisite  a  luxury  to  the  Western  traveler,  is  of 
this  class  of  pleasures ;  while  the  curative  kneading  of  the  flesh  in 
diseases  of  various  kinds  resorted  to  by  the  physicians  of  India  and 
among  many  rude  tribes,  both  in  ancient  and  modern  times,  is  a 
restorative  affording  pleasure  as  well  as  profit. 

The  second  class  of  agreeable  muscular  impressions,  is  that  result- 
ing from  the  tension  of  the  muscles  in  the  exercise  which  forms 
their  healthful  play.  The  development  of  this  source  of  delight  in 
the  child  is  somewhat  later  than  that  just  mentioned ;  first  the  upper, 
then  the  lower  limbs  beginning  to  fulfill  their  mission,  and  at  the 
same  time  to  manifest  a  pleasurable  sensation  in  their  constant 
motion.  Next  follow  the  gambols  of  childhood,  which  Goldsmith 
has  embodied  in  the  line, 

"The  playful  children  just  let  loose  from  school." 

This  delight,  shared  by  the  young  of  all  animals,  takes  the  place  in 


«  Gen.  xxix.  11;  xxxiii.  4;  xlv.  14,  15;  xlvi.  29,  and  Acts  xx.  1,  37. 


PLEASURES   FROM   MUSCULAR   EXERCISE.  59 

these  irrational  creatures  of  the  higher  pleasures  of  sense,  and  is  to 
them  a  source  of  permanent  and  ecstatic  delight  even  in  later  life, 
as  Cowper  has  so  graphically  pictured  in  the  lines,^ 

"  The  bounding  fawn,  that  darts  across  the  glade 
When  none  pursues,  through  mere  delight  of  heart. 
And  spirits  buoyant  with  excess  of  glee  ; 
The  horse  as  wanton,  and  almost  as  fleet, 
That  skims  the  spacious  meadow  at  full  speed. 
Then  stops,  and  snorts,  and,  throwing  high  his  heels, 
Starts  to  the  voluntary  race  again ; 
The  very  kine,  that  gambol  at  high  noon, 
The  total  herd  receiving  first  from  one. 
That  leads  the  dance,  a  summons  to  be  gay, 
Though  wild  their  strange  vagaries,  and  uncouth 
Their  efforts,  yet  resolved  with  one  consent, 
To  give  such  act  and  utt'rance  as  they  may 
To  ecstasy,  too  big  to  be  suppressed." 

In  youth  sports  of  the  turf,  such  as  cricket  and  the  foot-ball, 
racing  and  leaping,  wrestling  and  boxing,  a  more  studied  and  less 
unmeaning  employ  of  this  same  delight,  follow.  With  this  class 
of  sports,  at  first  rude,  art  allied  itself  more  and  more;  until  a 
system  of  artificial  exercises  became  in  vogue,  which  among  the 
Greeks  took  the  name  of  gymnastics;  so  called,  because  for  the 
more  unrestrained  play  of  the  muscles  the  contestants  entered  the 
arena  naked.  The  fascination  of  this  class  of  sports  led  to  an  excess 
and  abuse.  In  Greece,  the  theoretic  Plato,  as  already  mentioned,^ 
classed  education  under  two  heads:  that  of  "Gymnastics"  for  the 
body,  and  that  of  the  "  Muses"  for  the  soul.  The  practical  Aristotle, 
however,  living  somewhat  later,  and  as  a  teacher  responsible  for  the 
training  of  such  a  youth  as  Alexander,  having  carefully  noticed 
their  effect,  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  "those  accustomed  to 
gymnastic  exercises  bear  the  cold  with  more  difficulty  than  those  not 
conversant  with  them ;"  and  adds  the  reflection :  "  The  same  habit  is 
not  advantageous  to  both  health  and  strength."^  The  equally 
practical  Romans,  and  the  Egyptians  as  the  teachers  of  both  Greeks 
and  Romans,  had  the  same  view  of  the  natural,  healthful  and 
artistic  delights  of  muscular  exercises  when  tending  to  the  excess  of 
the  Greek  gymnastics.  Diodorus,  in  the  Augustan  age,  records*  of 
the  Egyptian  educators,  "  They  think  that  by  the  exercise  of  daily 


'  The  Task,  B.  VI.  =  B.  I.,  c.  i.,  §  5. 

3  Problems,  Section  vii.  No.  10.  ^  Diodorus  Siculus,  B.  I.,  c. 


60  ART   CRITICISM. 

wrestling  youth  imi3rove  in  their  strength  but  for  a  little  time,  and 
that  with  a  great  deal  of  hazard ;  while  they  gain  no  advantage  at 
all  as  to  the  health  of  their  bodies."  This,  however,  as  an  abuse 
from  over-straining,  is  no  more  an  objection  to  the  enjoyment  rightly 
employed  than  over-eating  is  an  objection  to  eating  at  all. 

Among  these  last  mentioned  exercises  the  Dance  finds  place ;  to 
whose  excess  and  abuse  a  double  objection  exists.  In  illustration  of 
its  use  as  a  natural  diversion,  in  the  age  of  patriarchal  simplicity  we 
read  of  parents,  that  "  They  send  forth  their  little  ones  like  a  flock ; 
their  children  dance  ;"^  while  in  the  latest  and  darkest  period  of 
Judah's  history  the  promise  of  the  distant  future  is  thus  pictured : 
"Thou  shalt  go  forth  in  the  dances  of  them  that  make  merry;" 
"then  shall  the  virgin  rejoice  in  the  dance,  both  young  men  and  old 
together;"^  while  the  wisest  of  men  in  his  old  age  utters  as  a  per- 
manent truth,  "  There  is  a  time  to  mourn  and  a  time  to  dance."^  As 
expressing  patriotic  exultation  at  military  success,  we  read  of  Jeph- 
thah  in  the  days  of  the  Judges  of  Israel,  that  when  returning  from 
victory  in  battle,  "his  daughter  came  out  to  meet  him  with  timbrels 
and  dances  ;"*  and  also  in  the  days  of  their  Kings  that  when  David 
the  young  hero  in  faith  returned  victorious,  "the  w^omen  went  forth 
to  meet  Saul,  singing  and  dancing  Avith  tabrets,  with  joy,  with  instru- 
ments of  music;"  "in  their  dances"  chanting  in  chorus  the  praises 
of  their  heroes.^.  Yet  more,  we  are  told  that  as  an  hallowed  act  of 
devotion,  the  prophetess,  Miriam,  the  sister  of  Aaron,  and  of  Moses, 
took  "a  timbrel  in  her  hand,"  while  "all  the  women  went  out  after 
her  with  timbrels  and  with  dances ;"  and  that  David,  both  in  prac- 
tice and  in  inspired  song,  made  dancing  a  religious  act.® 

Among  the  Greeks  in  their  earliest  days  an  equally  elevated  posi- 
tion was  given  to  the  dance,  one  of  the  nine  Muses  being  made  its 
presiding  genius.  Homer  speaks  of  the  dances  of  the  illustrious 
men  who  were  suitors  for  the  hand  of  the  fair  Penelope  as  a  manly 
accomplishment ;  and  represents  even  sage  Ulysses  as  an  admirer  of 
the  skill  of  the  dancers  who  entertained  him  as  a  guest  at  the  Court 
of  Antinous.''  Xenophon  describes  approvingly  a  dance  at  a  feast 
at  which  Socrates  was  present  as  a  guest;  and  Plato  argues  in  his 
"Laws"  that  the  dance  should  be  among  the  Greeks  as  it  was  among 


•  Job  xxi.  11.  ""  Jer.  xxxi.  4,  13.  »  Eccles.  iii.  4. 

■•  Judg.  xi.  34.  *  1  Sam.  xviii.  6;  xxi.  11 ;  xxix.  5. 

«  Exod.  XV.  20;  2  Sam.  vi.  14,  and  Psalm  xxx.  11. 
'  Horn.  Odys.  viii.  265. 


MORAL  CHARACTER  OF  THE  DANCE.  61 

the  Egyptians  founded  on  religious  ideas.  The  Greek  dances  proper 
were  in  keeping  with  this  chastened  idea,  and  were  very  simple  in 
their  movement  and  expression.  Such  was  the  dance  introduced  by 
Theseus  in  the  early  times,  alluded  to  by  Plutarch  in  his  life  of  that 
early  Athenian  hero.^  It  was  quite  a  different  view  which  the  best 
Greeks  entertained,  however,  when  from  the  wild  tribes  in  the 
Phrygian  mountains  back  of  their  Asiatic  colonies  the  frantic  war 
dance  of  the  Corybantes  became  a  favorite  exhibition  for  an  ener- 
vated and  unwarlike  gala  gathering  instead  of  a  training  for  their 
warriors;  when,  too,  from  dissolute  Crete  came  the  Bacchanalian 
dance,  which  was  but  a  representation  of  a  drunken  debauch ;  and 
when  again  from  Persia  there  stole  in  among  the  monogamist  Greeks, 
true  to  the  law  of  nature  in  their  conjugal  relations,  the  licentious 
dance  of  the  Hetarse,  or  concubines,  a  name  synonymous  with  that 
of  harlot.  From  this  time  the  dance  assumed  the  character  in  two 
respects  objectionable,  which  Aristotle  among  the  Greeks,  and  Dio- 
dorus  and  Cicero  among  the  Komans,  attribute  to  it ;  first,  because 
it  induced  physical  weakness  from  the  over-exertion  to  which  its 
exciting  influence  tends;  second,  and  especially  because  of  the 
lascivious  associations  of  which  it  was  regarded  the  direct  expression. 
During  the  better  times  of  the  Roman  Republic  it  was  deemed 
disgraceful  for  grave  men  or  even  ingenuous  youth  to  engage  in  any 
form  of  the  dance ;  and  that  because  of  the  depraving  tendency  to 
which  Cicero  twice  refers  in  his  volume  on  Moral  Duties,  as  also  in 
his  Orations.^  Julius  Caesar  introduced  the  Pyrrhic,  or  Avar  dance, 
from  Asia  Minor,  into  the  games  of  the  Roman  theatre  f  and  the 
tendency  was  so  rapidly  downward,  that  Nero  degraded  the  Imperial 
purple  by  dancing  publicly  on  the  stage.*  The  uncovered  walls  of 
private  houses  in  Pompeii  now  reveal  to  what  an  extent,  not  only  the 
manly  war  dance,  but  the  licentious  waltz  of  the  courtesan  had  been 
carried.  The  Great  Teacher  appearing  near  this  crisis  to  call  back 
Greeks  and  Romans  to  "the  true,"  as  well  as  the  good,  in  every 
relation,  seems  to  have  himself  made  and  to  have  inspired  his 
apostles  to  make  a  just  discrimination  between  the  simple  home 
expression  of  delight  at  a  son's  return,  and  the  depraved  character 
of  the  dance  of  the  adulterous  woman's  daughter,  lustful  in  expres- 
sion and  linked  with  an  unnatural  spirit  of  hatred  to  the  just  man 
who  had  reproved  vice. 

'  Plut.  Thes.  V.  21. 

*»  Cicero  de  Officiis,  I.  35.     Pro  Murena,  6,  and  in  Piso,  10. 

8  Suet.  Jul.,  39.  ■*  Dion.  Cass.,  Ix.  7 ;  Suet.  Nero,  12. 


62  ART  CRITICISM. 

The  "Chase,"  again,  is  one  of  the  favorite  resorts  of  men  in  rude  and 
polished  ages  as  an  exhilarating  pleasure  of  muscular  action ;  though 
the  higher  principle  of  intellectual  delight  in  successful  skill  has  also 
its  place  in  this  hardy  and  somewhat  hazardous  amusement.  The 
poets  even  before  Homer  had  exalted  it  to  the  dignity  of  an  art;  and 
have  ascribed  to  it  an  ennobling  and  refining  influence.  Moses 
quotes  a  couplet  of  poetry  extant  in  his  day  and  dating  back  to  a 
period  just  after  the  flood,  in  which  Nimrod  is  thus  celebrated, 

"  Even  as  Nimrod  mighty  in  hunting  before  the  Lord." 

The  Greeks  and  Komans  showed  how  honorable  a  place  they  gave 
to  this  athletic  exercise  by  installing  a  deity,  Diana  the  huntress,  as 
the  special  patron  of  the  chase ;  and  the  poets  of  classic  times  made 
it  one  of  the  marks  of  an  ancient  hero  that  he  excelled  in  this  art. 
The  English  poet,  Wm.  Somerville,  in  his  poem  entitled  "The 
Chase"  traces  the  history  of  hunting  from  Mmrod;  mentions  its 
introduction  into  England  by  William  the  Conqueror,  and  dwells  at 
length  on  its  influence  in  refining  the  before  rude  manners  of  the 
British  nobility.  In  tracing  it  thus  to  Nimrod,  who  first  "made  war 
on  beasts,"  when,  as  yet 

"New  and  unpolished  was  the  huntsman's  art," 

he  attributes  the  principle  of  its  origin  as  an  "art"  not  simply  to  the 
love  of  the  sport  but  to  the  need  of  food  and  sacrificial  offerings ;  so 
that  as  he  says 

"Devotion  pure 
And  strong  necessity  thus  first  began 
The  chase  of  beasts." 

To  this  class  of  pleasures,  must  probably  be  attributed,  so  strangely 
depraved  is  human  nature,  the  fascinating  charm  of  "War"  itself, 
as  in  all  ages  it  has  been  waged  among  mankind.  The  measured 
tread  of  files  of  men  in  marching,  with  all  the  studied  evolutions  of 
the  military  drill,  which  forms  the  essential  training  for  war,  are 
directly  pleasures  of  muscular  action,  accompanied  with  the  exercise 
of  intellectual  skill;  and  the  hold  upon  the  human  mind  which 
military  exercises  gain,  the  tenacity  of  their  power  even  in  old  age 
upon  the  veteran  soldier,  is  witness  to  the  fascination  attending  this 
delight.  Partisan  warfare,  the  scout,  the  raid,  the  ambush,  and  even 
the  dashing  charge  of  the  pitched  battle  and  the  slow  approach  of 
the  regular  siege,  are  but  the  hunt  and  the  chase  of  a  higher  order  of 


RELATION   OP   MUSCULAR  PLEASURES   TO   ART.  63 

beings.  The  conflict  taxes  to  the  intensest  energy  the  exercise  of 
the  mind  indeed ;  but  the  muscular  frame  has  the  greater  strain,  and 
its  exhilarating  play  is  the  coveted  pleasure  that  outweighs  the  pain 
of  wounds  and  even  of  mutilation.  How  much  war  is  a  pastime, 
having  its  longed-for  season,  is  the  subject  of  sacred  as  well  as  of 
profane  history.  In  the  Sacred  History  of  the  Old  Testament,  "the 
time  that  kings  go  forth  to  battle,"  ^  is  a  period  of  the  year  as  marked 
for  its  interest  as  is  the  "time  of  the  singing  of  birds." ^  In  fact  if 
any  being  from  another  world  should  chance  to  become  possessed  of 
the  literature  of  the  world,  of  the  poets  from  Homer  to  Scott  and  of 
the  historians  from  Herodotus  to  Macaulay,  and  should  be  asked, 
*for  what  man  seemed  to  regard  himself  as  specially  made,  and  in 
what  he  most  gloried  and  found  pleasure,'  he  would  probably  decide 
that  it  was  in  the  physical  exhilaration  that  attends  military 
prowess. 

As  already  intimated,  the  association  of  art  with  the  pleasures  of 
muscular  action  was  so  apparent  to  the  ancient  Greek  that  one  of  the 
Muses,  Terpsichore,  was  appointed  to  preside  as  its  head.  Perhaps, 
since  Sir  Wm.  Hamilton  has  made  locomotive  energy  in  general  to 
be  synonymous  with  the  muscular  sense,  all  those  impressions  of 
delight  which  spring  from  "  beauty  of  motion "  as  treated  by  X(Ord 
Kames  and  others,  should  to  a  certain  extent  find  place  here.  In 
one  point  of  view,  also,  the  study  of  attitudes  and  of  every  variety 
of  muscular  effort  represented  in  such  sculptured  forms  as  the 
Dancing  fawns,  the  Boxer,  the  Wrestler,  the  Huntsman,  the  War- 
rior, and  Hercules  in  his  varied  labors,  all  have  their  origin  in  this 
impulse  of  human  nature;  while  a  new  light  is  thrown  on  the 
painter's  picture  of  children  playing  and  men  and  women  toiling,  of 
men  and  beast  bounding  in  the  chase,  of  horse  and  footmen  strug- 
gling in  bloody  conflict,  and  even  of  angels  soaring  in  clouds  or  ether. 
The  consideration  of  the  Sense  of  Muscular  Tension  is  certainly  in 
place  in  an  Introduction  to  the  general  study  of  Art. 

Sect.  6.  The  Impressions  of  Nervous  Stimulation  in  their  relation 

TO  Art. 

Beneath  the  skin  and  within  the  muscles,  acting  in  part  as  their 
ministers,  lie  the  nerves;  which  have  like  other  parts  of  our  nature 
the  two-fold  ofiice  of  ministering  to  utility  and  to  pleasure  in  man. 
The  two  classes  usually  treated  of  by  physiologists,  the  one  called 


'  2  Sam.  xi.  1.  ^  Song  of  Solomon,  ii.  12. 


64  ART   CRITICISM. 

afferent  or  nerves  of  sensation  terminating  in  the  skin,  the  other 
called  efferent  or  nerves  of  motion  having  their  attachments  to  the 
muscular  fibres,  cannot  be  separated  entirely  from  the  consideration 
of  the  senses  of  Touch  and  of  Muscular  Sense  already  considered ; 
since  it  is  the  impressions  made  upon  these  nerves  in  those  organs  of 
the  body  that  at  once  furnish  the  knowledge  and  afford  the  pleasure 
ascribed  to  those  two  senses.  In  addition,  however,  to  the  two  kinds 
of  impressions  on  these  and  other  nerves  properly  distinguished  as 
those  of  touch  and  of  muscular  tension,  there  is  a  class  of  impressions 
quite  distinct  in  their  nature,  in  their  source,  in  their  centre  and 
seat,  and  also  in  their  pleasures  from  the  two  previously  considered. 

The  impression  distinctively  called  "  nervous "  as  separate  from  all 
othei*  impressions  made  on  the  nerves  is  a  feverish  flutter  of  the  whole 
nervous  organism,  the  brain  included,  which  no  one  thinks  of  refer- 
ring to  an  action  upon  them  through  either  one  of  the  bodily  senses ; 
and  which  it  would  be  absurd  to  call  the  impressions  of  smell,  taste, 
touch,  tension,  sight  or  hearing.  They  are  produced  in  part  by 
external  stimulants  introduced  into  the  body  in  a  solid,  liquid,  or 
gaseous  form,  such  as  tobacco,  opium,  tea,  coffee,  alcohol,  ether,  ex- 
hilarating gas,  or  some  other  kindred  agent  which  acts  upon  the 
nervous  system.  They  more  generally  originate  from  a  cause  within 
familiarly  known  as  self-excitement ;  whose  abuse  is  characterized  as 
"working  one's  self,  into  a  phrenzy;"  a  state  of  mind  exemplified  in 
devotees  of  every  religious  system,  in  public  speakers  of  every  class 
and  country,  and  even  in  the  wild  enthusiasm  of  a  whole  people  lost 
in  the  whirl  of  a  show  or  carnival. 

It  is  doubtful  whether  animals  below  man  have  participation  with 
him  in  this  peculiar  affection  called  nervous  excitability.  Certainly 
they  have  no  inward  power  of  mind  to  act  as  an  exciting  cause ;  and 
we  have  no  evidence  that  they  resort  to  any  agent  in  nature  as  a,n 
outward  source  of  nervous  stimulation.  They  certainly  shun  those 
plants,  such  as  tobacco  and  the  poppy,  from  which  in  their  unpre- 
pared and  natural  state  man  finds  a  narcotic  stimulant;  nor  have 
they  any  means  of  obtaining  by  decoction,  fermentation  or  distilla- 
tion, the  manufactured  articles  which  give  this  stimulus  to  man.  It 
is  man,  the  intellectual  being  alone,  whose  intelligence  prompts  him 
to  resort  to  nervous  stimulation  as  a  source  of  pleasure. 

How  fascinating  the  pleasurable  sensation  of  this  part  of  man's 
nature  may  become  is  manifest  from  the  resistless  spell  it  seems  to 
throw  over  all  the  faculties  of  the  youth,  or  the  man  who  gives 
himself  up  to   the  indulgences,  either  outward  or  inward,  which 


PLEASURES   OF   NERVOUS   STIMULATION.  65 

produce  it.  The  yovith  very  soon  discriminates  between  the  momen- 
tary gratification  of  the  palate  coming  from  the  sweetened  draught, 
and  the  intoxicating  sensation  that  follows  from  it ;  and  very  soon 
he  prefers  the  latter  separate  from  the  former.  Very  soon,  too,  even 
the  nauseous  taste  of  tobacco  ceases  to  be  disagreeable ;  because  of 
the  exciting  influence  produced  by  it.  When,  too,  the  almost 
delirium  of  nervous  excitement  arising  from  hilarious  society  where 
wit  and  humor  kindle  and  sparkle,  when  the  first  fresh  glow  of 
personal  success  in  speaking  under  the  complete  possession  of  body 
and  soul  which  a'bsorptioti  by  one's  subject  of  discourse  produces, 
when  the  entrancing  thrill  of  imaginative  composition  in  prose  or 
verse,  or  even  the  reading  of  poetry  or  romance,  history  or  the 
drama,  philosophy  or  science,  come  to  be  tasted,  when  either  of  these 
forms  of  nervous  stimulation  arising  from  the  ecstatic  play  of  one's 
mental  faculties  is  first  experienced,  a  new  world  of  surpassing 
delight  breaks  on  the  young  student.  It  is.  a  source  of  pleasing 
exhilaration  to  which  mature  manhood  fondly  resorts,  and  which 
even  in  old  age,  still  holds  its  devotee  spell-bound.  And  when  we 
search  to  find  in  what  class  of  pleasures  these  delights  so  far  as  they 
are  bodily  and  not  purely  intellectual  must  be  placed,  we  find  it 
impossible  to  refer  them  to  sight,  sound,  taste,  smell,  touch,  muscular 
action ;  to  anything  except  to  the  idea  of  nervous  stimulation. 

The  -resort  to  this  source  of  pleasure  is  seen  in  the  earliest  and 
latest  history  of  mankind.  Of  the  second  great  head  of  our  race, 
Noah,  from  whom  all  since  the  Deluge  have  descended,  we  read  that 
having  "planted  a  vineyard,"  he  "drank  of  the  wine  thereof"  until 
"he  was  drunken."  Among  nearly  all  nations  rude  and  refined,  the 
drinking  of  fermented,  if  not  of  distilled  liquors,  and  the  smoking 
of  tobacco  or  some  kindred  article  have  been  used  as  nervous  stimu- 
lants. The  inspired  record  of  the  Old  Testament  states  with  the 
same  positiveness  that  the  Lord  "causeth  the  grass  to  grow  for  the 
cattle,"  and  "He  giveth  herb,  bread  and  oil"  to  feed,  "and  wine  to 
make  glad  the  heart  of  man."^  Beyond  the  Old  Testament  prece- 
dent we  have  the  example  of  the  perfect  man,  who  tempted  -in  all 
points  as  we  are,  "drank  of  the  fruit  of  the  vine,"  though  unjustly 
charged  as  a  "  wine-bibber."'^  As  wide  spread,  too,  among  men  have 
been  the  delights  of  this  same  excitement  coming  from  the  mind's 
employ  on  themes  for  the  imagination.  Both  true  and  false  prophets 
like  Samuel  and  Saul,  as  well  as  bards  and  seers,  like  Chalcas  among 


Gen.  ix.  21;  Psalm  civ.  15.  «  Matt.  xxvi.  29;  Matt.  xi.  19. 

6*  I 


6S  ART   CRITICISM. 

the  Greeks  before  Troy,  orators  and  poets  in  every  age  and  land 
have  spoken  and  written  under  a  nervous  stimulus  which  has  seemed 
even  in  its  outshowing  in  their  bodily  nature  to  be  the  working  of  a 
supernatural  power. 

As  with  the  other  pleasures  of  sense,  the  end  sought  through 
nervous  stimulus  has  been  three-fold.  As  an  individual  gratification 
both  the  external  and  internal  sources  of  stimulus  mentioned  have 
been  resorted  to.  For  the  accomplishment  of  important  public  ends, 
the  gaining  of  the  ear  and  the  taking  possession  of  the  mind  and 
heart  of  men  for  good  or  evil,  public  speakers  have  sought  to  attain 
this  power  of  self-excitement.  The  wonderful  energy  of  the  double 
stimulus  of  the  wine  cup  and  of  the  natural  enthusiasm  awakened 
when  uttering  a  popular  harangue,  that  power  by  which  the  speaker 
sways  as  he  will  the  throng  of  even  stolid  men,  has  been  a  theme  of 
admiration  and  an  attainment  most  coveted  in  all  ages  of  man's 
history.  Even  as  a  means  of  religious  awakening  and  determina- 
tion, there  can  be  no  question  that  the  power  of  self-excitement 
peculiar  to  great  leaders  in  religious  reform,  like  John  Knox,  Martin 
Luther  and  George  Whitefield,  has  been,  though  peculiarly  liable 
to  abuse,  a  mighty  instrument  for  good.  It  is  akin  certainly  to  that 
fervor  of  the  apostle  to  the  nations  whom  many  believers  regarded 
"beside  himself,"  and  whom  a  philosophic  Koman  hearer  called 
"mad;"^  but  which  the  great  Rhetorician  Longinus,  who  lived  near 
his  day  and  criticized  him  merely  as  an  orator,  mentioned  as  the 
great  element  of  power  in  a  class  of  unstudied  and  unfinished 
eloquence,  which  by  its  fervor  eclipsed  the  finish  and  grace  and  force 
of  even  a  Demosthenes;  a  class  of  speaking  in  which  Longinus 
regards  "  Saul  of  Tarsus"  the  greatest  known  master.^ 

It  is  a  perversion  of  this  source  of  pleasure  and  of  power  when  the 
means  is  made  but  an  end,  and  the  mere  ecstasy  of  nervous  excite- 
ment is  sought  for  its  own  sake  or  for  any  inferior  end.  There  can 
be  no  question  that  after  the  peculiar  manner  of  the  Old  Testament 
teaching  the  case  of  Noah  the  first  great  "preacher  of  righteousness," 
like  other  men  subject  to  this  excitement  and  seeking  it  merely  for 
its  own  sake  by  artificial  stimulants,  is  set  forth  as  a  warning  exam- 
ple.^    It  is  to  the  same  purport  that  the  two  elder  sons  of  Aaron, 


»  2  Cor.  V.  13;  Acts  xxvi.  24. 

"  Fragment  of  a  lost  work  preserved  in  a  manuscript  copy  of  Paurs  Epistles 
now  in  the  Vatican  Library  at  Rome. 
«  Gen.  ix.  21. 


USE   AND   ABUSE   OF   NERVOUS   EXCITEMENT.  67 

offering  incense  under  an  irreverent  excitement  are  struck  dead  in 
their  delirium ;  and  that  immediately  thereupon  the  father  and  the 
two  surviving  sons  are  charged,  "Do  not  drink  wine  nor  strong 
drink  when  ye  go  into  the  tabernacle  of  the  congregation,  that  ye 
may  teach  the  children  of  Israel."^  It  is  yet  more  to  the  same  effect 
that  such  men  as  the  Nazarites,  Elijah,  John  the  Baptist,  and  other 
great  preachers  abstained  entirely  from  artificial  stimulants,  having 
in  themselves  a  native  "spirit  and  power"  as  an  inward  self-stimulus; 
while  the  select  model  of  a  Christian  pastor  is  so  abstemious  that  he 
needs  an  apostle's  express  direction  ere  he  can  be  persuaded  to  use  a 
stimulant  even  as  a  medicinal  restorative.^ 

It  is  an  excess  of  the  same  worthy  stimulus  when  the  genuine 
equable  excitement  flowing  from  the  fervor  awakened  by  a  great 
theme  degenerates  into  a  mere  rant,  the  offspring  of  a  forced,  strained 
and  unnerving  excitement.  It  is  this  fault  and  perversion  of  an 
excellence  that  is  so  often  charged  upon  American  speakers  by  those 
accustomed  to  the  smooth  and  measured  flow  of  utterance  which 
gives  character  to  the  speaking  heard  in  the  British  Parliament.  It 
is  this  which  so  intelligent  and  devout  a  Christian  writer  as  the 
Count  de  Gasparin  of  Paris  has  found  to  censure  in  the  religious 
speakers  of  America ;  particularly  in  one  of  the  most  fervent  of  its 
Christian  denominations.  The  lowest  of  all  the  abuses  of  this  source 
of  healthful  and  useful  delight  is  the  sporting  with  its  sickly  deve- 
lopment practiced  in  the  wearing,  and  finally  deranging  self-excite- 
ment that  is  witnessed  in  the  phenomena  called  clairvoyance,  spirit- 
rappings,  and  the  like;  which  at  the  best  are  but  careless  experi- 
menting with  the  most  delicate  of  all  the  parts  of  our  organism,  made 
to  be  in  its  healthful  excitement  the  source  of  a  genial  and  ennobling 
delight.^  • 

The  abuse,  however,  too  frequent  doubtless,  is  no  argument  against 
the  proper  use  of  any  power  for  good  or  of  any  source  of  pleasure 
which  our  Creator  has  implanted  within  us.  The  ecstasy  of  nervous 
stimulus  as  felt  by  an  orator  like  Demosthenes  declaiming  on  the 
sea  shore,  thrilled  by  the  tones  of  his  own  voice  if  the  dashing  waves, 
his  only  auditory,  were  not,  or  by  a  poet  like  Schiller  writing  all 
night  when  the  inspiration  was  on  him  with  a  wet  towel  about  his 
head  to  cool  his  fevered  brain,  and  even  by  a  mathematician  like 


•  Lev.  X.  9, 11. 

'^  Num.  vi.  3 ;  Judg.  xiii.  7 ;  Jer.  xxxv.  6 ;  Luke  i.  15 ;  1  Tim.  v.  23. 

*  See  "Spiritualism  Tested;"  by  the  Author  of  this  treatise. 


68  ART   CRITICISM. 

Sir  Isaac  Newton  toiling  for  weeks  to  reach  his  result,  and,  when  so 
near  as  to  be  sure  of  its  nature  completely  unmanned  by  nervous 
excitement  and  obliged  to  transfer  his  work  for  completion  to  another 
hand,  this  is  a  source  of  superior  pleasure  which  always  has  controlled 
and  always  will  sway  the  truest  genius. 

The  artist  above  all  men  needs  this  delight  so  inexpressibly  fasci- 
nating to  cheer,  to  prompt,  to  sustain  him  in  his  long  years  of  unre- 
quited toil;  years  most  drear  were  it  not  for  this  constant  and 
exquisite  delight.  If  Coleridge  had  occasion  to  say  "Poetry  has 
been  to  me  its  own  exceeding  great  reward,"  much  more  may  the 
sculptor  or  painter  utter  it  of  his  art.  More  than  this,  the  artist 
must  be  able  to  infuse  this  same,  his  own  fervor  of  spirit,  into  the 
beholder;  otherwise  he  carves  and  paints  in  vain.  As  the  speaker 
in  prose  or  verse  that  carries  away  his  audience  with  him  has  learned 
the  almost  magnetic  power  of  an  imparted  nervous  stimulus,  so  the 
artist  who  succeeds,  must  learn  to  possess  it  at  his  work :  since  it  will 
then  be  readily  imparted  to  those  who  come  within  the  sphere  of  his 
influence  as  beholders  of  his  work. 


CHAPTER    III. 

THE    IMPRESSIONS    OF    THE    HIGHER    SENSE    OF    HEARING    AS    AD- 
DRESSED  BY   ART. 

Though  the  range  of  the  arts  which  address  the  ear  is  far  more 
limited  than 'that  of  those  addressing  the  eye,  yet  its  superior  relation 
to  language  as  the  means  of  communicating  thought  gives  to  the 
principles  of  these  arts  a  most  important  place  in  the  sphere  of 
Rhetorical  Criticism.  For  two  manifest  reasons,  however,  the  con- 
siderations of  sound  as  producing  the  impressions  of  Art,  which 
mainly  relate  to  the  analysis  of  the  laws  of  musical  sounds  and  the 
history  of  their  combinations  and  applications  in  Music,  may  be  made 
to  occupy  a  brief  space  in  a  general  treatise  on  Art  criticism.  The 
broader  field  of  the  relation  of  agreeable  sounds  as  heard  in  intelli- 
gible language,  in  poetry  and  prose,  in  the  epic  and  the  drama  as 
rehearsed  through  the  histrionic  art,  and  in  reading  and  oratory  as 
uttered  by  the  ordinary  public  speaker,  belong  to  the  department  of 
Rhetoric  and  Poetics,  of  Elocution  and  Oratory ;  and  from  the  days 


NATURE   OF   MUSICAL  SOUNDS.  69 

of  Aristotle  these  have  been  abundantly  treated.  The  special  field 
of  Music  and  Musical  sounds,  like  that  of  the  other  Fine  Arts  proper 
as  Painting  and  Sculpture,  has  been  mainly  the  subject  of  professional 
teaching ;  partly  from  the  fact  that  its  teachers  instruct  by  the  voice 
instead  of  the  pen,  and  address  only  practical  pupils  who  do  not 
need  written  treatises ;  partly  also  from  the  necessary  technicality  of 
all  professional  study  which  makes  its  text  books  unsuited  to  the 
general  student.  A  cursory  view  of  this  field  of  Art  proper  is  all 
that  is  essential  for  the  general  student. 

Sect.  1.  Melody  ;  the  nature  or  Sounds  called  musical,  and  the  modes 

IN  WHICH  BY  the  VOICE  AND  BY  INSTRUMENTS  THEY  ARE  PRODUCED. 

Sound,  as  the  ancients  before  Aristotle^  understood,  is  caused  by 
vibrations  in  the  air;  the  jar  produced  by  a  blow  on  a  wall  causing 
the  wall  to  vibrate,  which  vibrations  are  communicated  to  the  air 
and  through  the  air  to  the  ear ;  the  human  voice,  producing  vibra- 
tions in  the  air,  first  within  and  then  without  the  lungs,  which  in  a 
similar  manner  are  transmitted  to  the  ear.  Sounds  called  musical 
are  caused  by  vibrations  of  the  air  so  rapid  and  regular  that  they 
produce  a  continued  and  agreeable  impression  on  the  ear.  This 
truth  as  to  sounds  in  general  was  taught  by  Kanada,  the  Indian 
philosopher,  while  the  Greeks  were  yet  a  rude  people  ;  and  its  rela- 
tion to  musical  sounds  was  fully  developed  first  by  Pythagoras,  and 
afterwards  more  fully  by  Aristotle  among  that  people  who  led  the 
world  to  Science  in  this,  as  in  other  arts. 

Both  the  general  nature  and  the  special  distinctions  of  musical 
sounds  are  easily  illustrated.  A  wheel  made  to  revolve  with  increas- 
ing rapidity  comes  at  a  certain  velocity  to  give  forth  a  low  musical 
tone;  which  tone  takes  a  higher  pitch  as  the  speed  increases.  A 
cord  gradually  tightened  and  made  to  vibrate,  gives  forth  the  same 
changing  notes ;  for  it  is  not  the  material,  but  the  vibrations  of  the 
air  caused  by  its  concussions  v/hich  produce  the  musical  notes.  All 
musical  tones  are  characterized  by  a  clear  and  smooth  ring  when 
prolonged :  and  as  distinguished  from  each  other  they  are  classified, 
first,  according  to  length,  as  long  and  short;  second,  according  to 
pitch,  as  high  and  low ;  and  third,  according  to  force,  as  loud  and 
soft. 

The  human  voice  is  the  natural  first  instrument  for  producing 
musical  sounds.     A  child  very  soon  catches  the  idea  of  their  nature; 


'  See  Book  I.  c.  1,  §  4. 


70  ART   CRITICISM. 

and  instinctively  gives  his  vocal  organs  the  conformation  to  meet 
them.  The  seven  distinct  notes  of  the  scale,  called  "natural" 
because  all  nations  in  all  ages  fall  into  it,  are  produced  by  a  natural 
and  easy  change  of  the  position  of  the  parts  of  the  throat  and 
mouth ;  the  higher  notes  requiring  compression,  and  the  lower  relax- 
ation of  the  larynx;  both  the  increased  size  and  length  of  the 
vocal  organs  in  mature  life  making  the  natural  notes  deeper  than  in 
the  child's  voice.  To  produce  the  next  succeeding  seven  higher 
notes,  or  the  octaves  in  the  scale,  the  air  passage  is  narrowed  and 
the  breath  is  forced  through  it  with  greater  velocity. 

The  transition  from  the  voice  to  wind  instruments  was  simple  and 
natural.  At  first,  seven  pipes  of  the  same  size,  but  of  different 
lengths,  corresponding  in  this  to  the  changes  of  the  vocal  organs  by 
which  the  successive  notes  were  formed,  were  bound  together,  side  by 
side,  so  that  the  lips  could  pass  readily  from  one  to  the  other;  the 
form  of  musical  instruments  earliest  represented  on  the  monuments 
of  ancient  Egypt ;  and  also  the  simplest  used  now  by  the  rudest 
inhabitants  of  earth,  the  Sandwich  Islanders.  After  this  simplest 
invention,  and  apparently  as  a  natural  suggestion  from  its  principle, 
a  single  reed  or  pipe  with  holes  cut  at  the  proportionate  lengths  was 
found  to  give  the  same  alternation  of  seven  notes ;  while  a  double 
force  of  voice  was  seen  to  produce  the  octaves.  The  next  transition 
seems  to  have  been  to  beaten  instruments.  It  was  observed  that 
elastic  substances,  such  as  a  hide  drawn  over  a  hoop,  or  a  circular 
plate  of  metal  gave  forth  according  to  the  size  of  the  surface  a 
high  or  low  note  corresponding  to  those  of  the  pipes;  and  instru- 
ments of  percussion,  or  beaten  instruments,  like  the  drum  and 
cymbal,  thus  became  an  added  means  of  producing  musical  sounds. 
Next  again,  to  this  class  stringed  instruments  came  to  be  added; 
a  readily  vibrating  cord  when  tightly  stretched  being  perceived 
to  give  the  same  smooth,  clear  ringing  sounds  produced  by  the 
pipe  and  drum;  while,  too,  by  a  variation  of  the  cord,  as  of  the 
pipe,  in  length,  size,  and  tension,  the  same  succession  of  sounds 
pleasant  to  the  ear  were  produced. 

In  every  age,  and  among  people  of  every  stage  of  civilization,  in 
addition  to  simple  strains  performed  by  the  voice,  the  three  kinds  of 
musical  instruments,  already  mentioned,  have  been  found ;  indicating 
that  they  originated  in  a  principle  '*in  the  nature  of  things"  instinct- 
ively suggested  to  man ;  upon  which,  in  no  stage  of  advancement,  can 
he  make  any  material  advance.  In  the  history  of  the  Seventh  gene- 
ration descended  through  Cain  from  the  first  man  we  read  of  Jubal, 


MUSICAL   INSTRUMENTS   PRODUCING   MELODY.  71 

that  "  he  was  the  father  of  all  such  as  handle  the  harp  and  organ  ;"^ 
in  which  mention  advanced  forms  of  stringed  and  wind  instruments, 
though  doubtless  in  the  germ  of  their  development,  are  seen  to  be  in 
use.  In  the  very  earliest  days  of  the  patriarchal  era,  we  read  of 
men  prospered  with  fortune  that  "they  take  the  timbrel  and  harp 
and  rejoice  at  the  sound  of  the  organ  ;"^  the  three  classes  of  instru- 
ments being  thus  introduced  together.  In  the  representations  on  the 
monuments  of  Egypt,  numerous .  varieties  of  each  of  these  classes 
are  found ;  the  fife,  flute,  trumpet,  etc.,  of  the  first  class ;  harps  and 
viols  of  varied  forms  of  the  second  class;  and  the  sistrum,  tam- 
bourine, cymbal  and  drum  of  the  third  class ;  a  variety  and  a  classi- 
fication which  is  illustrated  among  the  kindred  people  of  Assyria  by 
the  mention  in  the  sacred  narrative  of  "the  cornet,  flute,  harp,  sack- 
but,  psaltery,  dulcimer,  and  all  kinds  of  music."^  In  the  polished 
ages  of  Greece,  and  indeed  among  all  the  improvements  of  modern 
mechanical  skill,  nothing  essentially  new  in  musical  instruments  has 
been  discovered;  and  all  added  inventions  in  such  instruments 
have  been  but  variations  of  the  methods  of  producing  musical  sounds 
from  the  vibrations,  first  of  air  in  pipes,  second  of  cords  having 
chiefly  length,  and  third  of  plates  having  extent  in  two  dimensions, 
lateral  as  well  as  longitudinal. 

The  word  melody,  originating  in  the  ancient  Greek  language  in 
very  early  times,  expressed  the  general  effect  of  musical  sounds  on 
the  ear.  In  its  restricted  signification,  as  a  technical  term  of  Art,  it 
refers  to  an  arrangement  of  a  single  musical  strain  for  a  single  voice 
or  instrument.  It  is  appropriately  applied,  therefore,  when  only  one 
part  in  a  musical  composition  is  performed ;  either  the  treble,  tenor, 
or  bass,  though  many  voices  join,  sounding  together  in  each  part  of 
the  strain  the  same  notes.  All  musical  performances,  of  children 
and  rude  tribes,  naturally  take  this  character;  and  the  earlier  and 
simplest  popular  songs,  seldom  committed  to  a  written  form,  are  pure 
melodies,  having  only  one  strain  in  which  all  classes  of  voices  join. 

Sect.  2.  Symphony;   the  consonance  of  musical  sounds,  the  laws  of 

ACCORD    developed   BY  PyTHAGORAS,   AND    THE    CONCERT    OF    DIFFERING 
voices  in  producing  accordant  TONES. 

As  in  all  the  arts,  so  in  Music,  mere  practice  in  execution  preceded 
scientific  study  of  theory.  Even  in  its  advanced  stages  the  ablest 
performer  may  learn  music  as  an  art;  unaware  of  the  science  that  as 


Genesis  iv.  21.  »  Job  xxi.  12.       -^^^5,  » Danieliii.  10. 

/<^^  oiTrmi 


72  ART   CRITICISM. 

a  foundation  must  underlie  all  art.  In  very  early  times  however 
the  ablest  minds  began  to  investigate  the  philosophic  principles  of 
this  everywhere  admired  art,  music,  as  executed  by  the  voice  or 
instrument,  and  as  learned  by  rote  or  by  note. 

In  the  early  ages  of  Egypt  and  of  Greece  there  was  apparently  no 
scientific  analysis  of  the  principles  on  which  musical  notes  are  in 
accord  or  discord  when  sounded  together ;  and  hence  there  was  no 
knowledge  of  the  proportionate  length  and  rapidity  of  aerial  vibra- 
tions considered  as  their  producing  cause.  Ovid  says  of  the  "  Golden 
Ages"^  that  there  were  then  no  distinctive  principles  for  the  construc- 
tion of  the  "straight  trumpet  and  of  the  curved  horn"  made  "from 
brass."  Pythagoras,  however,  after  having  studied  music  as  an  Art 
in  Egypt,  became  possessed  with  the  conviction  that  the  deepest 
principles  of  science,  worthy  the  profoundest  study  of  the  philosopher, 
were  to  be  sought  as  the  basis  of  its  laws ;  and,  while  he  introduced 
music  into  his  school  at  Crotona,  in  Eastern  Italy,  as  an  art  emi- 
nently calculated  to  refine,  he  set  himself  to  the  effort  to  reach  the 
laws  of  nature  on  which  its  subduing  and  moulding  power  were  to 
be  explained. 

The  union  of  Music  and  the  Mathematics  in  the  school  of  Pytha- 
goras, his  occult  theory  of  the  Music  of  the  Spheres,  his  more  myste- 
rious doctrine  of  numbers  as  the  controlling  law  in  all  philosophy, 
which  with  him  embraced  both  science  and  art,  were  not  arbitrary 
and  enigmatical.  These  were  rather  expressive  exponents  of  the 
system  which  his  comprehensive  intellect  had  devised.  Pythagoras 
first  perfected  the  musical  scale,  and  taught  the  law  of  its  transpo- 
sition; and  he  is  said  to  have  been  led  to  the  true  idea  by  this  inci- 
dent. Going  into  a  smith's  shop  one  day,  when  thinking  of  the 
application  of  his  theory  of  numbers  to  sounds,  he  noticed  that  as 
several  smiths  were  striking  the  same  piece  of  iron  with  hammers  of 
different  sizes,  all  the  sounds  w^ere  harmonious  except  one;  and  on 
careful  observation  he  remarked  that  the  harmonious  or  accordant 
sounds  produced  by  the  ring  of  the  same  piece  of  iron  on  the  anvil 
were  the  first,  third  and  fifth  of  the  octave;  while  the  discordant 
ring  was  between  two  of  these  tones.  Reflecting  upon  the  cause  of 
this  diflference  he  could  refer  it  to  nothing  but  the  different  sizes  or 
weights  of  the  hammers.  He,  therefore,  carefully  weighed  the  ham- 
mers ;  and,  on  returning  home,  he  suspended  by  cords  of  the  same 
length  and  size  pieces  of  iron  having  the  same  proportionate  weights 


•  Ovid.  Metaph.  I.  98. 


GRECIAN   KNOWLEDGE   OF   MUSICAL   CHORDS.  73 

as  the  hammers  of  the  smiths.  On  striking  the  cords  thus  tightened 
by  these  weights,  he  observed  that  they  gave  forth  the  notes  corres- 
ponding to  the  ring  of  the  iron.  The  discovery  led  him  to  the  cause 
of  the  distinctions  made  in  musical  sounds,  as  produced  primarily  by 
the  voice,  and  secondarily  by  musical  instruments ;  and  thence  his 
great  mind  proceeded  to  the  application  of  the  law  of  proportions  in 
the  size  of  strings  and  pipes,  which  enabled  the  Greeks  to  improve 
musical  instruments  to  an  indefinite  extent. 

In  order  to  appreciate  the  scientific  principles  to  which  Pythagoras 
was  now  led,  it  is  necessary  first  to  glance  at  the  practical  analysis 
of  musical  sounds  already  reached  by  the  Greeks  and  introduced 
into  their  compositions.  The  law  of  proportion  in  sounds,  pleasant 
to  the  ear,  may  be  simply  stated.  The  vibrations  of  a  tight  cord 
when  struck  produce  corresponding  vibrations  in  the  air  around. 
The  quick  vibrations  produce  an  acute  sound  or  high  note ;  the  slow 
vibrations  a  grave  sound  or  low  note.  The  quickness  of  vibrations 
in  cords  depends  upon  these  three  circumstances ;  the  length  of  the 
cord,  its  size  or  weight,  and  its  tension,  or  the  force  with  which  it  is 
stretched.  The  number  of  vibrations  in  a  stretched  cord,  in  a  given 
period,  as  a  second  of  time,  is  inversely  as  the  length  of  the  cord, 
inversely  as  the  square  root  of  its  weight,  and  directly  as  the  square 
root  of  its  tension.  Hence  in  a  guitar,  harp  or  violin,  one-half  the 
length  of  any  string  vibrates  twice  while  the  whole  vibrates  once ;  in 
two  strings  of  the  same  length,  one  must  be  one-fourth  the  weight  of 
the  other  in  order  to  vibrate  twice  as  rapidly ;  and  the  same  string 
nuist  have  four  pounds  of  tension  put  upon  it  in  order  to  vibrate 
twice  as  quick  as  when  stretched  by  the  tension  of  one  pound.^  When 
the  ratio  of  vibrations  in  two  cords  varying  in  length,  size,  or  ten- 
sion is  as  two  to  one  in  number,  the  note  produced  by  the  shorter, 
the  smaller  or  the  more  tightened  cord  will  be  an  octave  above  the 
note  produced  by  the  other.  A  correspondent  proportion  will  exist 
between  the  number  of  vibrations,  when  the  differences  of  length, 
size  and  tension  are  in  any  other  ratio  than  that  of  one  to  two ;  as  in 
that  of  two  to  three,  of  three  to  four,  etc.  The  same  principle  is 
applicable  to  wind  instruments. 

*  The  mathematical  formulae  obtained  by  combining  all  these  three  elements 

are  T  =  L  -7=    and  N  =  -7^'  in  which  T  =  time  of  one  vibration ;  L  =- 
Vgt'  Vw 

length  of  cord  in  inches ;  "W  =  weight  of  one  inch ;  T  =  tension  in  pounds ; 

G  =  force  of  gravity  in  a  falling  body ;  which  is  386  inches  in  a  second  of  time ; 

N  =  number  of  vibrations  in  a  second  of  time. 

7  K 


74  ART   CRITICISM. 

When  two  cords  vibrate  with  the  same  rapidity,  the  waves  of  air 
vibrating  with  them,  strike  together  on  the  ear  producing  what  is 
called  "  unison ;"  which  the  Greeks  styled  "  omophony,"  or  the  same 
voice.  When  again  the  proportion  between  the  vibrations  are  as 
one  to  two,  two  to  three,  etc.,  or  any  number  such  that  whenever  the 
slower  vibrations  do  occur  they  chime  in  with,  instead  of  acting  against, 
the  quicker  vibrations  in  striking  the  ear,  an  effect  is  produced  pleasant 
to  the  auditory  nerves  which  the  Greeks  called  "symphony;"^  but 
which  in  modern  times  has  taken  the  name  "accord"  or  "chord," 
derived,  also,  from  the  Greek  "chordos.''  Vibrations  of  other  pro- 
portionate numbers  cause  waves  in  the  air  which  clash  Avith  each 
other,  and  thus  produce  the  unpleasant  impression  called  "  discord." 
It  should  be  observed  that  while  these  two  words  symphony  and 
chord  were  distinct  in  early  Greek  usage,  they  came  afterwards  to  be 
used  ag  synonymous ;  while  now  symphony  is  a  name  applied  to  an 
elaborate  musical  composition. 

An  important  fact  here  to  be  noticed  is  that  the  divisions  of  the 
cord  into  two,  three,  four,  and  other  equal  parts  producing  the  octave 
and  kindred  chords  are  natural  not  arbitrary;  self-divided,  not  the 
craft  of  man.  Thus,  if  a  long  tightly  stretched  cord  be  placed  in  the 
crack  of  a  window  so  as  to  be  struck  and  caused  to  vibrate  by  the 
draft  of  air  entering,  it  will  be  observed  that  soon  according  to  the 
strength  of  the  air-current  and  its  manner  of  acting  on  the  cord,  it 
is  vibrating  in  two  equal  parts,  each  half  giving  forth  the  octave 
above  the  note  first  heard.  Soon,  too,  as  the  wind  strengthens,  it  is 
again  vibrating  in  three  separate  parts  each  giving  the  fifth  of  the 
second  octave;  then  that  it  divides  itself  successively  into  four,  five 
and  six  equal  parts,  giving  successively  the  eighth  of  the  second 
octave,  the  third  of  the  third  octave,  and  the  fifth  of  the  third  octave ; 
when  leaping  over  the  division  into  seven  parts  which  would  be  a 
discord  with  the  note  preceding,  the  cord  divides  itself  into  eight 
equal  parts,  and  gives  forth  the  eighth  of  the  third  octave. 

The  same  principle  of  vibrations  in  air  is  observed  in  the  nodes 
into  which  vibrating  solids  and  liquids  are  seen  to  break.  If  a  strong 
cord  several  feet  in  length  be  fastened  at  one  end,  while  the  other, 
held  by  the  hand,  is  made  to  vibrate  up  and  down,  at  first  slowly, 
then  more  rapidly,  its  capacity  to  vibrate  as  a  whole  will  be  soon 


*  Both  the  nouns  omophonia  and  symphonia  and  their  adjectives  are  used  by 
Plato,  Aristotle  and  Plutarch.  Aristotle  illustrates  their  difference  in  his 
Problems  xix.  16,  39. 


PYTHAGORAS'   ANALYSIS   OF   MUSICAL  TONES.  75 

reached;  when  its  oscillations  will  break  first  into  two,  then  into 
three,  then  into  more  equal  nodes.  So  if  a  pebble  be  thrown  into  a 
smooth  lake,  the  first  circling  ripple  necessarily  creates  by  its  oscilla- 
tion a  second,  and  that  a  third,  of  the  same  size  as  the  first,  be  that 
larger  or  smaller. 

It  is  interesting  now  to  observe  that  the  main  principles,  practically 
considered,  in  the  science  and  art  of  Music  as  now  understood,  were 
recognized  by  early  Grecian  philosophers  and  artists;  to  such  an 
extent,  in  fact,  that  we  now  have  to  confess  of  the  English  language 
as  did  the  Roman  Vitruvius  of  the  Latin  tongue,  that  the  very 
terms  we  use  in  musical  science  are  borrowed  from  the  mother-tongue 
of  the  arts.  In  fact,  it  is  nearer  to  the  truth  to  say  that  we  speak 
in  Greek,  using  their  words,  when  any  art  is  our  subject  of  contem- 
plation. The  word  tone  is  Grecian,  from  "  teino,"  to  stretch ;  and  its 
etymology  points  to  the  tension  of  the  cord  as  the  means  of  producing 
the  distinctions  of  musical  sounds  called  tones.  The  division  of  the 
natural  musical  scale  into  two  parts  called  "  tetrachords,"  refers  to 
the  fact  that  the  Greeks  constructed  their  first  rude  lyres  with  four 
"chords,"  or  strings,  so  adjusted  as  to  size,  length,  or  tension,  that 
when  struck  successively  their  tones  were  those  of  the  human  voice 
in  rising  through  the  first  half  of  the  natural  scale;  which  result 
they  found  to  be  secured  by  making  a  difference  of  what  they  called 
a  whole  tone,  or  stretch,  between  the  first  and  second  and  the  second 
and  third  cords,  while  between  the  third  and  the  fourth  cords  half  a 
tone  or  stretch  gave  the  sound  next  struck  naturally  by  the  voice. 
They  then  reached  the  idea  that  three  sounds  are  in  accord  when  the 
second  is  two  tones  above  the  first,  and  the  third  is  one  and  a  half 
tones  above  the  third;  and  that  these  in  conjunction  with  the  sound 
of  the  octave,  or  the  eighth  cord,  the  highest  in  the  second  tetra- 
chord,  produce  the  natural  first  perfect  symphony ;  these  vibrations 
striking  in  so  as  to  harmonize  with  each  other. 

This  practical  science,  already  attained  by  the  Greeks,  Pythagoras 
with  the  hint  he  had  received  proceeded  to  examine  by  experiment ; 
applying  the  rigid  rules  of  mathematical  calculation  in  his  investiga- 
tion. The  result  of  his  experiments  led  to  a  system  of  proportions 
in  cords  giving  out  musical  tones,  most  admirable  in  its  ingenuity. 
Taking  two  strings  of  equal  size,  length  and  tension,  the  Greek 
divided  one  by  a  rest  in  the  middle  into  two  parts ;  when  sounding 
the  whole  of  the  undivided  cord  and  the  half  of  the  divided  one 
together,  the  note  now  called  the  octave  was  obtained;  which  they 
called  "  diapaso7i,^'  because  it  was  necessary  to  go  through  all  the 


76  ART   CRITICISM. 

notes  of  the  scale  to  reach  it.  Again  removing  the  rest  so  as  to  cut 
off  one-third  and  sounding  the  two-thirds  of  the  divided,  together  with 
the  whole  of  the  undivided  cord,  they  obtained  the  fifth  note,  and 
secured  the  chord  which  they  styled  "diapente,"  because  it  was 
necessary  to  go  through  five  notes  to  reach  it.  Yet  again  placing 
the  rest  so  as  to  cut  off  one-fourth  of  the  string,  and  sounding 
together  the  whole  and  the  three-fourths,  they  obtained  the  fourth 
note,  and  the  chord  which  they  named  "  diatesseron,''  because  it  was 
necessary  to  go  through  four  notes  to  reach  it.  Here,  for  the  first 
time,  dividing  the  vibrating  cords  successively  by  the  numbers  two, 
three,  and  four,  two  notes  following  each  other  in  the  order  of  the 
natural  voice  were  found  to  be  one  tone  apart.  Here,  too,  by  striking 
the  portions  of  the  string,  two-thirds  and  three-fourths,  at  the  same 
time  the  first  discord  was  encountered. 

Regarding  now  the  proportion  in  the  length  of  cords  employed 
and  the  number  of  vibrations  produced  in  a  given  time,  it  was 
observed  that  the  first  was  as  one  to  two,  or  a  double  ratio ;  the 
second  as  two  to  three,  or  a  sesquialteral  ratio ;  the  third  as  three  to 
four,  or  a  sesquitertian  ratio ;  while  the  latter,  the  ratio  of  three- 
fourths  to  two-thirds,  Avhich  produced  the  alternation  of  a  natural 
tone  and  the  discord,  was  as  eight  to  nine,  or  a  sesquioctave  ratio. 
This  latter  difference  in  sound  between  these  two  discordant  notes 
was  called  a  "tone;"  and  the  ratio  of  the  length  of  strings,  the  ses- 
quioctave, which  gave  this  first  distinction  of  tone,  they  made  the 
proportion  for  the  division  of  the  others  among  the  seven  tones  not 
yet  fixed;  namely,  the  second  and  third,  the  sixth  and  seventh. 
Beginning  then  with  the  whole  string  they  separated  off  one-ninth 
of  the  whole  by  a  rest,  so  that  the  proportion  between  the  whole  and 
the  larger  portion  cut  off  was  as  nine  to  eight ;  and  this  gave  the 
first  whole  tone,  and  the  second  note  in  the  scale.  The  first  note 
now  called  do,  the  Greek  named  "hypate,"  or  the  low;  and  the 
second,  now  called  re  they  named  '^parhypate"  next  to  the  low. 
Taking  then  again  the  remaining  eight-ninths  of  the  string  as  a 
whole  and  dividing  off  one-ninth  of  it,  so  that  this  second  remainder 
should  be  to  the  first  remainder  in  the  proportion  of  eight  to  nine, 
they  obtained  the  second  whole  tone,  and  the  third  whole  note,  now 
called  mi,  but  named  by  the  Greek,  "luchnos,"  the  light  or  guide. 
Arrived  now  at  this  third  note  the  distance  to  the  point  already  fixed 
of  three-fourths  of  the  string  as  giving  the  fourth  note,  was  so  short 
as  to  make  the  ratio  between  the  lengths  giving  the  third  and  fourth 


NAMES   OF   MUSICAL    NOTES.  77 

notes  only  as  about  fifteen  to  sixteen/  or  about  one-half  of  the  ratio 
proposed  as  the  measure  of  a  whole  tone.  This  half  tone  was  called 
by  the  Greeks,  "  dyesis"  or  division ;  and  the  fourth  note  preceding 
this  division,  was  called  *'mese,"  or  the  middle  note  of  the  scale;  while 
the  fifth  note,  sol,  following  the  division  was  called  "paramese,''  or 
next  to  the  middle.  Finally  dividing  the  remainder  of  the  half 
string,  or  the  distance  between  the  two-thirds  rest  and  the  half  rest, 
eight-ninths  of  the  two-thirds  gave  another  whole  tone  and  the  note 
la,  called  by  the  Greeks,  "trite,"  or  third  from  the  highest.  Yet 
again  eight-ninths  of  that  remainder  of  the  string  gave  another  whole 
tone  and  the  note  si,  called  "paranete,"  or  next  to  the  highest,  by  the 
Greeks.  The  very  short,  yet  remaining,  portion  of  the  string  inter- 
vening between  the  last  mentioned  point  and  the  one-half  which 
gave  the  octave,  called  "7iete,"  by  the  Greek,  was  only  a  half  ratio, 
about  fifteen  to  sixteen,  and  this  gave  a  second  half  tone  in  the  scale. 
The  special  reason  of  Pythagoras  for  the  names  given  to  the  highest 
and  lowest  and  to  the  intervening  notes  of  the  scale  will  be  noticed 
in  the  next  chapter. 

Though  the  scientific  principles  of  the  natural  scale  thus  wrought 
out  by  Pythagoras,  were  unknown  in  earlier,  as  they  are  almost 
forgotten  in  modern  times,  the  scale  itself  was  known  before  the 
Greeks  were  civilized.  The  modern  Indian  musicians  designate  the 
seven  notes  by  the  Sanscrit  words  sa,  ri,  ga,  ma,  pa,  dha,  ni;  their 
origin  showing  their  antiquity.  Probably  the  Indian,  certainly  the 
Greek  musicians,  as  old  Greek  manuscripts  preserved  indicate,  had 
a  system  of  characters  in  which  music  was  committed  to  written 
forms ;  not  unlike  the  modern  method  of  musical  notation.  In  later 
ages  the  musical  scale  has  been  written  on  what  is  called  the  staff, 
consisting  of  five  parallel  lines  with  four  intervening  spaces ;  the  first 
or  lowest  note  of  the  simple  or  natural  scale  being  placed  in  the 
treble  stafi*  on  the  line  below  the  stafi*,  and  in  the  bass  staff*  on  the 
second  space  from  the  bottom.  The  modern  names  given  to  the 
notes  of  the  octave  are  attributed  to  Guido,  a  monk  of  Arezzo,  in 
Italy,  an  eminent  musician,  who  lived  about  A.  D.  1022.  Guido 
derived  the  first  six  from  the  Latin  hymn  to  St.  John  the  Baptist — 

"  TJt  queant  laxis  FavcmM  tuorum, 

JJesonare  libris,  Sol\e  poUuti 

Jlftra  gestorum,  iabii  reatum." 


'  The  ratio  was  between  f  of  f  of  the  string  which  gave  sol  and  f  of  the 
string  which  gave  fa.  The  fractions  reduced  are  f f f  and  ||f ;  or  about  as 
15  to  16. 

7  * 


78  ART   CRITICISM. 

The  seventh  syllable  si  was  afterwards  added  by  Le  Maire,  a  French 
musician.  In  modern  times,  for  convenience'  sake,  arising  from  the 
use  of  abbreviations,  the  notes  of  the  scale  have  been  indicated  by 
the  first  seven  letters  of  the  alphabet ;  the  enumeration  beginning  in 
the  natural  scale  already  considered,  for  a  reason  to  be  observed 
in  the  next  section,  with  C ;  extending  thence  to  G,  then  returning 
to  A,  and  ending  with  B. 

Thus  far  the  longer  portion  of  the  divided  string  has  been  alone 
regarded :  but  now  the  shorter  portions  and  the  notes  produced  by 
them  are  to  be  noticed.  We  have  seen  that  there  are  three  accords 
or  consonances  in  the  octave ;  that  between  the  first  and  fifth,  that 
between  the  first  and  fourth,  and  that  again  between  the  first  and 
eighth ;  which  the  Greeks  called  respectively  "  diapente,"  "  diatesse- 
ron,"  and  "  diapason ;"  and  which,  because  found  in  the  natural  scale, 
were  called  simple  chords.  If  now  the  shorter  portion  of  the  divided 
cord,  the  one-third,  be  vibrated,  it  is  found  to  give  the  fifth  of  the 
second  octave ;  and  this,  in  concert  with  the  sound  of  the  whole  cord, 
formed  what  the  Greeks  called  "  diapason-diapente,"  now  called  the 
twelfth ;  which  is  one  of  the  sweetest  of  all  chords,  its  ratio  being  a 
triple  one.  Yet  again,  if  the  fourth  of  the  entire  cord  be  sounded, 
the  octave  of  the  second  scale  is  obtained,  called  by  the  Greeks  "bis- 
diapason,"  and  now  named  the  fifteenth  or  double  octave ;  which  is 
also  a  pleasant  chord,  the  ratio  of  its  vibrations  to  those  of  the  whole 
string  being  as  one  to  four,  or  a  quadruple  ratio.  These  five,  three 
simple  and  two  composite,  were  the  principal  chords  as  developed  by 
the  Greeks.     They  covered,  of  course,  but  two  octaves. 

Modern  improvements  have  introduced  three  or  four  octaves  into 
the  range  of  musical  instruments.  The  proportion  of  strings  which 
will  produce  these  several  successive  scales  of  notes  are  as  follows : 

1st  Octave.  1  — f  —  f  —  f  —  f  —  f  —  i^j  — i 

2d  Octom  i-l-f  —  l-i-xV  — A-J 
Zd  Octave,  i  - 1— ^-^a^- i-^  — ^2^- i 

^th  Octave,  i  —  i  —  i^j^  —  3%  —  yV  —  ^  —  t  a  —  tV 

In  each  successive  octave  the  proportionate  lengths  of  cord  giving 
the  several  notes  are  one-half  the  lengths  giving  the  corresponding 
notes  in  the  previous  octave;  and  this  is  obtained,  when  the  numera- 
tors are  even  numbers,  by  dividing  them  by  two,  and  when  the 
numerators  are  odd  numbers,  by  multiplying  the  denominator  by  two. 
Since,  now,  the  number  of  vibrations  in  cords  in  a  given  time  is 
inversely  as  their  lengths,  the  number  of  vibrations  in  each  of  the 


HARMONICAL   PROPOETIONS.  79 

proportionate  lengths,  indicated  by  the  fractions  above  given,  will  be 
indicated  by  the  same  fractions  inverted.  Thus,  the  proportionate 
number  of  vibrations  in  a  given  time  of  cords  producing  the  first 
two  octaves  will  be  as  follows : 

1st  Octave.  1  — f— I  — f  — f  — f— ¥  — 2 
2d  Octave.  2  — f  —  f  —  f  —  3— V  —  V" 4 

If  these  fractions  be  reduced  to  their  common  denominator,  which  is 
24,  they  will  then  be  to  each  other  as  their  numerators ;  or  as 

1st  Octave.  24 :  27  :  30 :  32 :  36 :  40 :  45 :  48 
2d  Octave.  48 :  56 :  60 :  64 :  72 :  80 :  90 :  96. 

In  each  octave  there  are  three  sets  of  proportions.  The  ratios 
between  the  1st  and  2d,  4th  and  5th,  6th  and  7th,  namely,  24  to  27, 
and  32  to  36,  and  40  to  45,  are  as  8  to  9.  The  ratios  between  the 
2d  and  3d,  and  the  5th  and  6th,  namely,  27  to  30,  and  36  to  40,  are 
as  9  to  10.  The  ratios  between  the  3d  and  4th,  and  the  7th  and  8th, 
namely,  30  to  32,  and  45  to  48,  are  as  15  to  16.  It  should  be  care- 
fully observed,  therefore,  that  of  the  five  intervals  called  whole  tones 
in  the  scale,  three  are  of  a  larger  ratio  than  the  other  two ;  while 
the  intervals  called  half  tones  are  not  precisely  the  halves  of  those 
marking  the  whole  tones. 

From  the  relations  of  the  intervals  which  produce  chords  a  system 
of  proportions  and  progressions  called  "  harmonical "  has  been  de- 
duced, which  are  noticed  by  some  algebraists.^  Thus  the  intervals 
producing  the  four  chords  in  the  first  octave,  that  is,  those  producing 
the  first,  third,  fifth  and  eighth  are  in  this  proportion ;  "  the  first  is 
to  the  fourth  as  the  difference  between  the  first  and  second  is  to  the 
difference  between  the  third  and  fourth,"  or  24 :  48  : :  30—24 :  48— 
36  ;  i.  e.  1 :  2 : :  6  ;  12.  Again  the  intervals  between  the  1st  and  5th 
of  the  first  octave,  and  the  5th  of  the  second  octave,  are  in  the  fol- 
lowing proportion;  "the  first  is  to  the  third  as  the  difference  between 
the  first  and  second  is  to  the  difference  between  the  second  and 
third ;"  or  24 :  72 : ;  36—24 :  72—36  ;  i.  e.  1 :  3  : :  12 :  36.  These  pro- 
portions coming  within  the  two  octaves  which  limit  the  ordinary 
range  of  the  human  voice  are  called  "Harmonical  Proportions." 
Yet  again,  the  numbers  representing  the  proportionate  vibrations  of 
the  cords  marked  in  the  scale  of  four  octaves  as  1,  2,  i,  i,  i,  i,  etc., 
inverted,  reduced  to  a  common  denominator,  and  their  numerators 


'  See  Loomis'  Algebra,  Sects,  xiii.  and  xiv. 


80  ART   CRITICISM. 

put  in  proportion  would  give  this  progression  in  each  successive  three 
terms ;  "  the  first  is  to  the  third  as  the  difference  of  the  first  and 
second  is  to  the  diflTerence  of  the  second  and  third."  Thus,  the  frac- 
tions mentioned,  inverted  and  reduced,  have,  as  their  numerators, 
60,  30,  20,  15,  12,  10;  in  which  the  progression  mentioned  is  seen  in 
the  several  ratios ;  60 :  20 : :  60—30 :  30—20 ;  also  30 :  15 : :  30—20 : 
20—15 ;  also  20 :  12 : :  20—15 :  15—12 ;  also  15:10::  15—12 :  12—10. 
As  the  lengths  of  string  mentioned  produce  the  first,  the  octave,  the 
twelfth,  the  double  octave,  the  seventeenth,  the  nineteenth,  etc.,  all 
of  which  are  chords  and  in  harmony,  the  progression  here  stated  is 
called  "Harmonical  Progression." 

The  consideration  of  symphony  leads  on,  as  indicated  by  the  point 
last  considered,  to  harmony.  The  Greek  word  "symphony"  refers 
immediately  to  the  consonance  of  associated  voices  of  different  tone 
singing  the  same  melody.  Even  savages,  however,  distinguish  the 
changing  tones  of  voice  in  growing  youth,  and  the  different  pitch  of 
the  mature  male  and  female  voices ;  and  in  their  simple  melodies  the 
male  voice  at  its  change  sings  the  same  common  strain  a  fifth  below. 
Besides  this  first  variation  yet  a  third,  a  fifth  below  the  ordinary 
male  voice,  is  heard  from  men  of  deeper  toned  voices ;  a  fact  noticed 
among  the  native  tribes  of  Africa,  and  also  among  the  negroes  of  the 
American  continent  in  their  sacred  songs.  The  very  earliest  stage 
of  improvement  causes  these  naturally  differing  parallelisms  of  the 
same  strain,  to  vary  more  and  more ;  and  the  study  of  symphonies, 
or  accords,  leads  at  length  to  the  independent  strains  which  make  up 
the  different  parts  in  the  music  of  an  orchestra.  First,  male  voices, 
which  seem  to  differ  most  from  each  other,  are  trained  according  to 
their  pitch  to  sing  strains  of  different  pitch  and  cadence,  yet  in 
accord  with  each  other  and  with  the  original  principal  strain. 
Finally,  in  the  last  stage  of  advancement  a  distinction  is  observed  in 
female  voices ;  the  voice  of  most  women  being  found  to  be  much 
shriller  than  that  of  some  females  and  of  boys  of  half  growth.  The 
Brahmins  of  India  have  now,  and  from  time  immemorial,  even  be- 
fore the  Greeks  were  a  cultured  people,  have  had  three  parts,  or 
parallel  strains  in  their  music.  The  fact  that  Pythagoras  studied 
music  in  India  justifies  the  supposition  that  these  three  parts  were 
anciently,  as  they  are  now,  the  three  specially  mentioned  by  Plato 
in  his  Republic.  In  a  beautiful  figure  picturing  the  triple  virtues 
that  a  good  magistrate  should  possess  in  union,  Plato  says,  "he 
should  attune  them  like  the  three  musical  chords,  bass,  tenor  and 
treble."     The  common  four-fold  division  of  parts  is  indicated  by  the 


EARLY   DIVISION   OF   HALF-NOTES   IN   MUSIC.  81 

three  terms  derived  from  the  Latin;  namely,  "bass"  or  the  low  part, 
"tenor"  or  the  medium  pitch,  and  "treble"  that  is  the  triple,  third, 
or  high  part.  Modern  refinement  has  introduced  a  sub-division  of 
each  of  these;  adding  for  the  range  of  female  voices  a  part  called  by 
the  Italian  word  "soprano"  or  high,  to  which  is  sometimes  added  a 
"mezzo-soprano"  or  midhigh;  for  the  range  of  medium  male  voice 
"alto"  a  high  tenor;  and  for  the  range  of  lower  male  voices  the 
barytone,  or  deep-toned,  from  the  Greek  barytonos,  which  is  a  higher 
bass.  In  the  practical  business  of  teaching  music  it  is  found  that 
while  the  voice  may  sound  with  ease  notes  both  higher  and  lower, 
the  range  of  tones  to  be  specially  cultured  by  those  singing  different 
parts  is  as  follows;  for  the  soprano  or  treble  from  B  below  to  A 
above  the  staff;  for  the  alto  or  second  treble  from  G  below  to  B  or 
C;  for  the  tenor  from  E  to  G;  for  the  bass  from  F  below  to  T>  above; 
ftnd  for  the  barytone  from  F  below  to  F  above.  In  early  life  the 
voices  of  both  boys  and  girls  are  alike  naturally  adapted  to  the 
treble;  after  the  change  occurring  at  maturity,  some  girls'  voices, 
and  during  this  change  most  boys'  voices,  are  fitted  for  the  alto; 
while  men's  voices  at  maturity  are  suited  some  to  the  tenor,  some  to 
the  barytone,  and  some  to  the  bass. 

Sect.  3.  Harmony;  The  three  scales  of  musical  tones  on  which  it 
IS  founded;  the  delicate  shades  of  tone  and  the  tempering  of 
musical  instruments  by  which  its  highest  effects  are  secured. 

Thus  far  we  have  considered  the  succession  of  musical  notes  appro- 
priately called  the  "natural  scale;"  since  it  is  the  order  of  musical 
tones  which  men  by  nature,  without  any  of  the  arts  of  culture,  have 
in  all  ages  employed.  In  this  scale,  as  we  have  observed,  the  half 
tones  occur  between  the  third  and  fourth  and  between  the  seventh 
and  eighth  notes  of  the  octave.  This  scale  was  called  the  diatonic 
by  the  Greeks  because  the  voice  or  instrument  passes  in  rising  through 
it,  over  all  the  natural  divisions  of  tones. 

As,  however,  the  voice  or  instrument  at  the  two  points  mentioned 
divides  a  tone  and  finds  the  intermediate  half  tone  to  be  a  musical 
note,  the  question  was  a  natural  one  whether  divisions  might  not  be 
introduced  between  the  whole  tones;  so  that  each  should  have  a 
half  tone  in  pitch  above  or  below  itself  interposed  between  it  and 
the  next  succeeding  note.  If,  for  instance,  the  rest  before  fixed  at 
given  distances,  as  a  half,  third,  fourth,  eighth  and  ninth,  were  made 
to  slide  gradually  along,  shortening  the  cord  from  the  whole  to  the 
half  length,  the  cord,  vibrating  meanwhile,  would  give  forth  an 

L 


82  ART  CRITICISM. 

unbroken  succession  of  varied  tones,  ringing  or  musical  in  their 
nature,  divided  not  simply  into  halves  or  quarters,  but  into  infinitesi- 
mally  small  differences  of  pitch.  If  now,  any  of  these  intervals 
could  be  so  divided  that  the  voice  would  pass  from  one  to  the  other 
with  ease,  and  give  forth  as  in  the  natural  or  diatonic  scale  a  succes- 
sion of  notes  agreeable  in  themselves,  readily  struck  one  after 
another,  by  the  voice,  and  having  their  intervals  regularly  propor- 
tioned so  as  to  secure  accords  at  given  distances,  a  range  of  pleasant 
sounds  greatly  multiplied  could  be  secured ;  and  that  too,  within  the 
compass  of  the  human  voice  which  ranges  over  only  about  two 
octaves.  It  is  an  interesting  illustration  of  the  character  of  the 
Asiatic  race  as  respects  progress  in  art,  that  while  the  Chinese  have 
had,  even  centuries  before  Christ,  not  only  the  natural  scale,  but  a 
division  of  it  into  twelve  half  tones,  yet  they  have  never  so  applied 
this  knowledge  as  to  secure  the  higher  effects  of  music.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  superior  Brahminic  race  in  India  reached  a  worthy 
advance  in  musical  culture,  which  they  have  retained  to  this  day ; 
while,  moreover,  the  Persian  musicians,  of  the  same  superior  stock 
with  the  Brahmins,  now  go  into  China  as  masters  in  higher  musical 
performances.  The  perfection  of  this  system  of  division  in  musical 
tones  attained  by  the  Greeks,  realized  what  they  designated  by  the 
word  "Harmony." 

The  first  effort  naturally  was  to  multiply  in  half  tones;  two  of 
which  had  already  been  found  so  agreeable  in  the  natural  scale.  A 
succession  of  such  half  tones  interposed  between  the  five  notes  of 
the  scale  which  were  separated  by  a  whole  tone,  made  twelve  instead 
of  seven  different  notes  to  the  octave,  thus  giving  greater  variety  in 
the  same  compass.  According  as  these  half  tones  were  reckoned  to 
be  above  the  note  below,  or  below  the  note  above,  they  were  called 
"sharp,"  or  "flat;"  a  slight  sharpening  or  contracting  of  the  vocal 
organs  when  sounding  any  one  note  readily  giving  a  note  half  a  tone 
higher  in  pitch,  and  a  slight  flattening  or  relaxing  of  the  muscles 
controlling  the  voice,  giving  a  note  half  a  tone  lower  than  the  one 
just  sounded.  Arranging  these  new  notes  between  the  notes  of  the 
natural  scale,  a  new  scale  was  formed;  which,  because  of  the  over- 
lapping of  its  tones  like  colors  in  painting,  or  from  its  producing  a 
variegated  and  adorned  style  of  music,  the  Greeks  called  the  "  Chro- 
matic Scale,"  from  "chroma"  color. 

In  constructing  the  scale  of  sharps  and  flats,  the  fixed  law  of  the 
movement  of  the  human  voice  in  tones  and  half  tones  becomes  more 
apparent.     Taking  three  octaves  of  the  natural  scale,  one  above  the 


TRANSPOSITION   OF   THE  SCALE.  83 

other,  below  that'  of  the  ordinary  pitch,  the  new  or  chromatic  scale 
is  constructed  by  what  is  called  "transposition  of  the  scale."  Com- 
mencing with  G,  the  fifth  note  in  the  diatonic  scale,  and  making  it 
the  first  note  of  a  new  scale,  there  are  found  from  G  to  C  two  whole 
tones  and  a  half  tone ;  giving  the  same  succession  as  from  C  to  F. 
Proceeding,  however,  to  make  out  the  remainder  of  the  new  scale, 
which  requires  three  tones  and  a  half  tone,  we  find  a  half  tone  from 
E  to  F,  where  the  new  scale  demands  a  whole  tone ;  and  hence  F 
must  be  raised  in  pitch  a  half  tone ;  which  is  indicated  by  the  mark 
called  a  sharp.  This  is  the  first  transposition  by  sharps ;  and  by  it 
one  division  of  a  whole  tone,  and  one  new  note,  is  secured.  Com- 
mencing again  with  the  fifth  of  this  second  scale,  or  D,  as  the  first 
note  of  a  third  scale  we  find  between  D,  F  sharp  and  G,  the  two 
tones  and  a  half  tone  required  in  the  third  scale ;  but,  to  obtain  three 
whole  tones  succeeding,  C  must  be  made  sharp.  This  is  the  second 
transposition  by  sharps ;  which  secures  a  second  division  and  one  more 
note.  Beginning  again  with  the  fifth  of  this  new  scale,  or  A,  and 
proceeding  in  the  same  manner,  we  find  that  G,  in  addition  to  F.  and 
C,  must  be  sharpened ;  and  this,  again,  is  the  third  transposition  by 
sharps.  Beginning  again  with  the  fifth  of  this  last  scale,  or  E,  we 
find  that  T>  must  be  sharpened ;  giving  the  fourth  transposition  by 
sharps.  This  process  may  be  continued  till  all  the  possible  divisions 
of  tones  realized  in  the  "Enharmonic  Scale"  are  exhausted. 

We  have  already  observed  that  the  Greeks,  by  experiment,  found 
the  first  separate  whole  tone  between  the  fifth  of  the  scale,  produced 
by  two-thirds  of  the  length  of  the  cord,  and  the  fourth  of  the  scale, 
produced  by  three-fourths  of  the  same  length.  In  transposition  by 
sharps  we  have  begun  with  the  fifth  of  the  natural  scale,  the  first  of 
the  two  points  mentioned.  Taking  now  the  second  instead  of  the 
first  of  the  notes  by  which  the  Greeks  fixed  the  interval  of  a  tone, 
namely,  the  fourth  of  the  scale,  and  constructing  another  set  of 
scales,  we  have  the  transposition  by  flats.  Commencing  with  C  of 
the  natural  scale,  and  making  the  fourth  note,  or  F,  the  first  of  a 
new  scale,  since  three  whole  tones  follow  F  in  the  natural  scale, 
while  the  new  scale  requires  two  whole  and  a  half  tone,  the  fourth 
in  order  from  F,  or  B,  must  be  flattened  so  as  to  introduce  into  the 
new  scale  a  half  tone  where  there  was  a  whole  tone  in  the  natural 
scale.  This  gives  the  scale  of  one  flat.  Beginning  again  with  the 
fourth  of  this  new  scale,  or  B,  already  flattened,  E  becomes  the 
fourth,  and  must  also  be  flattened ;  and  this  gives  the  scale  of  two 
flats.    Beginning  with  E,  flattened,  A  becomes  the  fourth  of  a  third 


84  ART  CRITICISM. 

scale ;  in  which  there  are  three  flats.  Beginning  yet  once  more  with 
A,  flattened,  D  becomes  the  fourth  of  yet  another  scale,  or  that  of 
four  flats.  These  transpositions  can  be  carried  no  farther ;  since,  if 
we  begin  with  D  flat,  G  flat  would  be  the  fourth,  and  D  flat  the 
octave  of  the  new  scale ;  a  process  which  finally  exhausts  itself,  as 
in  the  scale  of  sharps. 

Having  arrived  at  the  construction  of  this,  the  "Chromatic  Scale" 
of  the  Greeks,  and  that  by  a  nicety  of  analysis,  such  as  we,  who  have 
received  without  cost  the  practical  result  of  their  labors,  can  hardly 
appreciate,  the  Greek  philosopher  went  farther  and  wrought  out  the 
more  intricate  "Enharmonic  Scale;"  which  is,  as  the  derivation  of 
its  Greek  name  indicates,  a  measure  in  harmony  with,  fitted  into,  the 
other  scales.  The  practical  application  of  its  principles  belongs  to 
the  highest  order  of  musical  composition ;  though  the  principle  of  its 
construction  may  be  briefly  and  clearly  stated.  As  we  have  seen, 
the  intervals  fixed  as  whole  tones  are  not  uniform ;  the  ratio  of  some 
being  8:9  and  of  others  9:10;  while,  though  the  semitones  of  the 
natural  scale  are  of  the  same  ratio  15 :  16,  those  of  the  semitones 
brought  in  by  transposition  of  the  scale  between  whole  tones  having 
the  differing  ratios  of  8  :  9  and  of  9  :  10  must  produce  semitones  of 
different  ratios.  Taking  all  these  varied  intervals  and  dividing  them 
by  a  common  measure  small  enough  to  be  a  common  divisor,  and 
calling  these  minute  equal  subdivisions,  as  the  Greeks  did  ^^  commas,'' 
that  is,  segments  or  slides,  it  is  found  that  nine  of  them  are  the 
measure  of  the  larger  intervals  and  eight  of  the  smaller  intervals 
forming  whole  tones ;  while  the  measure  of  the  diatonic  or  natural 
half  tone  was  five  commas,  and  that  of  the  chromatic  semitone  either 
three  or  four  commas.  In  the  enharmonic  scale  two  chromatic  half- 
tones and  a  quarter  of  a  half-tone,  sometimes  called  a  "vibration," 
were  made  the  interval  given  to  a  tone.  In  making  use  of  the  en- 
harmonic scale  in  music,  not  only  the  voice,  which  has  a  limited 
compass,  but  musical  instruments  covering  an  extended  range  of 
tones  are  employed.  The  human  voice  readily  attains  the  transitions 
of  tone  which  give  the  sweet  symphonies  or  chords,  and  the  delicate 
alternations  and  successions  of  notes  belonging  to  harmony.  In  the 
construction  of  instruments,  particularly  of  keyed  instruments,  as  the 
piano  and  organ,  the  securing  of  the  minute  divisions  of  tones 
required  in  the  enharmonic  scale  is  attended  with  difficulty.  While 
the  ordinary  compass  of  a  single  human  voice  is  but  two  octaves,  and 
the  entire  range  of  any  number  of  voices  of  different  natural  pitch  is 
not  more  than  four  or  five  octaves,  to  the  compass  of  musical  instru- 


TEMPERAMENT  OF  INSTRUMENTS.  85 

ments  there  is  scarcely  any  assignable  limit.  Though  musical  instru- 
ments have  in  all  lands  and  ages  been  of  the  same  three  classes, 
wind,  stringed  and  beaten  instruments,  yet  the  variety  in  form  and 
size  of  each  has  afforded  a  great  range  of  tone.  Among  the  Hebrews, 
and  their  neighbors  the  Egyptians  and  the  Assyrians,  the  varieties 
of  each  of  these  classes  now  observed  in  sculptures  on  their  monu- 
ments is  surprising  to  the  student  of  art;  and  as  all  must  have  been 
constructed  to  be  used  in  concert,  and  as  musical  compositions  must 
have  been  framed  so  as  to  take  in  their  varied  range  of  tones,  the 
conception  we  are  forced  to  form  of  the  knowledge  of  musical  com- 
binations attained  in  these  primitive  nations  assumes  a  vastness  like 
to  that  of  their  works  of  art  in  Sculpture  or  Architecture.  In  the 
Hebrew  of  the  Old  Testament  the  names  of  no  less  than  seven  differ- 
ent wind  instruments,  of  eight  stringed  instruments  and  of  four  beaten 
instruments  are  given;  while  upon  the  walls  of  the  tombs  of  Egypt 
the  varieties  of  each  of  the  classes  represented  are  almost  numberless. 
The  Greeks  apparently  had  a  less  variety  of  instruments;  yet  the 
allusions  of  Plato  and  Aristotle  to  the  stringed  instruments  that 
existed  in  their  day  indicate  that  these  instruments  were  constructed 
so  as  to  form  together  one  grand  whole  when  brought  into  concert. 
Modern  skill  in  mechanical  applications  has  converted  the  harp,  the 
chief  representative  of  stringed  instruments,  into  the  piano,  whose 
strings  are  struck  with  pedals  instead  of  by  the  fingers.  It  has  em- 
bodied in  the  organ  every  variety  of  tone  belonging  to  wind  instru- 
ments, and  has  put  under  the  magic  power  of  one  performer  no  less 
than  eight  octaves ;  a  compass  not  only  covering  all  instruments  for- 
merly invented,  and  now  used  in  concert,  but  overlapping  the  range 
of  them  all  by  about  an  octave  below  and  by  more  than  an  octave 
above.  At  the  same  time  the  range  of  ancient  wind,  stringed  and 
beaten  instruments  has  probably  been  increased  rather  than  dimin- 
ished. Among  the  noblest  triumphs  of  art  nothing  can  be  grander 
than  the  performance  of  one  of  the  great  oratorios  of  the  ablest  Ger- 
man composers,  when  to  a  full  choir  and  orchestra  is  united  the 
deep  swell,  the  sublime  roll  and  the  flashing  and  dancing  chiaroscuro 
that  pours  from  the  hundred  mouths  of  such  an  organ  as  that  in  the 
immense  Music  Hall  at  Boston,  Mass.,  those  of  Haarlem  and  the 
Cathedral  of  Ulm  in  Germany,  and  that  in  the  Town  Hall  of  Bir- 
mingham, England. 

The  necessary  want  of  entire  accuracy  in  the  nicer  shades  of  tone 
incident  to  all  keyed  instruments,  such  as  the  piano  and  the  organ, 
makes  them  to  a  certain  extent  imperfect  in  securing  the  higher 

8 


86  ART  CEITICISM. 

effects  of  harmony.  The  nature  of  this  fact  and  the  impossibility  of 
fully  meeting  it  is  apparent  on  a  moment's  consideration.  As  we 
have  already  seen,  the  proportionate  intervals  between  the  whole 
tones  are  not  of  the  same  measure.  Thus  between  the  1st  and  2d, 
the  4th  and  5th,  and  the  6th  and  7th  notes  the  intervals  are  as  8  to 
9 ;  while  between  the  2d  and  3d  and  the  5th  and  6th  they  are  as  9 
to  10.  When  now  in  transposing  the  scale,  the  5th  is  taken  as  the 
1st,  the  interval  between  this  and  the  6th,  being  only  as  9 :  10  instead 
of  8  : 9,  must  be  slightly  lengthened  so  as  to  make  the  2d  of  the  new 
scale  preserve  the  natural  alternation  of  tone.  The  pitch,  in  other 
words,  of  re  in  the  scale  of  one  sharp  is  slightly  higher  than  of  re  in 
the  natural  scale.  The  voice  readily  makes  these  required  changes 
of  pitch ;  the  violinist  as  readily  secures  it  by  very  slightly  shorten- 
ing or  lengthening  his  strings  in  fingering  his  instrument ;  the  flutist 
with  comparative  ease,  accomplishes  it  by  varying  the  angle  at  which 
he  blows  into  his  instrument  or  in  the  pressure  of  his  fingers  on  the 
holes  increasing  or  diminishing  their  size,  and  allowing  a  greater  or 
less  escape  of  air,  and  thus  increasing  or  diminishing  the  velocity  and 
force  of  its  vibrations.  But  in  keyed  instruments,  in  the  piano  the 
length  of  the  string,  in  the  organ  the  angle  of  the  wind's  pressure 
and  the  size  of  the  orifice,  are  fixed  in  the  mechanism ;  and  no  finger- 
ing can  vary  them.  The  only  possible  resort  is  to  what  is  called 
"  tempering ;"  the  fixing,  for  example,  of  the  6th  note  of  the  natural 
scale  not  precisely  at  an  interval  of  8  to  9,  nor  of  9  to  10  from  the 
5th,  but  at  an  interval  intermediate  between  them ;  so  that  the  frac- 
tion, reducing  both  to  a  large  common  denominator,  shall  not  be  f 
ori|f,nor3%ori||,buti|i. 

Sect.  4.  Musicai.  Composition;  the  impressions  on  the  sensibilities 
sought  by  music ;  the  modes  of  whiting  music ;  the  major  and  minor 
chords  and  their  esthetic  effects ;  the  keys  and  ruling  notes  in 
musical  composition. 

No  pleasure  is  of  a  lasting  and  noble  nature  unless  some  end  for 
good  is  attendant  on  its  pursuit;  and  when  from  being  the  mere 
unconnected  hum  of  the  child  at  its  play,  singing  becomes  a  con- 
nected strain,  the  subject  of  musical  composition  is  suggested  for 
consideration.  Musical  composition  relates  directly  to  the  musical 
strain  alone  which  the  musician  employs,  whether  performed  by  the 
voice  or  instrument ;  the  sentiments  or  Avords  which  may  be  connected 
with  the  strain  belonging  to  the  subject  of  Musical  Expression. 
Musical  composition  is  designed  to  promote  individual  gratification, 


ENDS   SOUGHT    BY    AfUSICAL   COMPOSITION.  87 

incitement  to  public  deeds  of  heroism,  and  the  awakening  of  reli- 
gious enthusiasm.  The  private,  as  well  as  public  dance,  is  made 
artistic  and  pleasurable  chiefly  from  the  musical  accompaniment; 
and  in  sacred  and  profane  history,^  as  well  as  in  universal  present 
practice,  the  one  is  the  natural  stimulus  to  the  other.  The  march 
of  armed  men,  heavily  burdened  with  accoutrements  and  provisions, 
is  a  toil  which  would  be  intolerable  but  for  the  nerving  impulse 
produced  by  martial  music ;  and  even  the  camels  of  the  Desert  of 
Arabia  in  their  weary  journey  are  seen  to  walk  with  a  quickened 
and  more  buoyant  step  as  the  soft  notes  of  the  flute  are  struck  up  by 
their  riders.  Every  form  of  religious  worship  also,  not  more  the 
idol  adoration  of  ancient  Egypt  and  Assyria,^  and  of  modern  Asia, 
than  the  philosophic  idealism  of  old  Greece  and  of  youthful  America, 
alike  the  most  formal  and  the  most  spiritual  devotion  of  Jewish  and 
Christian  assemblies,  has  employed  instrumental  as  distinct  from 
vocal  music.  As  under  the  Old  Testament  the  use  of  instrumental 
music  is  commanded  to  Moses  who  was  required  to  make  silver 
trumpets  for  the  tabernacle  service,  and  was  hallowed  by  David  and 
Solomon,  who  exhausted  the  skill  of  human  genius  in  the  grandeur 
of  the  orchestra  for  the  Hebrew  temple,  so  in  the  New  Testament 
we  are  taught  by  the  example  of  Christ,  who  sang  a  hymn  with  his 
disciples,  and  by  the  allusions  of  Paul,  who  speaks  of  the  pipe  and 
harp  as  associated  with  the  "singing  of  hymns  and  psalms"  in  early 
Christian  worship,  and  of  John,  who  pictures  the  delights  of  the 
upper  w^orld  itself  as  enhanced  by  "  the  music  of  golden  harps."^ 

In  order  to  meet  the  ends  thus  sought,  music  must  take  a  com- 
posite form.  Even  the  child,  pleased  but  a  short  time  with  the 
unmeaning  note  of  a  whistle  or  trumpet,  catches  with  eagerness  and 
repeats  with  exhaustless  delight,  the  infantile  lay  of  the  nursery,  or 
the  rude  song  of  the  streets.  Long  before  any  method  of  writing, 
either  the  words  of  language  or  the  notes  of  music,  is  understood, 
among  savage  peoples,  a  crude  combination  of  successive  notes 
formed  into  tunes  is  heard  from  their  rude  pipes  and  viols ;  which, 
so  perfectly  conformed  to  law  are  all  nature's  unstudied  promptings, 
scientific  travelers  have  been  able  to  put  into  the  form  of  a  written 
composition.  The  early  Greeks  understood  the  art  of  written  musical 
composition ;  though  their  methods  of  notation  are  lost. 

In  the  modern  writing  of  music  five  parallel  lines  with  four  inter- 


'  Job  xxi.  11,  12 ;  Exodus  xv.  20 ;  Luke  xv.  25. 
*  Daniel  iii.  5.  ^  Numbers  x.  2. 


88  ART   CRITICISM. 

vening  spaces,  called  the  "staff,"  furnish  a  scale  upon  which  the  notes 
indicating  the  pitch  and  succession  of  tones  are  inscribed.  The  four 
ordinary  parts  are  usually  written  on  four,  though  sometimes  on  two 
separate  staffs.  That  all  the  notes  within  the  compass  of  the  voices 
of  different  pitch  may  be  brought  into  the  range  of  the  staff,  the 
first  note  of  the  scale  employed  in  any  piece  of  music  is  written 
upon  a  higher  or  lower  line  or  space  upon  the  staff,  according  to  the 
natural  pitch  of  the  voices  performing  each  part.  The  place  of  that 
first  note  is  indicated  by  a  character  called  a  clef  or  key ;  of  which 
there  are  usually  three.  The  first  called  the  G  "  clef,"  or  key,  has  G 
on  the  second  line  from  the  bottom  arranged  for  the  treble  or  highest 
part.  The  second  or  C  clef  has  C  on  the  first  line  for  the  soprano, 
on  the  second  line  for  the  mezzo-soprano,  on  the  third  line  for  the 
alto,  and  on  the  fourth  line  for  the  tenor.  The  third  called  the  F 
clef  has  F  on  the  third  line  for  the  barytone,  and  on  the  fourth  line 
for  the  bass. 

In  the  practical  business  of  musical  composition  the  principles  of 
"accord"  and  of  "harmony"  are  brought  into  requisition.  To 
become  master  of  all  the  minute  variations  of  tones,  half  tones  and 
quarter  tones,  and  of  their  consonance  in  perfect  chords,  as  well  as 
of  their  frequently  agreeable  partial  dissonance  when  sounded 
together,  and  thus  to  attain  to  the  symphony  of  the  Greeks,  to  add 
to  this  the  consistent  and  grateful  lapping  and  blending  of  consecu- 
tive chords  as  they  chime  in  after  each  other  in  a  continued  musical 
strain,  and  thus  to  reach  the  harmony  of  the  Greeks,  and  then  to 
embody  in  musical  composition  this  concurrence  of  chords  and 
succession  of  harmonies,  demands  a  comprehensiveness  of  study,  an 
acuteness  of  critical  skill,  and  a  grasp  of  genius  equal  to  that  requi- 
site in  the  higher  fields  of  plastic  art.  Haydn  and  Mozart  were  the 
Lionardo  and  Angelo  of  music ;  and  Beethoven  was  a  Raphael. 

The  chords  take  different  technical  names  in  the  vocabulary  of 
the  musical  composer;  serving  as  they  do  for  aids  in  the  analysis 
and  synthesis  he  must  employ  in  his  work.  The  "common  chord" 
consists  of  three  different  notes  in  the  scale  sounded  together;  and  it 
is  called  a  "perfect"  chord  when  the  first,  third,  and  fifth  of  the 
same  scale  are  thus  united  in  sound.  Chords  are  called  "close" 
when  the  three  notes  in  accord  are  within  the  compass  of  a  single 
octave ;  and  in  this  there  may  be  three  combinations ;  the  chord  of 
the  first,  third,  and  fifth ;  the  chord  of  the  third,  fifth,  and  octave ; 
and  the  chord  of  the  first,  the  fifth,  and  the  octave.  Chords  are 
called  "dispersed"  when  the  intervals  between  the  three  notes  in 


MAJOR   AND   MINOR   CHORDS.  89 

accord  extends  beyond  the  compass  of  an  octave ;  and  in  these  there 
may  be  also  three  combinations ;  the  chord  of  the  first  and  fifth  of 
one  octave,  and  of  the  third  of  the  octave  above ;  the  chord  of  the 
third  and  octave  in  one  scale,  and  of  the  fifth  in  an  octave  above ; 
and  the  chord  of  the  fifth  in  the  octave  below,  and  of  the  third  and 
octave  in  the  fundamental  scale.  In  all  cases  a  proper  chord 
includes  three  notes ;  the  leading  note  of  which,  called  the  funda- 
mental, may  be  either  the  first  of  the  scale  adopted,  or  its  octave, 
which  is  also  the  first  of  the  octave  above,  while  the  other  two  notes 
of  the  chord  must  be,  one  a  third,  and  the  other  a  fifth,  located 
either  in  the  octave  of  the  fundamental  note,  in  the  octave  above,  or 
in  the  octave  below.  As  the  same  chords  are  found  in  each  of  the 
scales  in  music,  either  the  natural  scale,  or  any  one  of  the  scales  of 
sharps  or  flats,  so  virtually  any  one  of  the  notes  from  first  to  seventh; 
or  of  the  letters  from  A  to  G,  may  be  selected  as  the  fundamental 
note.  The  variety  of  tones  in  perfect  chords  may  thus  be  made 
almost  without  limit. 

The  class  of  chords  which  furnish  the  sweetest  harmonies  and 
aflTord  the  true  field  for  art  in  musical  composition  are  the  "major 
and  minor  chords."  To  gain  a  clear  conception  of  these  it  is  neces- 
sary first  to  observe  the  nature  of  the  distinction  between  what  are 
called  "major  and  minor  intervals."  When  the  voice  in  ascending 
or  descending  the  scale  passes  over  but  one  interval,  striking  the 
note  next  succeeding,  that  interval  is  called  a  "second."  If  this 
interval  be  a  whole  tone,  as  between  do  and  re,  it  is  styled  a  "major" 
or  greater  second ;  or  if  a  half  tone  as  between  mi  and  fa  it  is  called 
a  "minor  second."  Again,  if  the  interval  passed  over  be  two  notes 
the  last  struck  is  called  the  "  third ;"  if  these  two  be  whole  tones,  as 
from  do  to  mi,  it  is  called  a  "major  third;"  if  it  be  one  whole  tone 
and  a  half  tone  as  from  re  to  fa,  it  is  called  a  "minor  third."  The 
designations  in  transitions  to  other  notes  are  as  follows :  a  fourth  is 
called  "perfect"  if  made  up  of  two  tones  and  a  half  tone,  and 
"sharp"  if  composed  of  three  tones;  a  fifth  is  called  "flat"  if  it  have 
two  tones  and  two  half-tones,  and  "perfect"  if  it  have  three  tones 
and  one  half-tone;  a  sixth  is  called  "minor"  if  it  have  three  tones 
and  two  half-tones,  and  "major"  if  it  have  four  tones  and  a  half- 
tone; a  seventh  is  called  "flat"  when  composed  of  four  tones  and 
two  half-tones,  and  "sharp"  if  composed  of  five  tones  and  one  half- 
tone. All  eighths,  or  octaves,  are  necessarily  alike  in  length  of 
interval ;  being  five  tones  and  two  half-tones  distant  from  each  other. 
In  each  common  chord,  made  up  of  the  first,  third  and  fiftli,  there 
8»  M 


90  ART  CRITIOTSM. 

will  necessarily  be  one  major  and  one  minor  interval.  If,  for  in- 
stance, C  be  the  first  or  fundamental  note,  from  C  to  E  is  a  major 
third,  and  from  E  to  G  is  a  minor  third ;  while  if  D  be  taken  as  the 
first  or  fundamental  note  the  interval  from  D  to  F  is  a  "minor 
third"  and  that  from  F  to  A  is  a  "major  third."  The  names  of 
chords  as  "major"  or  "minor"  is  derived  from  the  lower  of  the  two 
intervals ;  the  chords  having  D,  E  and  A  as  the  fundamental  note 
being  "minor,"  while  those  having  C,  F,  and  G  as  fundamental  are 
"major  chords."  As  the  minor  chords  are  sounded,  the  ear  recog- 
nizes a  slight  clashing  of  the  vibrations  occasioning  a  partial  disso- 
nance, whose  efiect  is  to  soften  the  sharp  ring  of  perfectly  chiming 
vibrations,  and  thus  give  a  subdued  tone  to  the  strain  in  which  they 
predominate.  Minor  chords  therefore  are  adapted  to  produce  pathos, 
while  the  major  chords  are  more  elevating  and  grand. 

In  the  succession  of  notes  in  a  musical  composition  having  three 
or  more  parts,  the  human  voice  does  not  naturally  pass  from  one 
chord  to  another  of  extremely  different  character.  There  are  rules 
in  nature  for  the  succession  of  notes  and  chords  which  men  without 
art  have  adopted ;  as  they  have  rules  of  grammatical  forms  and  of 
syntactical  succession  of  words.  Of  these  rules  by  which  they  are 
instinctively  guided  an  unlettered  people  using  them  may  be  entirely 
unaware ;  as  were  the  Creek  Indians,  until  their  attention  was  called 
by  a  missionary  of  intelligent  mind  to  the  fact,  that  their  verbs  had 
regular  modes  and  tenses  and  their  adjectives  regular  forms  of  com- 
parison. The  principal  laws  of  that  succession  of  chords  which  con- 
stitutes harmony  are  the  following.  First,  any  chord  may  be  fol- 
lowed by  another  chord  having  the  fifth  of  the  preceding  as  its  fun- 
damental ;  and  as  this  chord  seems  to  be  the  simplest  of  successions 
and  to  be  naturally  followed  by  the  repetition  of  its  preceding  chord, 
the  chord  of  the  fifth  has  been  called  the  dominant  or  "leading" 
chord.  Second,  any  common  chord  may  be  succeeded  by  one  whose 
fundamental  is  a  fourth  above  or  a  fifth  below  that  of  the  preceding 
chord;  and  this  is  called  the  "relative-major"  or  sub-dominant  chord. 
Third,  any  common  chord  may  be  followed  by  a  chord  having  the 
sixth  of  the  preceding  chord  as  its  fundamental  note ;  and  this  is 
called  the  "relative-minor"  chord.  Certain  intermediate  tones  as 
passing  notes  may  be  interposed  between  the  chords  mentioned ;  and 
some  of  the  finest  effects  are  produced  by  the  introduction  in  one  of 
the  three  parts  of  the  chord  of  a  short  dissonant  leading  the  way  to 
the  principal  note  which  is  in  consonance ;  the  richest  chords  having 
as  one  of  their  elements  a  slight  introductory  or  concluding  discord. 


CONTROLLING   NOTES   IN   MUSICAL   COMPOSITION.  91 

There  is  a  special  control  of  notes  upon  each  other  in  the  progress 
of  the  voice  in  a  piece  of  music  always  exhibited  in  the  simplest 
songs  of  unlettered  tribes  from  which  art  educes  principles.  The 
tonic,  or  key  note,  is  the  chief  sound  on  which  a  melody  is  con- 
structed ;  the  note  which  is  repeated  oftenest  in  the  progress  of  the 
song,  and  with  which  it  ends.  The  dominant,  or  fifth  above  the  key 
note,  is  so  related  to  that  note  as  to  be  said  to  rule ;  having  such  an 
influence  that  whenever  repeated  before  the  key  note  the  hearer  ex- 
pects it  to  be  the  indication  of  a  fall  of  the  voice,  or  cadence,  closing 
a  strain ;  and  it  is  always  heard  in  the  final  cadence  in  the  bass. 
The  sub-dominant,  the  fifth  below  the  key  note,  is  a  sort  of  ruling 
note,  requiring  the  key  note  to  follow  it  in  some  cadences.  The 
mediant  is  the  middle  note  between  the  tonie  and  dominant,  and  the 
sub-mediant  is  the  middle  note  between  the  tonic  and  sub-dominant. 
These  notes  are  specially  to  be  observed,  in  music  of  major  and 
minor  keys  constructed  upon  the  chromatic  and  enharmonic  scales. 
Their  bearing  on  proportions  of  lines  addressing  the  eye  will  be  here- 
after considered.  It  is  an  interesting  fact  that  the  superior  or 
Brahminic  race  of  India  have  a  similar  designation  of  the  tonic, 
mediant  and  dominant  notes  in  their  musical  compositions ;  this  fact 
indicating  another  of  those  connections  between  Grecian  and  Indian 
philosophy,  science  and  art  which  points  to  this  people  as  the  foun- 
tain whence  the  first  streams  of  culture  went  westward  into  Europe. 

Sect.  5.  Musical  Expression  ;  the  adaptation  of  musical  strains  to 

THE  expression  OF  POETIC  COMPOSITION,  AND  THE  CLASSES   OF  SENTIMENT 
TO  WHOSE  EXPRESSION  MUSIC  IS  ADEQUATE. 

Musical  sounds  unHed  in  composite  strains  produce  through  the 
ear  a  pleasant  impression  upon  the  human  organism  aside  from  any 
sentiment  conveyed  to  the  mind,  or  any  appeal  they  may  make  to 
any  special  sensibility  of  our  nature.  This,  however,  is  to  be 
regarded,  doubtless,  as  an  incident  to  a  higher  design,  as  but  a 
means  to  an  end.  Music,  like  the  other  fine  arts,  never  assumes  its 
high  character,  so  as  to  be  esteemed  noble,  unless  it  is  made  the 
vehicle  of  important  sentiment  and  the  awakener  of  practical 
emotion. 

Sentiment  is  expressed  in  language;  and  that  is  embodied  in 
words.  There  is  indeed  a  natural  language ;  as  Lord  Kames  and 
others  have  argued  in  works  on  Criticism.  There  are  modes  of 
expressing  thought,  feeling  and  desire,  which  the  instinct  of  animals 
teaches  them  by  signs  to  make  known,  both  to  their  kind  and  to 


92  ART   CRITICISM. 

man;  and  that  human  beings  have  superior  power  in  "sign  lan- 
guage" is  amply  manifest  in  the  extent  to  which  in  the  instruction 
of  deaf  mutes  this  mode  of  communicating  every  variety  of  thought 
and  feeling  is  carried.  Hence  the  fondness  which  has  always  been 
observed  among  men  for  pantomime ;  especially  when  it  is  made  to 
accompany  music.  Still,  any  exhibition  of  this  power,  when  prac- 
ticed alone,  and  as  an  interesting  exhibition  of  human  skill,  is 
attractive  only  until  its  principles  are  understood  and  its  novelty 
exhausted;  when  the  mind  demands  more  eagerly  than  before  the 
short  and  complete  method  of  conveying  sentiment  furnished  by 
words.  Music,  therefore,  even  with  the  child,  is  soon  accompanied 
by  the  words  of  song. 

When  language  is  thus  made  to  keep  company  with  song,  it  is 
observed  that,  as  there  are  tones  of  high  and  low  pitch,  and  notes 
long  and  short  in  music,  so  there  are  long  and  short  syllables  in 
words  and  rising  and  falling  of  the  voice  in  the  utterance  of  sen- 
tences. The  rudest  performance  of  music  accompanied  by  song 
required  alternation  of  sentences  and  clauses  of  similar  length,  and. 
the  rise  and  fall  of  voice  in  successive  portions  of  each  strain ;  both 
parallelism  and  cadence  being  the  first  elements  of  all  poetry. 
Increased  refining  of  the  musical  scale  demanded  again  that  parts 
of  sentences  and  clauses  should  be  arranged  into  what  were  called 
feet,  with  a  given  measure;  so  that  the  voice  should  preserve  an  even 
pace  in  the  combined  utterance  of  tones  and  syllables,  and  that  the 
alternations  of  the  two  should  keep  step  with  each  other;  and  thus 
rhythm  was  introduced  as  an  element  of  poetic  expression.  Still 
again,  as  the  strains  of  music  are  of  fixed  length,  and  as  the  key 
note  is  the  natural  terminator  of  the  cadences,  so  song  soon  came  to 
add  rhyme  to  rhythm,  or  the  recurrence  at  fixed  intervals  of  words, 
or  syllables,  of  similar  sound.  Hebrew  poetry  both  in  itself  and  in 
the  manner  of  chanting  it,  now  employed  in  the  synagogues  of  the 
East,  seems  to  be  perfect  as  illustrating  the  parallelism  and  cadence^ 
which  is  the  first  essential  of  words  adapted  to  musical  expression. 
Greek  poetry,  and  after  it,  the  Latin,  surpassed  all  probably  that 
the  world  has  ever  seen  in  the  perfection  of  i\s  rhythm;  every  syllable 
in  each  successive  foot  being  as  nicely  adjusted  to  its.  associates  as 
the  parts  in  the  human  body  are  fitly  joined  together.  The  English 
verse  again  has  excelled  in  the  attribute  of  rhyme;  little  regarded 
by  the  ancients.  The  most  striking  illustration  in  the  range  of 
human  languages  of  the  close  relation  between  music  and  poetry  is 
found  in  the  modern  Italian.     While  it  is  the  language  of  music  and 


ADAPTATION   OF   POETRY   TO   MUSIC.  93 

the  arts  generally,  the  Italian  is  in  itself  so  constructed,  its  five 
vowel  sounds  being  always  pure  and  unvarying,  and  its  syllables 
consisting  almost  without  exception  of  a  single  consonant  and  vowel, 
that  no  one  can  help  speaking,  if  he  speak  at  all,  in  both  rhythm  and 
rhyme;  a  characteristic  of  their  native  tongue,  which  makes  the 
business  of  the  far-famed  extempore  poetizers,  called  'Hmprovisatrice,'' 
a  very  easy  task. 

The  subject  of  Expression  in  Music^  and  its  relation  to  Poetry, 
naturally  presents  three  points  for  consideration ;  the  character  of 
the  poetic  feet  employed  to  express  different  movements  of  the  mind ; 
the  structure  of  the  verses  adapted  to  different  classes  of  speakers 
supposed  to  give  utterance  to  the  sentiment  embodied ;  and  the  style 
of  music  as  to  key,  range  of  pitch  and  stress  of  voice  in  harmony 
with  different  emotions  represented.  In  each  of  these  the  Greek  led 
the  way  to  the  true  science  of  this  art ;  though  modern  composers, 
particularly  the  German,  have  in  this  latter  respect,  carried  what 
the  Xrreeks  began  to  an  extent  of  perfection  which  the  ancients 
probably  never  attained. 

The  Greeks,  who  were  the  leaders  of  mankind  in  the  adjustment 
of  definite  measures  and  fit  proportions,  had  no  less  than  twenty- 
eight  feet,  simple  and  compound,  made  up  by  different  arrangements 
of  long  and  short  syllables  in  combinations  of  two,  three,  or  four 
members  each.  The  adaptation  of  these  classes  of  feet  to  different 
sentiments  is  often  indicated  in  their  names,  as  in  the  four  feet  of 
two  syllables ;  the  "  spondee"  or  votive,  two  long,  used  in  the  solemnly- 
slow,  prayer-like  dirges  accompanying  offerings  presented  to  the 
gods ;  the  "  Pyrrhic"  or  warlike,  two  short,  breaking  forth  amid  the 
furious  darting  of  the  w^ar  dance  and  song;  the  "Trochee,"  or 
nmning,  a  long  and  a  short,  falling  on  the  ear  like  a  horse's  gallop, 
and  tripping  in  sportive  roundelay;  and  the  "Iambic"  or  sportive, 
the  flippant  trolling  upon  the  tongue  of  satirical  song,  intensified  in 
the  Choriambus  or  halting  Iambic.  The  nice  gradation  of  propor- 
tion entering  into  the  movement  of  syllables,  called  in  general  long 
and  short,  though  of  varied  proportion  in  length,  is  indicated  in  such 
names  as  "dactyle"  and  "anapaest;"  the  former  like  the  fingers, 
having  its  three  parts  sesquialteral,  each  one  and  a  half  of  its 
successor;  while  the  "anapaest,"  or  rebounding  was  the  reverse  or 
counterpart  of  the  dactyle,  a  short,  medium,  and  long  syllable. 

The  subjects  of  poetry  and  music  to  which  it  was  set  was  equally 
varied.  There  is  not  in  the  range  of  history  a  more  striking  illus- 
tration of  this  than  in  the  collection  of  the  inspired  Hebrew  poetry. 


94  Ar.T   CRITICISM. 

Beginning  with  the  exultant  Song  of  Moses,  chanted  by  his  sister 
and  her  train,  what  could  be  more  impressively  varied  than  the 
philosophic  drama  of  Job  almost  epic  in  movement,  the  sweet  but 
thrilling  passion  in  the  lyrics  of  David,  the  quiet  and  didactic 
maxims  of  Solomon,  the  grand  majesty  in  the  prophecies  of  Isaiah, 
the  plaintive  pathos  in  the  lament  of  Jeremiah,  the  glowing  enthu- 
siasm in  the  visions  of  Ezekiel  and  Daniel,  and,  not  to  mention  other 
of  the  twelve  minor  prophets,  the  awing  sublimity  of  Habakkuk. 
Among  Greek  poets  there  was  a  yet  nicer  adaptation  of  the  length 
of  lines  and  the  recurrence  of  syllables  of  different  compass,  to  the 
movement  of  the  writer's  thought.  When  the  triumphs  of  heroes  in 
war  were  recited,  the  verse  took  the  stately  tramp  of  the  heroic  or 
epic  metre ;  made  up  in  the  Greek  or  Latin  verse  of  six  succeeding 
spondees  and  dactyls,  thus  giving  from  twelve  to  seventeen  syllables 
in  the  line;  which,  in  the  later  English  epic,  has  been  shortened 
into  five  Iambic,  with  the  occasional  introduction  of  feet  of  other 
measures.  When  the  hymn,  of  reverential  adoration  to  the  .gods 
was  to  be  sung,  the  slow  and  solemn  movement  called  spondaic  was 
as  naturally  sought,  or  rather  fallen  into  by  the  bard.  When  the 
endearments  of  love  were  the  theme,  the  amatory  song  could  find  no 
expression  but  in  the  lively  Trochaic  or  graceful  Iambic ;  and  yet, 
again,  as  intimated,  the  fierce  and  furious  war  song  ran  instinctively 
into  the  jerking  Pyrrhic.  The  epic,  lyric  and  Pyrrhic  styles  in 
poetry  were  thus  directly  associated  with  expression  in  music.  The 
Tragic  Muse  again  sought  a  combination  of  the  more  elevated  styles ; 
mingling  the  stately  heroic,  the  solemn  dirge,  and  in  the  chorus  the 
lightest  and  gayest  of  metre  in  verse  and  of  accompaniment  in 
music.  The  germ  of  the  combinations  of  modern  times  had  its  root 
and  bore  its  fruits  in  the  early  periods  of  Greek  refinement;  and  the 
nature  and  necessity  of  studied  regard  to  expression  in  music  was 
never  better  set  forth  than  by  such  minds  as  Plato  and  Plutarch. 

There  is  no  art  whose  adaptations  to  the  production  of  moral 
influence  has  been  so  studied  and  guarded  as  has  that  of  music. 
The  Chinese  moral  teacher,  Confucius,  wrote:  "Wouldst  thou  know 
if  a  people  be  well  governed;  if  their  manners  be  good  or  bad. 
Examine  the  music  they  perform!"  In  his  discussions  as  to  the 
model  Grecian  Republic,  Plato  makes  Socrjates  dwell  with  special 
earnestness  on  the  imperative  necessity  of  governmental  control  over 
the  music  of  the  common  people.  To  this  end  the  "four  sounds  of 
notes"  and  the  "  three  species  of  rhythm,"  whence  "  the  whole 
of  harmony  proceeds,"   are   discussed   in   detail.     The  shrill  and 


SENTIMENT   ADAPTED   TO   MUSIC.  95 

exciting  pipe  as  a  specimen  of  wind  instruments  fitted  to  stir  men  to 
deeds  of  daring  in  war,  is  to  be  discarded  for  the  lyre  and  harp,  and 
other  stringed  instruments  promotive  of  the  soothing  influences 
attendant  on  peace.  The  special  influence  of  the  Iambic,  Trochaic, 
Dactylic  and  Spondaic  measures  are  discussed;  and  this  principle  is 
laid  down  as  one  all-important:  that  the  Laws  regulating  music 
ought  never  to  be  altered  except  from  strenuous  reasons  of  public 
policy. 

The  indirect  influence  of  musical  movement  on  poetry  leads  to  a 
natural  final  reference  to  the  question,  whether  music  can  be  adapted 
to  the  expression  of  every  variety  of  sentiment.  Lord  Kames,  in 
common  with  many  able  critics,  has  argued  that  music  cannot  be 
made  expressive  of  sentiment  inspiring  dread;  since  in  its  very 
nature  it  is  designed  to  please  and  soothe.  It  is  questionable  whether 
the  name  of  music  is  applicable  to  the  harsh  braying  of  trumpets 
and  the  din  of  rattling  drums  and  gongs,  employed  not  only  by  rude, 
but  also  refined  nations,  to  inspire  terror  on  the  battle-field  and  awe 
in  their  horrid  religious  rites,  unhinging,  as  it  naturally  does,  the 
control  of  men  over  their  nervous  systems ;  any  more  than  the  term 
musical  can  be  applied  to  the  unearthly  yells  of  savages  in  their  war- 
whoop,  and  to  the  shrieks  of  religious  devotees  which  produce  the 
same  unnerving  effect  on  the  human  sensibilities.  Yet  the  modern 
attempts  of  the  greatest  musical  composers  to  produce  not  only  the 
impression  of  grandeur,  but  also  of  awe,  if  not  of  terror,  in  their 
sublimest  oratorios,  is  capable  of  a  defense  on  philosophic  grounds. 
The  dying  gladiator  and  the  Laocoon  in  Sculpture,  awaken  the  same 
impression  of'  horror  as  that  aroused  by  the  actual  scene  when 
witnessed  by  the  eye.  It  seems  legitimate,  therefore,  to  conclude, 
that  as  in  nature  the  ear  is  addressed  by  sounds  that  horrify,  by  the 
rolling  thunder,  the  howl  of  the  gale  at  sea,  and  the  crash  of  dashing 
air,  water,  and  earth,  so  to  a  certain  extent  music  may  be  made  to 
imitate  these  and  kindred  sounds,  and  thus  art  produce  the  impres- 
sion of  nature.  It  is,  however,  most  certainly  a  hazardous  field  to 
enter,  and  one  where  success  is  most  doubtful.  None  but  a  master, 
and  he  only  in  occasional  and  rare  combinations,  can  attempt  it 
without  signal  failure.  The  range  of  varied  expression  in  music  is 
sufficiently  wide  and  inviting,  if  this  be  excepted. 


ART  CRITICISM. 


Sect.  6.  Musical  Modulation  ;  the  general  relation  of  music  to  pitch 

AND  cadence  of  VOICE;  AND  ITS  SPECIAL  RELATION  TO  THE  ENUNCIA- 
TION OF  DRAMATIC  COMPOSITION  IN  HISTRIONIC  ART,  AND  OF  DIDACTIC 
COMPOSITION  IN  ORATORY. 

For  the  purpose  of  proper  expression  poetry  that  is  to  be  chanted 
or  sung,  and  the  musical  strain  which  is  to  be  its  accompanying 
utterance  must  be  nicely  adjusted  to  each  other.  Here  the  relation 
of  music  to  expression  is  direct  and  necessary.  There  is  moreover 
an  indirect  relation  of  music  to  all  forms  of  utterance  with  the  voice, 
even  of  woi*ds  in  the  commonest  discourse;  which  fact  has  always 
been  remarked  by  careful  observers  of  men,  while  the  principles 
involved  in  the  fact  have  assumed  rank  as  an  art  to  be  cultivated. 

In  Music  the  subjects  of  Expression  and  Modulation  are  closely 
associated;  as  they  are  also  in  their  applications  in  the  Histrionic 
Art  and  in  Oratory.  Modulation  is  properly  the  passing  of  the  voice 
from  one  key  to  another.  The  keys  of  the  natural  scale,  and  also  of 
the  scales  of  sharps  and  flats  have  been  already  noticed.  The  chang- 
ing sentiment  in  a  poetic  composition  set  to  music  sometimes  demands 
a  change  of  the  musical  key  to  secure  a  more  perfect  adaptation  of 
one  to  the  other.  This  is  called  modulation;  and  in  itself  it  is 
an  artificial  means  to  an  end,  designed  to  promote  expression ;  and 
when  skillfully  employed  it  secures  the  highest  effects  of  the  Musical 
Art. 

Modulation  as  relating  to  expression  has  another  important  appli- 
cation in  what  are  called  the  "Minor  Scales."  In  all  the  scales  thus 
far  considered  the  half-tones  have  come  between  three  and  four  and 
between  seven  and  eight;  and  these  to  distinguish  them  from  the 
"minor  scales,"  here  considered,  are  called  "major  scales."  In  the 
minor  scales  the  half-tones  in  ascending  the  scale  are  made  to  come 
in  between  the  second  and  third,  and  the  seventh  and  eighth ;  and 
in  descending  between  the  sixth  and  fifth,  and  the  third  and  second. 
As  the  minor  chords  have  a  peculiar  sweetness  and  gentleness  of  tone 
so  strains  written  in  minor  keys  have  a  subdued  and  plaintive  suc- 
cession of  sounds  in  themselves  charming  to  the  ear ;  and  when  united 
to  appropriate  poetic  sentiment  they  are  the  Elysian  fields  of  Musical 
Composition. 

With  the  subject  of  Modulation  may  be  associated  the  jorae  or 
varying  energy  of  voice  denominated  by  teachers  of  music  "dyna- 
mics;" and  making  the  third  of  three  departments  of  instruction  in 
which  "  rhythm  "  is  the  first,  and  "  melody  "  the  second.     Its  consider- 


NATURAL   MODULATION   OF   THE    HUMAN   VOICE.  97 

ation  belongs  to  the  subject  of  "Elocution;"  and  it  is  sufficient  in  a 
treatise  on  Art  merely  to  notice  its  connections. 

The  modulation  of  the  voice  in  public  speaking  or  Elocution  is  a 
subject  finding  place,  in  spite  of  all  theories  to  the  contrary,  in  every 
treatise  on  Rhetoric.  Modulation  in  Music,  as  already  intimated, 
is  the  power  of  self-control  in  the  voice  by  which  it  passes  readily 
from  one  strain  to  another  in  a  piece  of  simple  music,  or  from  one 
key  to  another  in  a  composite  performance,  always  preserving  ease 
and  grace  in  the  swell  and  depression  of  the  tone  and  pitch  of  the 
notes  successively  struck.  Modulation  of  the  voice  in  public  speak- 
ing is  the  kindred  control  of  the  vocal  organs  in  passing  from  a  quiet 
didactic  paragraph  to  one  calling  for  emphasis  on  account  of  the 
glow  of  the  imagery  employed  or  the  intensity  of  any  emotion  ex- 
pressed. They  have  a  natural  connection  in  history,  and  in  the 
nature  of  human  utterance  with  each  other. 

In  the  expression  of  thought  in  private  conversation  the  voice  is 
not  perceptibly  influenced  by  any  rule  of  modulation.  Yet  when 
even  common  conversation  becomes  animated,  or  even  when  at  dif- 
ferent distances  and  for  difierent  purposes,  men,  in  their  ordinary 
business,  address  each  other,  a  variety  of  tone  is  heard ;  and  we  soon 
come  to  distinguish  the  tone  of  command  of  a  master  or  captain 
from  the  tone  of  the  same  person  in  different  address.  When  a 
public  speaker  is  elevated  upon  a  stand  with  the  special  end  of 
addressing  an  assembled  audience  in  protracted  discourse,  and  his 
object  is  to  please  by  the  ease  and  smoothness  of  the  tones  of  his 
voice  as  well  as  to  instruct  and  move  by  the  sentiment  uttered,  when 
a  tone  and  pitch  are  required  which  shall  be  distinctly  audible  to  the 
most  distant  while  it  is  not  disagreeable  to  those  near  the  speaker,  a 
careful  discrimination  is  needed  in  assuming  the  right  pitch  even  at 
the  outset.  Still  more  as  the  mind  warms  with  the  progress  of 
thought,  and  new  classes  of  conceptions  arise  and  are  presented,  and 
sudden  emotions  awake  and  break  forth,  fresh  and  changing  modu- 
lations of  voice  are  of  course  demanded.  It  would  seem  from  careful 
observation  of  the  universal  natural  resort  of  uncultured  speakers 
among  rude  tribes  of  men  and  in  uncultivated  sections  of  civilized 
countries,  that  since  musical  or  ringing  tones  are  those  in  which 
transitions  of  the  voice  are  most  easily  made,  there  was  a  natural 
origin  for  that  succession  of  tones  popularly  called  "sing-song." 
What  was  thus  naturally  introduced  became  an  art,  more  or  less 
mechanical  according  to  the  lack  of  genius  in  some  who  attempted 
public  speaking ;  and  thus  what  in  a  speaker  of  genuine  genius  aided 
9  N 


98  ART   CRITICISM. 

in  riveting  attention,  became  a  humdrum,  that,  in  a  speaker  without 
animation,  degenerated  from  an  awakening  charm  into  a  soporific 
hillaby.  That  this  musical  modulation  is  natural  is  seen  in  the  fact 
that  not  only  do  the  rude  orators  of  uncultivated  nations  fall  into  it 
in  their  harangues  on  secular  topics,  but  also  that  the  first  unedu- 
cated and  earnest  heralds  of  every  new  religious  reformation  employ 
the  same  natural  method;  while,  as  among  the  sect  of  "Friends,"  it 
is  continued  as  a  religious  practice  revered  for  its  sanctity  even  where 
the  highest  literary  culture  prevails.  That  this  resort  to  musical 
modulation  for  oratorical  efibrt  is  not  a  mere  suggestion  to  men  in  a 
state  of  nature  when  uncultured,  but  is  truly  an  art,  having  laws 
based  on  refined  principles  of  eloquence,  is  seen  in  the  fact  that  such 
men  as  Demosthenes  trained  the  modulations  of  their  voice  to  the 
accompanying  notes  of  the  flute ;  a  practice  of  the  finished  orators  of 
Greece  to  which  Cicero  alludes  in  his  treatises  upon  oratory. 

It  is  however  in  the  Histrionic  Art  that  this  association  of  Music 
with  Oratory  has  been  most  marked  and  operative.  In  the  pronouncing 
of  the  drama  in  its  simplest  and  purest  form,  as  immortalized  by 
^schylus,  Sophocles  and  Euripides,  the  interlude  of  the  Chorus 
played  an  important  part ;  the  choir  coming  in  between  the  Acts  of 
the  Drama  to  fill  up  the  interval  now  occupied  by  instrumental 
music  while  the  curtain  is  down  and  the  scenery  is  changing.  As 
this  Chorus  was  mainly  a  narration  of  the  history  which  connected 
and  illustrated  the  scenes  preceding  and  succeeding,  the  speaker's 
vocation  took  naturally  the  designation,  "histrionic  art." 

It  is  worthy  of  note  that  in  the  age  of  popular  freedom  among 
every  cultured  people,  public  speaking  has  taken  the  character  of 
oratory,  or  eloquence  proper ;  the  speaker  being  a  real  leader  and 
sovereign  among  his  countrymen,  addressing  a  real  auditory,  and 
seeking  a  positive  influence  over  them  by  his  addresses.  Such  was 
the  conviction  of  Moses,  the  inspired  Hebrew  legislator,  himself  un- 
gifted  as  a  public  speaker,  that  this  power  alone  was  adequate  to  his 
Divine  mission,  that  he  seems  almost  irreverent  in  urging  it  on  the 
All- Wise  Master  who  sends  him ;  till  that  Divine  Wisdom  seems  to 
yield  to  human  conviction,  and  Aaron  the  eloquent  orator  is  sent 
with  him.^  Eminence  in  oratory  has  been  sought  as  the  essential 
and  climatic  attainment  of  ruling  minds  among  all  branches  of  the 
advancing  Japhetic  race ;  as  is  seen  in  the  fact  that  Demosthenes 
and  Cicero  were  formed  by  the  culminating  influence  of  Grecian  and 


Exod.  iv.  10—16. 


.  *  THE  ORATOEIO  AND  OPERA.  99 

Roman  civilization.  The  laws  of  the  Visigoths  made  the  power  of 
commending  laws  to  a  popular  assembly  the  chief  requisite  in  a  legis- 
lator; while  the  whole  history  of  modern  Europe  shows  that  popular 
advancement  keeps  pace  with  the  development  of  this  power.  In 
the  ages  and  lands  overshadowed  by  the  supremacy  of  despotic  power, 
either  civil  or  ecclesiastical,  oratory  proper  is  uncalled  for ;  and  the 
fictitious  eloquence  of  the  histrionic  art  is  the  more  in  demand.  The 
attentive  student  of  systems  of  education  cannot  but  remark  that  the 
training  of  young  men  as  public  speakers  for  the  pulpit  or  the  plat- 
form will  be  made  to  take  more  or  less  the  features  of  one  or  the 
other  of  these  departments  of  elocutionary  study,  according  as  that 
training  is  adapted  to  a  more  or  less  fixed  and  formal  system  of  civil 
and  ecclesiastical  polity. 

In  very  early  times  there  was  originated  the  higher  union  of 
Music,  Oratory  and  the  Histrionic  Art,  ennobled  in  later  times  in 
the  "Oratorio"  and  the  "Opera."  The  theme  of  song,  or  poetry 
chanted  in  the  Chorus  of  the  Greek  Drama  was  in  continuation  of 
the  sentiment  uttered  by  the  actor  who  performed  the  "histrionic" 
part ;  or,  as  the  name  implies,  gave  the  recital  of  the  history  of  the 
play.  It  was  a  natural  suggestion  of  later  times  that  music  should 
be  united  with  the  speaking  and  acting  throughout  the  whole  play. 
When  the  musical  accompaniment  was  set  to  the  words  of  a  drama, 
and  the  recitation  was  an  unexcited  chant  much  like  a  dramatic 
reading,  and  without  special  acting  on  the  part  of  the  performers,  it 
took  the  appropriate  name  of  an  "  Oratorio ;"  because  it  was  a  quiet 
address  like  that  of  a  suppliant  in  prayer  to  his  God,  or  of  a  preacher 
addressing  his  auditory.  When  there  was  added  in  the  Oratorio  the 
accompaniments  of  stage  representation,  scenery,  dresses,  and  the 
gestures  and  action  of  the  stage,  the  performance  took  the  name  of 
"Opera;"  the  designation  given  to  the  collected  writings  of  men  of 
varied  genius;  the  Opera  being  as  the  name  implies  the  gathered 
treasures  of  all  arts  addressing  the  ear,  and  their  skillful  union  into 
one  complete  whole.  The  choral  interludes  of  the  Greek  drama  were 
the  germs  of  this  art ;  but  the  rise  of  the  Opera  proper  is  traced  to 
Italy  and  the  close  of  the  fifteenth  century;  the  climactic  era  of 
discovery  and  invention  in  science  and  art  as  known  in  modern 
times. 


100  ART   CRITICISM. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

THE  SENSE   OF   SIGHT,  THE  HIGHEST   OF   THE  SENSES,  AS  ADDRESSED 

BY  ART. 

The  eye  is  the  special  organ  of  the  human  body  by  which  the 
mind  is  addressed  by  Art.  The  range  within  which  the  ear  i? 
restricted  in  the  hearing  of  pleasant  sounds  is  a  very  limited  one ; 
for  the  music  that  falls  with  such  mellowness  at  a  slight  remove  from 
its  source  is  soon  lost  by  increasing  distance.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  stretch  of  vision  is  into  regions  without  bound ;  and  is  literally 
fathomless,  going  beyond  the  most  distant  stars  and  nebulse.  Again, 
the  variety  in  objects  of  beauty  occupying  but  a  small  space  around, 
seems  perfectly  limitless;  while  there  are,  in  comparison,  but  few 
varieties  in  the  natural  tones,  even  of  music,  that  address  the  ear. 
Most  of  all,  the  several  separate  sources  of  delight  in  objects  of  sight 
make  their  own  distinct  and  peculiar  appeal  to  our  aesthetic  nature ; 
while  the  addresses  of  sound  are  essentially  one  in  kind.  The  spe- 
cial development  of  each  of  these  several  sources  of  aesthetic  appeal 
will  come  up  for  consideration,  each  in  its  appropriate  department 
of  arf .  A  simple  classification  of  the  elements  of  visual  impressions 
which  please  the  mind  through  the  eye  may  aid  to  definiteness  of 
views  in  that  consideration. 

Sect.  1.  Form;  its  Principles  and  their  concurrence  as  the  ground- 
work OF  Art. 

The  forms  which  delight  us  in  Nature  are  of  varied  character. 
Some  are  minutely  apprehended  by  the  eye  near  at  hand,  as  the 
parts  of  flowers  and  the  features  of  the  human  countenance;  others 
are  but  dimly  comprehended  in  the  distance,  as  the  sweep  of  towering 
mountains,  the  swell  of  the  ocean  in  the  horizon  and  the  blue  arch 
of  the  sky.  Some  are  of  fixed  form,  as  plants  and  animals,  the  sun 
and  separate  stars ;  others  are  of  figure  unfixed,  as  rocks  and  star- 
clusters  ;  while  others  still  are  of  undefined  and  indefinable  outline, 
as  waves  and  clouds.  Of  fixed  forms  again  there  are  mineral,  vege- 
table, animal,  and  human ;  the  first  having  only  the  physical  forces 
of  nature  as  the  law  of  its  formation;  the  second  having  also  life, 
the  third  self-originating  motion,  and  the  fourth  intelligence,  to  give 
to  them  their  special  attraction  as  forms. 

The  outline  of  all  forms  is  composed  of  lines ;  and  lines  are  redu- 


RELATION   OF   FIGURE   TO   FORM.  101 

cible  to  two  classes,  straight  and  curved.  The  lines  formed  by  crys- 
tallization are  straight  lines,  inclined  at  fixed  angles  to  each  other. 
The  path  of  a  beam  of  light,  of  the  vital  force  which  acts  upward 
through  the  longitudinal  fibre  of  plants,  and  of  the  motion  of  bodies 
acted  upon  by  a  single  force,  is  a  straight  line.  A  large  portion  of 
the  works  of  men,  as  in  architecture,  are  composed  of  straight  lines. 
Every  portion  of  the  natural  creation,  in  plants  and  animals,  is  based 
upon  the  union  of  curved  w^ith  straight  lines;  the  trunk  of  every 
tree  and  the  limb  of  every  animal  having  its  length  in  straight  lines 
and  its  circumference  in  curved  lines.  Straight  lines  may  meet  each 
other  at  large  and  infrequent  angles  forming  broken  lines ;  and  at 
frequent  and  sharp  angles  producing  a  zig-zag.  Curves  may  be  of 
any  regular  figure,  as  circular,  elliptical,  parabolic,  spiral,  etc. ;  or 
they  may  be  irregular,  waving,  serpentine,  convoluted,  etc. 

Single  lines  have  but  one  dimension,  length  alone;  and  an  outline 
is  but  a  combination  of  lines  enclosing  a  space.  Form  is  conceived 
as  possessed  of  three,  or  at  least  of  two  dimensions;  the  enclosed 
space  between  the  parts  of  the  outline  being  regarded  as  a  continuous 
surface,  and,  more,  as  having  projected  before  the  solid  mass  a  third 
dimension.  Figure,  as  its  Latin  derivation  and  English  usage  indi- 
cate, is  properly  the  conception  of  the  designing  mind,  as  sepa- 
rate from  the  embodied  object;  while  form  is  the  actually  executed 
object  of  which  figure  was  the  conception.  Figure,  therefore,  is  a 
term  applied  to  conceptions  embodied  only  in  words,  as  figures  of 
rhetoric ;  and  thus  it  is  a  designation  belonging  to  Poetry  as  a  Fine 
Art.  Form  is  the  word  adopted  to  express  the  creations  of  the 
Plastic  Arts.  Figure,  if  applied  to  executed  forms,  is  limited  to  those 
which  are  but  representations,  not  actual  specimens,  of  the  things 
considered,  or  modifications  by  art  of  a  natural  object;  as  when  we 
speak  of  mathematical  figures,  and  of  the  figure  of  a  man  or  woman 
whose  form  is  modified  by  dress.  Form,  therefore,  is  the  generic 
term  expressing  the  elements  in  objects  of  sight  giving  the  impres- 
sion of  extension  to  the  eye. 

A  careful  study  reveals  several  distinct  elements  inherent  in  the 
construction  of  forms  in  nature,  which,  when  viewed  separately,  fur- 
nish each  its  respective  delight.  The  mind  seems  in  its  analysis  of 
forms  to  pursue  the  following  train  of  observation,  and  to  note  in 
their  order  these  particulars. 

First:  Outline  in  substance. — Substance,  considered  alone,  arrests 
our  attention  and  gives  a  species  of  pleasure ;  as  when  we  gaze  in 
admiration  on  the  green  sea  or  blue  sky,  on  the  black  thunder-cloud 

9  * 


102  AKt   CRITICISM. 

or  the  rosy  dawn.  The  delight  we  experience  from  this  source  is 
not  the  attraction  of  form.  When,  however,  the  eye  traces  the  out- 
line of  a  billow,  a  cloud,  a  horizon  line,  or  a  rock,  however  indistinct, 
indefinite  and  fragmentary  the  form,  the  mere  outline  in  substance 
gives  us  pleasure. 

Second:  Unity  in  Multiplicity. — The  mind  has  an  oppressive  sense 
of  discomfort  when  confused  objects  which  it  cannot  distinctly  define, 
are  passing  before  it,  and  it  can  give  no  unity  to  the  multiplicity  of 
forms.  Dim  glimpses  through  the  fog  of  an  occasional  headland 
along  the  coast  aflfect  the  mind  unpleasantly ;  but  a  thrill  of  delight 
is  felt  when  the  mist  is  lifted  and  the  multiplied  forms  along  the 
shore  are  taken  in  as  a  w^hole.  Crowds  of  people  without  order 
thronging  along  the  streets  have  little  attraction ;  but  when  column 
after  column  of  men,  marshalled  in  military  ranks,  pass  in  review, 
the  very  word  uniform  which  designates  their  dress  is  the  index  to 
the  principle  which  gives  rise  to  our  pleasure.  A  sand  bank  is  as 
fine  an  object  for  the  pencil  as  the  solid  rock  when  it  is  viewed  at 
such  a  distance  as  to  make  it  one  in  its  impression  on  the  eye. 

Third:  Regularity  in  Complexity. — A  line  is  regular  when  made 
by  one  rule ;  as  a  circle  or  parabola ;  and  the  pleasure  derived  from 
beholding  such  a  form,  executed  by  a  school-boy,  is  manifestly 
opposed  to  the  aversion  experienced  in  beholding  diagrams  irregular 
and  drawn  in  a  slovenly  manner.  Forms  consisting  of  two  dimen- 
sions, length  and  breadth,  must  have  greater  or  less  multiplicity  of 
parts ;  and  figures  of  three  dimensions,  length,  breadth  and  thickness, 
must  have  complexity  in  the  adjustment  as  well  as  multiplicity  of 
parts.  In  plain  figures  made  up  of  straight  lines  of  either  uniform 
parts  as  a  square,  hexagon,  etc.,  and  also  those  of  parallel  or  uni- 
formly recurring  parts,  as  the  rectangles  either  perfect  or  truncated 
occurring  in  door  panels,  are  regular  figures.  The  five  regular  bodies, 
as  the  pyramid,  bounded  by  four  equal  triangles,  the  cube  by  six 
squares,  the  octohedron  by  eight  equilateral  triangles,  the  dodecahe- 
dron by  twelve  equal  rhombs,  and  the  eikosihedron  by  twenty  equi- 
lateral triangles,  were  known  to  Plato ;  and  the  beauty  of  their  regu- 
lar shapes  led  him  to  regard  them  as  the  ultimate  elements  making 
up  the  great  "  Cosmos  "  or  "  Universe  of  Beauty."  The  four  regular 
curves  that  are  formed  by  cutting  sections  through  a  cone,  the  circle, 
the  ellipse,  the  parabola,  and  hyperbola,  were  known  to  the  early 
Greeks,  and  the  admirable  law  of  their  formation  was  calculated; 
their  beautiful  sweep  entered  as  an  element  into  Pythagoras'  con- 
ception of  the  harmony  of  the  universe;  and  Galileo  and  Sir  Isaac 


ELEMENTS  OF  PLEASING  FORMS.  103 

Newton  saw  in  them  a  principle  of  truth  and  beauty  which  led  them 
to  the  secret  of  the  mechanism  of  the  universe. 

Fourth:  Simplicity  in  Variety. — The  principle  of  simplicity  is 
opposed  to  the  unchaste  and  tawdry ;  to  everything,  in  fact,  that  is 
not  the  simple  thing  itself  which  we  regard.  Rightly  considered, 
Simplicity,  so  prominent  in  the  mind  of  Lord  Kames  and  other 
writers  upon  Criticism,  is  as  distinct  from  Unity  as  is  Variety  from 
Multiplicity.  There  may  be  unity  in  the  multiplex  curls  and  bows 
of  the  head-dress,  so  favorite  in  fashion  a  century  ago,  but  so  hideous 
to  modern  eyes ;  but  there  is  a  simplicity  in  the  modern  style  of 
dressing  the  hair,  by  a  central  parting  in  front,  and  straight  combing 
to  the  form  of  the  head  backward,  and  its  collection  in  a  plain  knot 
behind,  which  won  the  admiration  of  the  Greek  artist  as  a  perfect 
ideal,  which  drew  forth  the  enthusiastic  plaudits  of  Roman  poets, 
and  which  now  gives  a  charm  to  fashion  because  of  its  inherent 
beauty.  There  is  grandeur  in  the  majestic  dome  of  the  Roman 
Pantheon,  especially  when  hung  in  the  air,  as  over  St.  Peter's  by  the 
genius  of  Michel  Angelo;  there  is  sublimity  in  the  sky-piercing 
pinnacle  of  the  Gothic  cathedral  at  Strasburg;  but  the  inimitable 
simplicity  of  the  plain  gable  of  the  Grecian  Parthenon  won  from 
Cicero,  familiar  as  he  was  with  the  opposite  Roman  styles,  that 
suggestion  '  that  it  was  worthy  to  be  the  model  for  temples  in  Heaven.' 
That  variety  which  is  secured,  not  at  the  expense  of  chasteness  and  by 
the  heaping  up  of  tawdry  ornament,  but  by  an  adjustment  of  drapery 
which  makes  the  form  seem  to  round  out  in  all  its  own  loveliness 
through  the  robe  which  acts  as  a  transparent  veil,  is  one  of  the  chief 
charms  of  beauty  in  form.  Nothing  could  be  a  greater  violation  of 
this  law  of  simplicity  than  the  multiplying  of  varieties  by  mingling 
the  attributes  of  quadrupeds,  of  birds,  and  of  men;  as  in  the 
Egyptian  Sphynx,  or  lion,  with  a  woman's  bust,  and  in  the  Greek 
centaur,  or  horse,  with  a  man's  breast,  arms,  and  head.  In  this 
respect,  the  winged  bull  of  Assyria,  and  the  Christian  angel,  or  man 
with  wings,  must  probably  be  ranked  in  the  same  class. 

Fifth :  Order  in  the  collocation  of  parts. — All  the  previous  consider- 
ations relate  to  an  object  as  one  whole ;  but  order ^  the  first  of  a 
second  class  of  principles,  necessarily  draws  attention  to  the  whole 
as  made  up  of  parts.  It  is  the  relation  which  parts  considered  as 
making  up  a  whole  have  to  each  other.  Order,  as  it  relates  to  fur- 
niture in  a  room,  requires  that  each  separate  piece  be  in  a  place 
peculiarly  its  own.  Order  may  be  secured  in  view  of  a  single  prin- 
ciple, and  upon  a  system  complete  in  itself;  as  in  the  arrangement 


104  ART   CRITICISM. 

of  men  in  a  military  company,  either  according  to  age,  or  size,  or 
tested  courage.  The  eye  demands  order  in  the  parts  of  which  any 
object,  either  natural  or  artificial,  is  made  up.  It  is  essential  in  a 
statue,  because  there  is  an  order  in  which  the  Creator  has  ordained 
that  the  natural  features  of  the  face  should  be  arranged,  and  after 
which  the  head,  neck,  body  and  limbs,  should  succeed  each  other. 
In  general,  order  relates  to  the  collocation  of  parts  which  make  up  a 
whole. 

Sixth :  Proportio7i  in  dimensions. — Proportion  is  not  the  relation  of 
parts  to  a  whole,  but  of  parts  to  each  other.  Thus  the  three  portions 
of  the  human  finger  are  proportional ;  the  ratio  of  each  to  its  suc- 
cessor as  to  length,  being  sesquialteral,  or  that  of  one  to  one  and  a 
half.  The  upper  members  of  the  human  frame,  as  the  arms,  con- 
sidered with  relation  each  to  its  fellow,  are  uniform;  as  are  the 
lower  limbs :  but  when  considered  not  in  reference  to  their  fellows  of 
the  same  class,  but  to  each  other  as  of  different  classes,  the  arms  and 
legs  are  proportionate  in  length.  The  parts  of  a  building  are  said 
to  be  well  proportioned  when  on  comparing  any  two  portions  of  the 
fayade,  or  of  the  inner  or  outer  structure,  together,  they  seem  to  be 
in  keeping,  so  far  as  dimensions  alone  are  concerned,  with  each  other. 
So  the  columns  of  a  portico  compared  with  each  other  are  uniform  ; 
but  when  the  foot,  shaft,  and  capital  are  compared  with  each  other, 
or  the  whole  column  with  the  entablature  above,  they  are  said  to  be 
well  or  ill-proportioned. 

Seventh :  Symmetry  in  the  connection  of  parts. — Pliny  alludes  to  the 
fact  that  the  Greek  word,  symmetry,  so  much  employed  by  the 
artists  who  spoke  that  tongue,  had  no  synonym  in  the  Latin  lan- 
guage. The  word  proportion,  however,  was  Latin ;  and  as  such, 
used  as  a  term  of  art,  it  has  a  meaning  distinct  from  symmetry.  The 
literal  meaning  of  the  Greek  word  "  summetron"  is,  an  inter-measure. 
It  implies  that  one  part  of  a  whole  is  taken  as  a  standard  of  com- 
mon measurement  for  all  the  other  parts.  While  order  relates  to 
the  collocation  of  parts  in  the  whole,  and  proportion  to  the  respective 
dimensions  of  each  part  in  its  relation  to  each  other  part  considered 
as  separate  from  the  whole,  symmetry  relates  to  the  graduation  in 
measurement  of  all  the  parts  connected  in  a  whole  to  the  dimensions 
of  one  taken  as  the  standard.  The  word  proportion  directs  the 
attention  to  superficial  and  to  partial  comparison  of  parts  as  to  their 
dimensions ;  the  word  symmetry  fixes  the  mind  on  measurement  in 
totality,  in  every  dimension,  and  especially  to  the  conjunctures  of 
parts  where  they  unite.     We  say  of  two  limbs  of  a  statue  that  they 


SIMILAR   VIEWS   AS   TO   BEAUTIES   OF   FORM.  105 

are  in  proportion ;  and  in  saying  this,  we  think  of  them  mainly  in 
but  one  dimension.  We  could  not  say  that  two  limbs  were  in  sym- 
metry; we  must  take  in  the  entire  figure,  if  we  use  at  all  thai 
specific  word,  and  say  *  the  whole  body  is  symmetrical' ;  and  in  so 
saying,  we  should  regard  rotundity,  the  thickness  and  plumpness  oi 
muscle,  as  well  as  length  of  bony  framework,  and  the  interlockings 
and  blendings  as  well  as  the  body  of  each  limb.  It  was  this  par- 
ticular idea  of  symmetry  which  led  the  Greek  artist  to  the  simplest 
and  yet  most  perfect  idea  of  common  measures;  such  as  the  nail, 
finger,  foot,  cubit,  pace,  fathom;  an  idea  which  prompted  the  Gre- 
cian sculptor  to  seek  in  the  proportions  of  the  child,  the  youth,  the 
maiden,  the  matron  and  of  the  mature  man,  nature's  scale  of  com- 
mon measurement ;  by  following  which  they  made  their  works  true 
ideals,  the  models  for  all  future  time. 

Eighth:  Congruity  in  the  adaptation  of  parts. — Lord  Kames  has 
well  distinguished  congruity  from  propriety  by  the  statement  that 
the  former  relates  to  physical  adaptation,  the  latter  to  moral  appro- 
priateness. The  principle  of  congruity,  therefore,  as  an  element  in 
objects  pleasant  to  the  eye  belongs  to  the  subject  of  Form.  Con- 
gruity requires  that  all  the  parts  have  an  ofiice,  and  that  in  size  and 
position  they  be  adapted  to  that  office.  It  is  an  incongruity  in 
Egyptian  sculpture  that  a  flaring  head-dress  should  be  cut  in  solid 
stone  w^hose  weight  is  enough  to  cause  the  wearer  to  sink  under  the 
burden ;  that  in  even  Koman  art  a  Mercury  should  have  miniature 
wings  projecting  from  his  ankles  and  head  which  could  serve  no 
purpose  because  they  could  have  no  muscular  attachments.  Con- 
gruity requires  that  every  part  of  the  posture,  the  dress,  insignia  of 
an  ofiSce  or  implements  of  a  trade  should  be  in  keeping  with  the 
character  of  the  subject  represented.  There  is,  so  far  as  mere  form 
is  concerned,  no  one  characteristic  which  so  certainly  points  out  the 
really  great  artist,  as  does  skill  in  securing  congruity  in  every  por- 
tion of  his  work. 

Any  amount  of  space  might  be  occupied  with  quotations  from 
ancient  and  modern  writers  who  present  not  simply  the  germs  but  the 
full  development  of  the  elements  of  form  above  mentioned  as  aiding 
to  secure  the  impression  of  beauty.  All  Plato's  discussions  upon  the 
subject  of  beauty  are  studded  with  allusions  to  proportion,  symmetry, 
congruity,  and"  other  elements  here  presented.  Aristotle  has  interest- 
ing discussions  of  the  laws  of  truth  and  beauty  in  forms  of  minerals, 
vegetables  and  animals ;  on  the  proportion  of  their  length  to  their 
other  dimensions;  on  the  reason  of  the  Spherical  form  of  the  soap- 

0 


106  ART   CRITICISM. 

bubble  and  the  conical  form  of  vegetables ;  all  which  though  hypo- 
thetical in  statement  he  manifestly  resolves  into  immutable  though 
inexplicable  principles  of  truth  and  beauty.  A  page  might  be  filled 
with  a  simple  mention  of  the  names  of  modern  authors  treating  on 
these  topics;  all  uniting  to  show  the  universally  received  opinion 
that  in  forms  there  are  elements  w^hich  constitute  beauty. 

It  is  appropriate  here  to  mention  what  will  be  more  fully  deve- 
loped in  its  own  place,  that  there  is  a  law  in  the  very  nature  of 
forms  seen,  and  of  the  eye  that  sees,  which  demands  and  secures 
pleasure  in  impressions  received.  In  sounds  pleasant  to  the  ear  it  is 
manifest  that  the  harmonious  concurrence  of  successive  waves  in  the 
vibrating  air  is  the  source,  instrumentally  considered,  of  the  agree- 
able impressions  called  "accord."  Hence  since  the  impressions  of 
sight  seem  to  be  the  result  of  waves  in  an  ether  whose  vibrations 
strike  the  eye,  it  might  be  supposed  that  impressions  agreeable  or 
disagreeable  coming  from  dimensions  as  to  length  and  breadth,  and 
from  angular  inclinations  and  radii  of  curvature,  might  also  result 
from  vibrations  in  that  ether,  which,  on  the  one  hand  concurred  and 
harmonized,  or,  on  the  other  hand,  clashed  and  jarred  with  each 
other.  The  study  of  this  interesting  question  as  suggested  by  Pytha- 
goras, Galileo  and  Newton,  and  as  it  has  been  followed  up  by  Gre- 
cian, Italian  and  English  artists  is  reserved  for  a  separate  section.^ 
It  is  but  suggested  here  as  bearing  on  the  general  sesthetic  impression 
produced  by  form,  presented  in  this  section. 

Sect.  2.  Color;  its  elements,  and  their  co-operation  as  the  acces- 
sories OF  Art. 

In  considering  the  elements  of  form  which  pleasurably  impress  the 
mind,  we  have  observed  that  there  is  a  natural  order  of  succession  in 
which  they  present  themselves  to  our  thought.  A  similar  order  may 
be  observed  in  the  impressions  made  by  color.  When  an  object 
breaks  first  on  our  view,  we  remark  that  there  is  a  substance  in  view 
and  we  seek  to  trace  its  outline ;  we  consider  whether  it  be  one,  and 
if  one,  we  scrutinize  to  decide  whether  it  be  simple ;  if  made  up  of 
parts,  we  notice  their  order,  then  their  proportion  as  to  each  other, 
and  then  the  symmetry  of  the  whole;  and  finally  we  judge  of  the 
congruity,  or  fitness  of  all  the  parts,  so  far  as  their  form  is  concerned, 
to  accomplish  some  design.     In  the  observation  of  color  as  pleasantly 


See  B.  I.,  C.  v.,  Sect.  5. 


ELEMENTS  OF   PLEASING   COLORS.  107 

affecting  the  mind,  we  are  conscious,  if  attentive  to  our  mental  sug- 
gestions, of  a  similar  order  of  thought. 

Though  color  is  usually  a  quality  of  substance,  and  an  adjunct  of 
form,  it  exists  where  no  appreciable  substance  can  be  traced ;  it  is 
not  in  itself  really  an  attribute  of  substance,  but  an  impression  on 
our  sentient  organism;^  and  it  must  always  when  analytically  re- 
garded be  separated  from  both  substance  and  form  for  consideration. 
The  analysis  of  color  as  such,  the  distinction  between  white  as  the 
combination  and  black  as  the  absence  of  all  color,  of  yellow,  red 
and  blue  as  primary,  of  green,  orange  and  purple  as  secondary,  and 
of  citrine,  olive  and  russet  as  tertiary  colors,  as  well  as  the  general 
discussion  of  contrast  and  harmony  in  complementary  and  accordant 
colors,  belongs  to  the  subject  of  Painting.  A  general  survey,  how- 
ever, of  the  principles  of  color  as  producing  the  pleasant  impressions 
of  art  is  here  required.  These  principles  may  perhaps  be  resolved 
into  the  following. 

First:  Determinateness  of  Hue. — When  we  gaze  into  the  heavens 
in  the  daytime,  and  see  nothing  but  the  light  azure  produced  by  the 
direct  sunlight,  or  at  night  study  the  dark  blue  black  of  the  faintest 
diffused  light  which  is  still  present  even  at  midnight,  simple  color 
has  its  pleasing  charm.  So  too  in  the  universal  gray  of  a  clouded 
sky,  and  in  the  rich  gold  and  purple  of  evening  twilight,  which  seem 
to  have  no  back  ground  to  make  them  stand  out,  and  no  form  from 
which  they  are  reflected,  color  in  itself  and  as  such  gives  us  pleasure ; 
just  as  does  mere  outline  in  substance.  It  is  the  determinateness  of 
the  varying  yet  positive  hue,  the  fact  that  we  can  see  color,  which 
is  the  source  of  pleasure  to  the  eye  when  no  other  quality  in  the 
object  of  sight  is  observable. 

Second:  Purity  of  Colors  in  themselves  considered. — When  color  so 
far  develops  itself  as  to  take  a  perceptible  hue,  it  may  be  an  impure 
mixture ;  blackish  or  grayish,  and  dirty  in  aspect.  The  savage,  the 
child,  the  uncultured  of  every  age  and  of  both  sexes  are  pleased  with 
gaudy  and  flaunting  hues,  such  as  the  primaries  yellow,  red  and 
blue.  In  these  least  studied  effects  of  colors  the  first  essential  requi- 
site to  the  securing  of  satisfaction  and  pleasure,  is,  that  they  be  in 
themselves,  pure.  The  eye  and  the  mind,  cultured  or  uncultured, 
desires,  that,  whatever  be  the  color  of  an  object,  it  be  clear,  unmixed 
and  unspotted ;  first,  that  it  show  nothing  but  its  own  hue ;  second, 


'  See  the  analysis  of  primary,  secondary,  and  secundo-primary  qualities  by 
Sir  Wm.  Hamilton. 


108  ART   CRITICISM. 

that  it  be  not  muddied  with  the  tinge  of  foreign  hues ;  and  third, 
that  it  be  not  soiled  by  scattered  spots  and  irregular  lines  of 
another  color.  The  savage  is  as  much  displeased  with  a  dull,  or  a 
faded  color,  or  by  a  stain  on  his  mantle,  as  is  the  most  fastidious 
belle  in  polished  society.  Again,  when  increased  culture  leads  to 
the  preference  of  the  graver  hues  Jftirnished  in  the  secondaries  and 
tertiaries,  it  is  the  pure  clear  tint  resulting  from  the  admixture  of 
colors  in  their  regular  proportions  that  gives  pleasure.  The  eye  is 
never  satisfied  with  disproportionate  mixtures.  The  common  mind 
signifies  its  displeasure  by  calling  the  latter  "dirty"  colors;  while 
artists  by  the  term,  "lively"  applied  to  the  former  distinguish  the 
one  from  the  other  as  a  decayed  and  dying  plant  is  distinct  from  a 
living  and  thriving  stalk  whose  very  vitality  is  its  beauty.  What- 
ever be  the  hue  which  taste  selects  for  address  to  the  eye  it  makes 
the  same  demand  for  purity  in  color  as  for  unity  in  form.  Indeed 
purity  is  unity  in  color. 

Third :  Evenness  of  body. — When  viewed  alone,  a  color  must  be 
pure  in  order  to  be  pleasing.  Color,  however,  is  an  attribute  of  sub- 
stance; and  its  estimated  richness  depends  on  the  substances  it 
adorns.  In  a  single  object,  evenness  of  color  is  a  feature  akin  to 
regularity  of  form.  A  tree  whose  leaves  are  green  from  top  to 
bottom,  and  whose  flowers  are  of  one  hue,  a  house  freshly  painted, 
so  that  every  part  shows  the  same  even  coating  as  it  comes  from  the 
workman's  hand,  are  types  in  nature,  and  in  the  mechanic  arts  of  the 
higher  works  of  Art.  An  irregular  daubing  of  varied  colors  is  as 
unlike  to  the  even  laying  on  of  the  nicest  tints  by  the  master's  hand, 
as  a  school-boy's  attempt  at  drawing  a  circle  is  unlike  the  instanta.- 
neous  and  regular  sweep  of  a  trained  artist. 

Fourth :  Distinctiveness  in  Character. — As  simplicity  is  a  charm  in 
form  because  it  pictures  most  perfectly  the  object  represented,  so 
distinctiveness  in  color  impresses  because  it  brings  out  the  character 
of  the  object  painted.  The  sky  has  distinctive  characteristics,  as 
clear,  or  cold,  or  sunlit,  when  its  hue  is  blue,  or  gray,  or  rosy ;  the 
sea  is  known  to  be  calm,  or  ruflled,  or  raging,  according  as.  it  mirrors 
the  varied  colors  of  objects  above  it,  or  reflects  its  own  green  from 
its  thin  and  half  transparent  wave  crests,  or  absorbs  all  light  at  the 
black  base  of  its  swollen  billows  and  transmits  all  light  from  the 
white  transparence  of  their  attenuated  tops.  So  among  the  varied 
flowers  and  fruits  and  leaves  that  cover  the  earth  as  a  carpet,  and 
even  throughout  all  the  varieties  of  beasts  and  birds  and  of  human 
beings,  fur  and  hair,  and  even  flesh  tint  has,  in  each  class,  if  not  in 


AC(X)RD   AND   HARMONY   IN   COLORS.  109 

each  individual,  its  own  peculiar  characteristic ;  and  Colors  in  nature 
and  art  are  pleasing  according  as  they  are  distinctive  in  character. 

Fifth:  Accordance  in  juxtaposition. — As  notes  sounded  together 
must  have  a  certain  proportion  as  to  their  respective  pitch  in  order 
to  be  consonant,  and  as  two  lines  so  near  as  to  be  taken  in  at  the 
same  angle  of  vision  must  have  a  kindred  proportion  in  order  to 
make  an  accordant  and  pleasurable  impression,  so  must  colors  viewed 
in  immediate  juxtaposition  have  a  similar  proportion  in  order  to 
jDroduce  accord.  It  is  essential,  therefore,  that  colors  be  so  arranged 
that  two  discordant  ones  shall  not  strike  the  eye  together.  The 
flaming  hot  aspect  of  a  house  painted  red,  glowing  amid  the  shad* 
of  the  country,  or  the  gory  crimson  of  a  ship's  hulk  lying  on  the 
green  sea,  like  blood  on  water  not  mixing  with  it,  does  violence  to 
an  instinctively  recognized  law  of  order  in  colors.  On  the  other 
hand,  nothing  can  excel  the  charm  of  the  rainbow,  in  whose  arch, 
the  red,  orange,  yellow,  green,  blue,  indigo,  and  violet,  succeed  each 
other  in  an  order  that  is  pleasing,  not  simply  because  it  is  common 
or  natural,  but  because  we  are  made  for  it,  and  it  for  us.  The  law 
of  order  as  securing  accord,  not  less  than  that  of  proportion  as  con- 
nected with  harmony  of  colors,  will  be  found  to  be  a  principle  of 
wide  application  in  the  progress  of  the  history  of  painting. 

Sixth :  Harmoniousness  as  a  whole  in  the  association  of  colors. — It  is 
not  only  necessary  that  musical  sounds  be  in  accord  when  two  are 
struck  together  alone,  but  that  the  series  of  sounds  following  each 
other  throughout  a  musical  composition  be  so  arranged  that  the 
voice  and  ear  pass  readily  from  one  to  the  other.  It  is  also  essential 
to  beauty  in  form,  not  only  that  colors  arranged  near  each  other 
have  a  proper  order,  but  that  the  parts  taken  two  and  two  be  pro- 
portionate to  each  other.  Though  two  notes  struck  together  make 
discord,  the  same  two  struck  separately,  but  successively,  may  pro- 
duce harmony.  So  two  colors  which,  meeting  the  eye  together, 
produce  a  disagreeable  impression  of  jarring  on  the  vision,  may, 
when  distributed  at  fit  intervals,  and  of  proportionate  breadths,  give 
harmony  to  the  whole.  This  is  illustrated  in  the  case  of  the  rainbow 
first  referred  to.  It  is  not  simply  the  order  in  which  the  colors 
succeed  each  other,  but  the  grouping  as  a  whole,  the  proportionate 
breadth,  the  adjusted  place,  the  graduated  vividness  of  each  which 
produces  the  pleasant  impression.  The  more  nature  is  studied,  in 
the  stars  not  bedizening  but  only  bespangling  the  blue  sky,  in  the 
white  caps  of  the  ruffled  ocean  set  off  by  the  graduated  intervals  of 
dark  waters  beneath,  in  the  varied  hues  of  flowers  not  overloading 

10 


110  ART   CKITICISM. 

but  simply  studding  the  background  of  green,  and  in  the  contrast 
observed  in  the  hairy  coats  of  quadrupeds,  and  in  the  plumage  of  birds, 
and  even  in  the  distribution  upon  the  human  face  of  light  flesh  color 
interspersed  with  the  ruby  of  the  lips,  the  ivory  white  of  eyeballs  and 
teeth,  the  whole  arched  by  the  dark  lines  of  eyebrows  and  eyelash, 
there  is  in  all  these  colors  just  that  amount  of  contrast  which  gives 
greatest  completeness  to  the  whole. 

Seventh :  Blending  in  conjunction. — Modulation  of  voice,  demanded 
in  elocution,  and  even  in  ordinary  speech  as  truly  as  in  music,  is  the 
easy  transition  by  which  tones  melt  and  flow,  and  mix  like  fused 
rfnetals  into  each  other;  and  symmetry  in  form  is  the  similar  taper- 
ing, and  morticing  and  dovetailing  of  the  parts  compacted  into  the 
one  living  statue.  So  blending  in  colors  is  the  imperceptibly  vary- 
ing shade,  the  nicely  graduated  scale  of  modified  admixture  by 
which  one  color  flows  into,  and,  like  clear  and  muddy  water  brooks 
meeting,  loses  its  own  hue  in  that  of  its  fellow.  No  possible  line  of 
distinct  demarcation  can  be  traced  between  the  distinct  colors  of  the 
rainbow;  no  flower  has  any  paint  of  separation  between  the  white 
foot  and  the  crimson  or  purple  tip  of  its  petal ;  no  single  hair  on  an 
animal,  or  feather  upon  a  bird,  has  at  any  part  of  its  length  a 
sudden  transition  in  the  varying  shade,  that,  from  its  root  outward, 
grows  darker  to  its  tip.  When  the  artist  in  his  eflfort  at  copying 
nature  fails  to  imitate  her  perfect  work  in  this  respect,  every  eye  is 
conscious  that  the  imperceptible  blending  of  hues  and  shades  into 
each  other  is  one  of  the  elements  of  the  pleasure  derived  from 
beholding  color. 

Eighth :  Appropriateness  to  the  subject — As  in  music  expression 
gives  soul  to  harmony,  and  in  form  congruity  makes  things  to  be 
real,  not  made  up,  so  Appropriateness  of  color  gives  its  subject  the 
chief  attribute  of  living  beings,  which  is  life  itself.  The  application 
of  this  principle  will  be  found  to  be  varied  and  extensive.  In 
sculpture  it  will  influence  the  selection  of  material  appropriate  to  the 
representation  of  diflerent  objects;  of  animals  as  distinct  from  men; 
of  woman  in  quiet  loveliness  and  grace  as  distinguished  from  man 
in  the  rough  pursuits  of  a  woodman  or  warrior.  In  architecture  it 
will  control  the  style  of  color  in  the  material  used ;  and  in  landscape 
gardening  the  amount  and  character  of  foliage  introduced.  In 
painting  it  will  prove  the  artist's  ruling  aim  to  gain  the  power  of 
giving  to  each  object  its  own  specific  tinge,  so  that  the  eye  without 
thought  sees,  not  the  image,  but  the  thing  itself  through  the  decep- 
tion of  accurate  coloring.     In  decorative  art  it  will  be  the  judge  to 


RELATIONS   OF   SPACE   IN   ART,  111 

decide  the  strife  amid  the  conflicting  claims  frequently  arising 
between  material  and  subject;  demanding,  for  instance,  that  the 
color  of  a  cast  iron  gate  in  a  cemetery  representing  a  lamb  under  a 
willow,  shall  be  all  bronze,  or  black,  and  not  allowing  that  the  tree 
be  colored  green  and  the  lamb  white. 

The  order  of  classification  here  pursued  may  not  be  that  which 
every  mind  will  follow ;  yet  the  main  end  it  has  in  view,  the  leading 
of  every  student  of  art  to  an  analysis  of  his  own  impressions  in  its 
study,  may  be  attained  by  this  survey.  The  method  of  illustration 
employed  may  not  be  appreciated  by  a^l  readers ;  and  the  general 
principle  that  there  is  a  parallel  between  the  impressions  made  by 
tones  addressing  the  ear,  and  forms  and  hues  addressing  the  eye  may 
be  questioned.  If,  however,  the  illustrations  chosen  give  any  clear- 
ness to  the  statement  made,  or  hint  in  any  degree  a  method  of 
successful  study,  they  will  have  served  their  designed  purpose. 

Sect.  3.  Fixed  Eelation;  the  association  of  objects  presented  as  at 

REST. 

Thus  far  objects  making  the  impression  of  beauty  have  been  con- 
sidered singly  and  in  themselves ;  the  elements  producing  the  agree- 
able impression  being  comprehended  in  those  of  form  and  color,  the 
former  possessing  positive  properties  appreciable  by  other  senses  than 
sight,  the  latter  resulting  from  negative  capabilities  which  reveal 
themselves  only  to  the  organ  of  vision.  No  object,  however,  can  be 
fully  considered  without  the  mind's  resting  on  some  of  its  relations. 
The  statue  with  its  exquisite  form  must  stand  on  something  resting 
upon  the  earth ;  the  water  lily  with  its  attractive  color  floats  on  a 
liquid  bed;  the  fleecy  cloud  flits  and  rocks  in  an  airy  cradle;  and 
even  the  moon,  rolling  so  far  ofl*,  is  held  in  its  place  by  some  power. 
In  considering  the  beauty  of  any  conceivable  object  its  relations  will 
force  themselves  into  thought  and  give  character  to  our  sesthetic 
impressicflis. 

When  the  relations  of  an  object  begin  to  come  into  review  the 
mind  resolves  them  into  natural  classes.  Considered  as  at  rest 
objects  have  certain  fixed  relations;  and  regarded  as  acted  upon  by 
forces  within  or  without,  physical  or  spiritual  in  their  nature,  the 
same  objects  have  changing  relations;  which  relations  fixed  or  chang- 
ing, enter  as  elements  into  our  estimate  of  beauty.  The  principal 
relations,  so  far  as  Art  is  concerned,  of  objects  considered  as  at  rest 
are  comprehended  under  the  ideas  of  place,  time,  quantity,  and 


112  ART   CRITICISM. 

number;  while  those  of  objects  regarded  as  changing  are  motion, 
life,  action,  and  emotion. 

.  The  idea  of  space,  in  which  that  of  place  is  included,  is  the  first  to 
which  in  all  metaphysical  analysis  the  mind  turns.  It  is  the  recep- 
tacle in  which  all  objects  are  included;  it  is  probably  the  first 
abstract  idea  conceived  by  the  child  as  his  hand  begins  to  reach  after 
objects  before  his  eyes  as  if  he  judged  of  their  location;  and,  more- 
over, the  first  idea  of  the  infinite  in  reference  to  which  we  are  satis- 
fied that  our  mental  conception  corresponds  to  an  existing  external 
reality  is  our  conviction  of  the  reality  of  space  without  limit. 

The  idea  of  balance  is  a  subordinate  under  that  of  place.  Such  is 
our  conviction  from  experience  that  every  object  must  have  a 
balanced  rest  that  when  a  single  object,  as  an  obscure  form  dimly 
seen  in  the  mist,  is  observed,  we  look  first  for  the  foot  on  which  it 
rests.  As  the  demands  of  the  true  made  the  ancient  Ai^abian  inquire 
after  the  "  balancing  of  the  clouds,"  so  the  critic  of  the  beautiful  will 
in  scanning  the  relations  of  any  work  of  art  as  a  statue,  look  first  at 
its  balance.  As  no  beauty  of  form  could  dispel  or  relieve  the  un- 
pleasant nervousness  which  overpowers  every  other  mental  impres- 
sion when  a  noble  man  or  fair  woman  is  seen  to  be  standing  in  a 
position  from  which  they  are  liable  to  fall,  so  a  statue  on  a  pedestal 
or  even  a  figure  painted  upon  canvass  produces  an  unpleasant  im- 
pression, destructive  of  the  idea  of  beauty,  when  it  seems  insecure 
because  unbalanced.  The  leaning  tower  of  Pisa  is  an  illustration* 
of  this  in  architecture ;  the  youthful  Jesus  in  the  painting  by  Paul 
Veronese  of  the  "  Ecce  Agnus  Dei "  seems  to  have  this  fault ;  and 
critical  eyes  have  thought  they  detected  it  in  Powers'  Slsatue  of 
Washington. 

As  balance  is  regarded  when  one  object  is  viewed,  so  relative  posi- 
tion is  noted  when  two  or  more  objects  are  associated.  The  principal 
object  should  always  be  foremost  and  prominent  in  a  painting;  the 
law  of  perspective  making  the  central  figure,  because  nearer  the 
beholder,  higher  than  its  associates.  This  principle  the  Greeks 
regarded  so  carefully  that,  in  ranging  a  group  of  statuary  in  the 
pediment  or  roof  gable  of  a  temple,  they  placed  the  central  figure 
under  the  roof  peak  on  a  throne,  while  the  remaining  figures,  as  the 
diminishing  height  allowed,  were  represented,  first  standing,  then 
seated,  and  finally  reclining.  This  law  of  relative  position  Hogarth 
considered  so  important  that  he  would  have  all  groups  in  both 
sculpture  and  painting  pyramidal  in  shape;  the  central  figure  stand- 
ing highest  or  having  the  larger  proportions.     In  landscape  painting 


RELATIONS   OF   TIME   IN   ART.  113 

even,  whether  copied  from  nature  or  ideal  in  its  character,  this  prin- 
ciple is  to  be  regarded  as  truly  as  in  historical  composition. 

After  the  relations  of  space  come  those  of  time.  As  all  objects 
are  included  in  space  so  all  events  have  their  occurrence  and  succes- 
sion in  time;  and  the  second  abstract  idea,  as  metaphysicians  sup- 
pose, conceived  by  the  opening  reason  of  the  child,  is  of  time  finite 
and  infinite.  In  the  relations  of  time  are  embraced  considerations 
relating  to  day  and  night,  to  summer  and  winter,  to  ages  of  man's 
life  and  of  the  world's  history.  If  the  time  conceived  by  a  painter 
be  noon,  he  must  give  appropriate  length  and  direction  to  his  sha- 
dows ;  and  if  it  be  winter  the  deciduous  trees  must  be  bare  and  the 
pines  clothed  with  foliage.  If  the  scene  be  the  visit  of  Eastern  Magi 
to  the  babe  Jesus  the  manger  must  not  be  of  modern  carpentry,  the 
dress  that  of  Koman  ecclesiastics,  and  the  architecture  that  of  the 
Middle  Ages ;  and  if  the  artist  dare  to  conceive  and  paint  the  earth 
as  it  was  in  an  ancient  geological  age,  the  barren  rocks,*  the  fern-like 
plants  and  the  crocodile  inhabitants  must  all  correspond.  The  truth 
of  nature  and  history  must  be  so  studied  that  every  relation  of  time 
be  preserved ;  otherwise  the  beauty  of  the  whole  is  marred. 

After  the  relation  of  time  there  naturally  comes  that  of  quantity. 
As  there  is  a  law  of  due  proportion  in  the  parts  which  are  to  make 
up  a  single  object  and  a  principle  of  symmetry  which  should  control 
in  their  union  to  each  other,  so  there  is  a  due  comparison  in  the  size 
and  interposition  of  objects  that  are  grouped  as  a  whole..  At  first 
sight  the  size  of  the  interior  of  St.  Peter's  is  dwarfed  by  the  fact  that 
every  object,  even  the  cherubs  perched  under  the  ceiling  are  colossal. 
Yet  the  same  is  true  of  Niagara ;  the  first  view  disappoints  by  its 
apparent  diminutiveness.  In  art  and  nature  alike  it  is  not  until 
each  detail  is  viewed  alone  and  each  feature  is  separately  compre- 
hended that  the  stupendous  whole  assumes  its  just  grandeur;  to 
which,  as  it  then  becomes  manifest,  the  due  proportion  of  each  colossal 
part  is  essential.  On  the  other  hand,  when  Phidias  made  his  colossal 
statue  of  Minerva  hold  her  spear  in  one  hand  and  a  statue  of  victory 
in  the  other,  it  was  true  art  to  swell  the  spear  shaft  till  it  seemed  a 
beam,  and  to  dwarf  the  statue  to  the  natural  proportions  of  about 
six  feet  in  stature ;  as  it  was  when  he  grouped  the  gods  in  the  pedi- 
ment of  the  Parthenon  to  make  Jupiter's  eagle  gigantic  and 
Minerva's  chariot  horses  of  natural  size;  since  thus  the  forms  of 
Jupiter  and  Minerva,  the  prominent  actors  in  the  group,  are  made 
more  conspicuous.  In  a  historical  painting  the  central  figure  may 
occupy  too  much  space,  presenting  too  broad  proportions  in  quan-. 
10  *  P 


114  ART   CRITICISM. 

tity,  as  in  some  of  Rubens',  or  too  little  as  in  Trumbull's;  while 
again  the  effort  to  give  breadth  to  two  distinct  and  distant  scenes  in 
one  group  may  mar  the  effect  of  even  such  a  masterpiece  as  Raphael's 
Transfiguration. 

The  final  one  among  fixed  relations  to  claim  special  notice  is  that 
of  number.  As  already  observed,  there  can  be  no  single  relation 
considered  that  does  not  involve  the  recognition  of  a  second  object 
to  which  the  first  has  a  relation.  In  the  groupings  of  art,  as  of 
nature,  a  certain  fixed  number  always  limits  the  view ;  and  when 
the  number  of  objects  contemplated  becomes  indefinite  and  without 
limit,  the  emotion  of  beauty  subsides,  and  quite  another  succeeds. 
The  most  ancient  observers  of  the  heavens  clustered  the  stars  in 
groups  of  limited  numbers,  as  "seven,"  "eleven,"  "twelve."^  The 
Divine  Teacher  was  accompanied  by  a  fixed  number  of  associates, 
sometimes  twelve  and  sometimes  three ;  as  not  only  his  biographers, 
but  also  the  greatest  of  artists  have  loved  to  picture.  The  scene  of 
all  others  on  earth  most  tragic,  the  crucifixion,  may  have  too  many 
figures  introduced,  as  in  that  of  Titian,  who  sought  chiefly  to  bring 
out  the  effects  of  color;  or  it  may  have  too  few,  as  in  many  master- 
pieces of  Florentine  artists  who  have  striven  for  the  higher  effect  of 
form.  .  The  student  and  critic  of  art,  as  well  as  the  artist,  will  find 
his  mind  constantly  reverting  to  the  relation  of  number,  as  one  of 
those  to  be  observed  in  art. 

The  relations  of  objects  as  fixed,  or  at  rest  in  reference  to  other 
objects,  as  they  have  here  been  treated,  have  been  observed  by 
writers  of  every  age.  Aristotle's  Problems,  as  well  as  his  Rhetorical 
treatises,  are  filled  with  illustrations  of  the  bearing  these  principles 
have  on  the  subject  of  art;  and  in  this  he  is  but  repeated  by  modern 
writers.  Thus  Aristotle  asks,  "Why  the  bodies  of  deformed  men 
look  larger  proportionally  than  those  that  have  symmetry ;"  and  his 
reply  is  substantially  "  That  symmetrical  forms  are  naturally  viewed 
as  one,  while  the  limbs  of  the  deformed  man  seem  parts  of  different 
bodies,  and  hence  appear  to  occupy  more  space."  The  many  illus- 
trations given  by  Lord  Kames  to  the  same  effect,  as  in  the  divisions 
of  a  flower  garden,  or  of  fields  in  a  plain  country,  indicate  that  art 
criticism  is  based  in  all  ages  on  kindred  principles  of  judgment. 


Gen.  xxxvii.  9;  Job  ix.  9;  xxxviii.  31,  32;  Amos  v.  8. 


MOTION   AS   AN   ELEMENT   OF   BEAUTY   IN   AKT.  116 


Sect.  4.  Changing  Kelation  ;  the  disposition  of  objects  kepresented 

as  in  motiow. 

In  one  sense,  no  object  is  at  rest;  for  the  rock  that  for  centuries 
does  not  change  its  position  relatively  upon  the  earth,  is  constantly 
moving  with  the  earth  itself.  It  is,  however,  visible  motion,  that 
recognized  by  the  eye,  which  is  regarded  in  the  analyses  of  art. 
There  is  motion  in  inanimate  objects,  or  those  without  life;  the  rain 
fiilling,  the  rivers  flowing,  the  tides  rolling,  the  clouds  flying,  the 
mountain  rocks  tumbling,  and  the  volcano  heaving;  while  beyond 
the  earth,  moons,  planets,  and  starry  suns,  all  seem  coursing  in  their 
circles  through  the  heavens.  From  the  time  the  Hebrew  sage  pic- 
tured how  air,  water,  earth,  "all  things  are  full  of  labor,"  poets  and 
artists  have  alike  sought  to  impress  by  the  varied  changes  that  come 
over  the  relations  of  objects;  "all"  of  which  "in  their  time"  are 
"beautiful."^ 

In  the  material  creation  the  cause  of  changing  relation  is  ulti- 
mately motion;  which  Aristotle  made  the  ground  principle  of  his 
argument  for  the  existence  of  a  God  of  infinite  perfection,  as  well 
as  a  fundamental  element  of  truth  and  beauty  in  all  created  things. 
There  are  two  kinds  of  motion ;  each  according  with  its  source ; 
motion  produced  from  without,  or  that  of  all  inanimate  objects;  and 
self-motion,  that  which  is  spontaneous  and  from  within,  and  belongs 
to  all  animate  beings.  The  plant  by  an  inherent  spontaneous 
motion  builds  itself  up ;  an  animal  is  endowed  with  the  additional 
power  of  physical  locomotion ;  while  man  gifted  with  intellect,  sensi- 
bility, and  will,  when  once  created  by  the  Cause  of  all  things,  is  the 
image  of  his  Creator  in  his  capacity  for  self-action  both  of  body 
and  of  mind. 

The  primary  idea  in  the  production  of  motion  is  the  element  of 
power;  which  metaphysical  theologians  unite  in  regarding  as  the 
attribute  of  the  Divine  Being  naturally  suggested  to  the  mind  next 
after  those  of  omnipresence  or  the  filling  of  all  space,  and  of  eternity 
or  the  filling  of  all  time.  Among  powers  observed  there  are  two 
distinct  classes,  physical,  or  those  by  which  matter  is  acted  upon  by 
matter;  and  moral,  or  those  by  which  mind  acts  on  mind;  and  each 
of  these  has  its  sub-divisions  and  classes.  The  idea  of  power  leads 
again  to  that  of  cause ;  which  properly  understood,  implies  the  more 


'  Eccles.  i.  4-8;  iii.  11. 


116  ART   CRITICISM. 

ultimate  consideration  of  intelligent  purpose.  A  power  producing 
an  effect  beforehand  designed  is  properly  styled  a  cause ;  for  though 
we  may  speak  of  one  thing  as  the  approximate  cause  of  another,  for 
instance  of  water  turning  the  moving  wheel  as  the  approximate 
cause  of  the  working  of  all  the  connected  machinery,  yet  the  mind 
looks  back  of  anything  inanimate  for  the  ultimate  as  the  true  cause ; 
which  it  finds  in  a  person.  The  subject  of  changing  relation,  there- 
forCj  is  a  broad  one ;  embracing,  as  it  does,  the  field  of  animate  and 
inanimate  motion,  of  physical  and  moral  action.  In  its  bearing 
upon  art  it  leads  to  the  difierent  classes  of  motion  and  emotion 
which  may  be  represented,  to  the  methods  of  art  by  which  they  may 
be  presented  to  the  eye,  and  to  the  disposition  of  objects  in  works  of 
art  best  adapted  to  awaken  the  desired  impression. 

Motion,  which  in  nature  is  real,  can  only  be  represented  in  art ; 
except  in  landscape  gardening.  In  inanimate  objects  motion  may 
be  in  straight,  but  is  usually  in  curved  lines.  Every  planet  is  turned 
from  the  straight  line  it  would  by  its  simple  impulse  follow,  and  is 
bent  into  a  curve  by  the  attraction  of  other  heavenly  bodies ;  every 
projectile  shot  with  the  greatest  attainable  swiftness  bends  downward 
constantly  as  it  goes;  and  there  is  reason  iot  Hogarth's  suggestion 
that  the  curve  is  the  line  of  beauty  so  far  as  motion  is  concerned, 
since  no  line  of  motion  seen  by  the  eye  is  a  straight  one.  In  the 
mere  motion  of  any  solid  object  the  mind  seems  to  take  delight;  the 
infant  being  pleased  with  a  stick  shaken  before  it,  the  boy  with  the 
skipping  of  a  stone  or  the  bounding  of  a  ball,  and  mature  men  with 
the  whirl  of  machinery,  the  rush  of  a  railway  train,  the  coursing  of 
a  vessel  at  sea,  or  even  with  the  lazy  drag  of  a  cart  or  a  plough. 
The  delight  we  take  in  such  movements  is  proportioned  to  the  regu- 
larity of  the  speed  and  the  line  of  direction;  other  elements  of 
delight  not  belonging  to  the  simple  idea  of  motion,  but  to  other 
associations  of  the  object. 

The  motion  of  fluids  is  in  some  respects  more  agreeable  than  that 
of  solids.  The  pleasure  derived  from  the  movement  of  water  seems 
heightened  by  the  perfect  ease  with  which  the  particles  move  upon 
each  other ;  giving  its  stream  the  regular  curved  shape  which  nature 
and  its  laws  impose,  always  a  form  of  beauty.  The  swift  rush  of  a 
mountain  torrent,  the  gentle  meandering  of  a  river  in  lowlands,  the 
glistening  spheres  of  falling  rain,  the  cylinder  and  cones  of  the 
upward  jet,  or  of  the  falling  column,  these  readily  assumed  and 
constantly  changing  forms,  as  well  as  the  curve  of  motion  itself, 
present  a  beauty  of  motion  which  solid  bodies  cannot  equal.     Even 


ACTION   AS   INDICATING   DESIGN   AND   SUPERIORITY.      117 

the  air  moving  in  columns,  the  ever-changing  forms  of  clouds  flying, 
and  of  trees  waving  before  the  breeze,  have  an  inspiring  charm. 

It  is  only  in  landscape  that  actual  motion  of  machinery,  of  water 
and  of  air  can  be  made  available  in  producing  the  impressions  made 
by  art.  Guizot  has  expressed  doubt  whether  sculpture  is  adapted 
to  express  at  all  the  element  of  action.  Probably,  however,  a  dis- 
tinction should  here  be  made  between  action  in  inanimate  and 
animate  objects.  The  effort  to  represent  in  marble  or  bronze  the 
appearance  of  hair  flowing,  foliage  swayed  by  the  breeze,  or  of 
wheels  as  actually  rolling,  is  a  hazardous  attempt ;  while  the  same, 
can  hardly  be  said  of  the  action  of  animate  beings.  The  painter  is 
confined  to  still  life  proper,  as  flowers  and  fruits,  who  does  not  intro- 
duce the  aspect  of  objects  undergoing  change,  either  from  the  action 
of  light,  of  air,  of  water,  or  of  earth,  into  his  works.  Motion  in 
even  inanimate  things,  produced  by  physical  or  mechanical  causes, 
is  certainly  one  of  the  elements  of  pleasure  that  must  enter  into  the 
higher  walks  of  art. 

Coming  to  animate  objects  the  representation  of  changing  rela- 
tions is,  as  the  word  well  implies,  the  very  "  life"  of  art.  Here  the 
principle  of  Design  in  art  has  the  germ  of  its  origin ;  for  life  implies 
a  power  that  is  spontaneous,  an  action  self-originated,  an  independent 
cause  operating  with  an  end  in  view  and  governed  therefore  by 
design.  The  elementary  idea  of  figure  as  distinct  from  form,  so  often 
dwelt  upon  by  critics  in  literature  and  art,  has  here  its  connection 
and  consequent  explanation;  for  implying,  as  its  Latin  derivation 
indicates,  a  determinate  form,  figure  is  a  form  that  has  been  given  to 
an  object  not  by  any  chance  acting  without  end  or  rule ;  but  by  a 
designing  mind  and  hand,  either  Divine  or  human,  operating  of 
itself  as  an  originating  cause.  In  the  same  connection  arises  the 
idea  of  superiority,  so  much  regarded  by  the  true  artist ;  the  principle 
that  among  several  objects  presented  in  a  work  of  art,  one  should  be 
manifestly  the  centre  of  power  and  interest ;  a  principle  immediately 
associated  with  the  preceding  consideration.  A  tree  standing  alone 
on  a  rocky  shore  or  a  boat-oar  lying  on  a  sandy  beach,  a  bear  in  a 
forest  or  a  sheep  on  a  lawn,  Adam  surrounded  by  groups  of  animals 
as  he  is  naming  them,  each  of  these,  because  they  have  a  higher 
order  of  figure,  implying  a  more  studied  design,  hold  the  position  of 
superiority  among  their  subordinates.  In  nature  and  in  art  alike 
the  moving  or  movable  object,  that  which  has  life  or  is  an  imple- 
ment of  an  intelligent  being,  and  which  suggests,  therefore,  changing 
relation,  is  the  centre  of  attraction. 


118  ART   CRITICISM. 

As  "life,"  the  power  of  motion,  has  thus  its  connection  with  prin- 
ciples of  true  art,  so  the  power  of  giving  life,  which  led  the  Greeks 
to  call  the  poet  and  artist  Creators,  has  a  still  higher  importance; 
especially  the  picturing  of  beings  with  life  as  actually  moving.  It 
is  hard  to  conceive  of  a  subject  for  a  painting  into  which  some 
animate  being,  beast,  bird,  or  insect,  would  not  naturally  be  intro- 
duced ;  and  as  in  nature  nothing  but  a  barren  desert  is  motionless, 
so  it  would  ordinarily  be  a  sterile  mind  that  did  not  make  any  scene 
depicted  by  art  instinct  with  some  form  of  life.  The  great  success 
of  the  German  painters,  as  compared  with  those  of  Southern  Europe, 
is  the  amount  of  motion,  of  life,  of  changing  relation,  they  crowd 
upon  their  canvas.  In  Grecian  sculpture,  the  representation  of  cor- 
poreal action  is  the  very  perfection  of  art ;  as  is  seen  in  the  visible 
shrinking  of  modesty  in  the  Venus  de  Medici,  and  in  the  advancing 
attitude  and  strain  of  limb  in  the  Apollo  Belvidere  hurling  his 
arrow.  The  very  word  grace,  as  we  shall  see,  implies  action  in 
animate  beings ;  as  the  word  sublimity  implies  motion  in  inanimate 
objects  of  undefined  extent,  which,  because  of  life-like  movement, 
have  personal  attributes  ascribed  to  them.  As  grace  is  an  attribute 
of  the  carriage  of  the  nobler  animals,  and  of  man  or  woman,  when 
moving,  so  in  sculpture  the  posture  of  limbs  and  inclination  of  frame 
that  indicates  motion  may  have  the  attribute  of  grace.  As,  too, 
nothing  is  more  exquisitely  beautiful  than  the  miniature  jet  and  fall 
of  water,  so  the  same  on  a  grand  scale,  the  whirling  eddy  with  its 
spiral  movements  of  the  water-spout  and  the  tornado,  is  perhaps  the 
very  height  of  the  sublime. 

Sect.  5.  Physical  Coincidence;  the  law  of  harmonious  proportion 
between  tones  pleasing  to  the  ear,  and  forms  and  colors  agree- 
able to  the  eye. 

As  we  have  observed,  the  impressions  made  upon  all  our  organs 
of  sense  have  an  analogy  to  each  other  more  or  less  intimate.  It  is 
natural  to  anticipate  that  this  resemblance  would  be  strongest  be- 
tween the  laws  of  address  in  the  two  higher  of  these  organs.  Though 
in  some  respects  speculative,  the  study  of  physical  coincidence 
between  the  impressions  made  by  sight  and  sound  has  commended 
itself  to  the  ablest  minds  of  every  age ;  many  of  whom  have  believed 
that  the  laws  of  Beauty  like  those  of  Truth  may  be  so  reached  that 
the  artist  may  attain  to  a  science  in  the  former  as  in  the  latter  field. 
It  is  not  poets  alone  that  have  believed  in  a  world  and  an  age  of 
human  advancement  of  which  it  might  be  said : — 


VIBRATORY   HARMONIES   IN   SOUND   AND   SIGHT.  119 

"  There  thou  shalt  learn  the  secret  power 
Of  harmony  in  tones  and  numbers  hit 
By  voice  or  hand  and  varied  measured  verse." 

The  poets  never  would  have  had  this  suggestion  had  not  philoso- 
phers led  them  to  it.  Ancient  philosophy  suggested  and  modern 
science  has  established  that  the  impressions  of  sight  coming  from 
form  and  color,  are  produced  by  vibratory  waves  in  ether,  as  sound 
is  the  result  of  similar  waves  in  the  air.  Common  taste  among  men 
has  recognized  that  the  proportions  of  a  door  or  window  are  pleasing', 
when  the  length  is  to  the  breadth  as  two  to  one  or  as  three  to  two ; 
while  if  they  be  as  nine  to  eight  it  is  specially  displeasing.  Since 
these  are  the  same  proportions  which  in  the  length  of  vibrating  cords 
produce  accordant  or  discordant  impressions,  it  is  natural  to  infer 
that  the  vibrating  waves  in  ether  coming  from  lines  that  subtend 
different  angles  of  vision  having  different  breadths,  may  harmonize 
or  clash  like  air-waves  with  one  another.  There  is  then  a  physical 
coincidence  so  far  as  forms  are  concerned  between  the  impressions  of 
sight  and  sound.  Again  the  investigations  of  Sir  David  Brewster 
and  others  have  established  that  the  waves  of  light  producing  differ- 
ent color  impressions  are  of  different  breadths.  When  in  a  crack  in 
ice  made  by  a  blow  the  narrowest  part  of  the  aperture  is  black, 
while  bands  of  violet,  indigo,  blue,  green,  yellow,  orange,  red  succeed 
each  other  till  the  white  transparence  appears,  it  is  a  natural  infer- 
ence that  the  waves  of  ether  producing  these  colors  are  of  the  breadth 
of  the  aperture  from  whose  space  these  special  colors  are  reflected. 
The  waves,  now,  producing  colors  pleasing  in  juxtaposition  are  found 
to  be  of  breadth  kindred  in  their  proportions  to  air-waves  pleasantly 
affecting  the  ear.  Such  at  least  have  been  the  conclusions  of  artists 
and  art-critics  in  the  days  when  art  reached  its  highest  perfection. 
A  kindred  law,  as  Aristotle  and  Sir  Isaac  Newton  intimate,  may 
apply  to  "all  our  senses."  Thus  a  light  and  slow  movement  in  touch 
produces  the  unpleasant  sensation  called  "tickling;"  a  heavy  and 
rapid  friction,  the  painful  impression  called  smarting;  while  the 
intermediate  degree  of  lightness  and  quickness  gives  the  bewitchingly 
agreeable  sensation  of  fanning,  laving  and  stroking. 

We  have  already  observed  how  far  the  Greeks  went  in  teaching 
the  true  philosophy  of  the  laws  of  sound;  while  at  the  same  time 
they  seemed  to  attain  the  climax  in  securing  the  effects  of  form  and 
color.  Having  learned  the  principle  of  melody,  as  dependent  on  the 
laws  of  vibrations  in  the  air  which  produce  musical  tones  that  are 


120  ART   CRITICISM. 

pleasing,  they  not  only  perfected  the  diatonic  and  chromatic  scales, 
already  practically  known,  but,  having  a  science  for  their  art,  they 
invented  the  enharmonic  scale,  and  constructed  musical  instruments 
wisely  adjusted  to  its  principles.  Having  trained  the  ear  to  such 
nice  discriminations,  the  Greeks  attempted  a  careful  analysis  of 
harmonious  proportions  addressing  the  eye;  conceiving  an  analogy 
to  exist  between  the  laws  of  the  two  organs  of  sense  through  which 
art  specially  addresses  the  soul.  The  same  Pythagoras  who  dis- 
covered the  law  of  inter-measurement  for  harmonious  sounds  seems 
to  have  reached  a  similar  measure  for  harmonious  proportions  of 
length  and  breadth  in  objects  addressing  the  eye ;  and  in  this  com- 
mon law  he  even  believed  he  had  found  the  principle  of  proportionate 
distances,  weights  and  movements  which  holds  the  heavenly  bodies 
in  their  places,  and  makes  them  move  among  each  other  in  perfect 
harmony. 

Pythagoras  demonstrated  the  proposition  that  in  a  right  angled 
•triangle  the  square  of  the  hypothenuse  is  equal  to  the  sum  of  the 
squares  of  the  other  two  sides;  and  he  taught  how  this  principle 
could  be  applied  to  the  measurement  of  distances,  even  those  of  the 
moon  and  planets.  In  the  proportionate  measure  always  subsisting 
between  the  parts  of  a  right  angled  triangle,  such  that  if  the  sides 
are  equal  respectively  to  three  and  four  of  any  given  measure  the 
hypothenuse  must  be  five  of  the  same  measure,  he  thought  he  had 
discovered  a  law  of  proportion  in  lines  beautiful  to  the  eye  in  their 
combination  analogous  to  that  of  the  same  proportionate  measure  in 
tones  which  in  combination  are  harmonious  to  the  ear.  Pythagoras 
also  understood  the  theory  of  the  curves  of  the  Conic  Sections,  espe- 
cially of  the  circle  and  of  the  ellipse;  and  had  discovered  that  the 
heavenly  bodies,  acted  upon  by  the  unknown  forces  which  impel 
them,  moved  in  these  curves.  In  connection  with  this  theory  he 
argued  that  fire,  of  which  the  sun  is  the  great  nucleus,  is  the  centre 
of  the  universe ;  that  the  respective  distances  of  the  heavenly  bodies 
in  our  system  from  the  sun  as  their  centre  is  proportionate  to  the 
length  of  cords  which  produce  the  tones  of  the  musical  scale ;  and 
that  therefore  these  Heavenly  bodies  as  they  move  in  their  courses 
create  a  harmony  which  he  called  the  "Music  of  the  Spheres."  It 
is  hardly  supposable  that  anything  more  than  a  high  wrought  figure 
of  speech  is  intended  by  this  comparison.  The  important  point  to 
be  regarded  is  this ;  that  Pythagoras  Avas  so  confident  that  the  laws 
of  Beauty  and  Melody  are  one,  that  proportion  and  harmony  in  lines 
and  tones  depend  on  the  same  rule,  that  he  even  named  the  highest 


LAW   OF   VISUAL    HARMONY.  121 

note  of  the  scale  neate  after  the  moon,  the  body  bound  to  the  centre 
by  the  shortest  cord,  and  the  lowest  note  he  called  hypate,  after 
Saturn  as  the  planet  bound  to  the  centre  by  the  longest  cord.  The 
ideal  Plato  and  practical  Aristotle,  alike  with  Pythagoras,  regarded 
this  law  of  proportions  producing  harmony  as  the  principle  ruling 
the  entire  Cosmos  or  Universe.  Since  it  was  true  of  the  less  as  well 
as  of  the  greater,  they  made  it  the  governing  guide  to  the  architect 
in  the  dimensions  of  a  door  or  column,  and  to  the  sculptor  in  the 
stature  and  breadth  of  the  human  figure.  Thus  Plato  in  his  Republic 
says  that  "as  the  eyes  seem  to  be  fitted  for  the  harmonious  pro- 
portions of  the  celestial  orbits,  so  the  ears  seem  to  be  fitted  for  the 
harmony  of  musical  intervals ;  and  these  seem  to  be  sister  sciences ; 
as  the  Pythagoreans  indeed  affirm,  and  we  must  accord  with  them." 
Aristotle,  when  speaking  of  colors  produced  by  admixture,  says: 
"  These  may  subsist  in  the  same  manner  as  musical  symphonies ;  for 
like  musical  symphonies  colors  which  correspond  most  nearly  to  their 
proportionate  numbers  are  those  which  appear  to  be  the  most  de- 
lightful colors."  "It  is  for  want  of  this  skillfully  adjusted  propor- 
tion, that,  as  there  are  but  few  delightful  symphonies,  so  there  are 
but  few  delightful  colors."  The  learned  Roman  Vitruvius^  intro- 
duces this  same  analogy  in  its  application  to  architecture  in  speaking 
of  the  proportions  of  the  Ionic  column,  and  of  sound  reverberators 
in  theatres. 

The  idea  of  this  law  of  harmony  in  lines  and  tones  seems  to  have 
been  revived  in  the  mind  of  Galileo.  We  are  told  that  music,  his 
father's  profession,  and  drawing,  were  pursuits  of  which  in  his  youth 
Galileo  was  enamored.  His  father  unwittingly  had  told  him  during 
his  medical  studies,  in  which  he  promised  to  be  a  proficient,  that 
"  drawing  and  music  had  their  principles  in  the  relations  of  numbers 
as  taught  in  the  Mathematics."  The  idea  gave  a  new  bent  to  all 
the  young  student's  aspirations ;  his  medical  studies  were  neglected  ; 
but  his  parent's  wishes  were  more  than  met  by  his  son's  early  emi- 
nence as  a  Professor  of  Mathematics.  This  great  and  original  de- 
fender of  the  Copernican  system,  who  had  sought  the  knowledge  of 
the  Mathematics  for  his  art's  sake,  was  carried  above  his  own  designed 
application;  but  he  never  ceased  to  love  his  father's  art  and  to 
remember  his  father's  idea  of  the  law  of  numbers  as  the  common  law 
of  Harmony  in  tones  and  lines. 


'  Vitruvius,  Civil  Architecture,  Section  III.,  Chap.  4;  on  Harmony ;  and  also 
Section  5th. 

11  o 


3-22  ART   CRITICISM. 

Sir  Isaac  Newton,  it  would  appear  from  a  portion  of  his  corres- 
pondence^ had  his  attention,  like  his  predecessors  in  kindred  study, 
turned  to  this  analogy.  In  a  letter  addressed  to  a  gentleman  whom 
he  had  encouraged  to  investigate  this  analogy,  he  says:  "By  the 
hands  of  your  friend  I  was  favored  with  your  demonstration  of  the 
harmonic  ratios  from  the  ordinances  of  the  47th  of  Euclid.  I  see 
you  have  deduced  from  this  w^onderful  proposition  the  inharmonics, 
as  well  as  the  coincidences  of  agreement ;  all  resulting  from  the  given 
lines  3,  4  and  5.  You  observe  that  the  multiples  hereof  furnish 
those  ratios  that  afford  pleasure  to  the  eye  in  architectural  designs; 
that  the  ideas  of  beauty  in  surveying  objects  arises  from  their 
respective  approximations  to  the  simple  constructions ;  and  that  the 
pleasure  is  more  or  less  as  the  approaches  are  nearer  to  the  harmonic 
ratios.  I  believe  you  are  right;  portions  of  circles  are  more  or  less 
agreeable  as  the  segments  give  the  idea  of  the  perfect  figure  from 
which  they  are  derived.  Your  examination  of  the  sides  of  polygons 
with  rectangles  certainly  quadrate  with  the  harmonic  ratios.  In 
fine,  I  am  inclined  to  believe  some  general  laws  of  the  Creator  pre- 
vailed with  respect  to  the  agreeable  or  unpleasing  affections  of  all 
our  senses ;  at  least  the  suggestion  does  not  derogate  from  the  wisdom 
or  power  of  God,  and  seems  highly  consonant  to  the  simplicity  of  the 
microcosm  in  general." 

Taking  up  these  principles  of  these  great  philosophers,  Hay^  an 
English  artist  has  drawn  out  an  elaborate  system  of  harmonies  in 
form;  while  linger,^  a  German  critic,  has  applied  them  to  color. 
Mr.  Hay's  first  position  is  "  That  the  eye  is  influenced  m  its  estima- 
tion of  spaces  by  a  simplicity  of  proportion  similar  to  that  which 
guides  the  ear  in  its  appreciation  of  sounds."  His  second  position  is 
"  That  the  eye  is  guided  in  its  estimate  of  dimensions  by  direction 
rather  than  distance,  by  angular  rather  than  linear  proportion;  just 
as  the  ear  is  guided  by  number  rather  than  magnitude  of  sounds." 
The  substance  of  his  theory  therefore  is,  "That  a  figure  is  pleasing  to 
the  eye  in  the  same  degree  as  its  fundamental  angles  bear  to  each 
other  the  same  proportions  that  the  vibrations  bear  to  one  another  in 
the  common  chords  of  music."     The  conclusion  at  which  he  thus 


'  Printed  in  a  work  called  "Nugae  Antiquse"  at  London  1769,  and  quoted 
by  Hay. 

'^  Geometric  Beauty  of  the  Human  Figure  defined ;  with  a  System  of  iE^thetic 
Proportion.     By  David  Eamsay  Hay.     Edinburgh.     1851. 

3  Die  bildende  Kunst.    Von  F.  W.  Unger.    Gottingen.    1858. 


hay's  system  of  aesthetic  proportion.  123 

arrives  is  stated  in  the  following  emphasized  sentence:  "Thus  the 
eye  is  capable  of  appreciating  the  exact  subdivision  of  ^ace  just  as 
the  ear  is  capable  of  appreciating  the  exact  subdivision  of  intervals 
of  time;  so  that  the  division  of  space  into  an  exact  number  of  equal 
parts  will  aesthetically  affect  the  mind  through  the  medium  of  the 
eye,  in  the  same  way  that  the  division  of  the  time  of  vibrations  in 
music  into  an  exact  number  of  equal  parts  aesthetically  affects  the 
mind  through  the  medium  of  the  ear."  Following  out  these  prin- 
ciples Hay  has  with  most  elaborate  comparison  and  collation  of 
numerous  measurements  of  the  human  frame,  drawn  up  scales  of 
established  angles  of  harmony ;  showing  also  their  analogy  to  those 
ruling  in  musical  harmony.  In  like  manner,  linger  of  Gottingen, 
tracing  through  the  exhaustive  deductions  of  Frauenhofer  as  to  the 
breadth  of  waves  in  ether  producing  the  impressions  of  the  different 
colors,  has  drawn  out  a  similar  scale  of  harmonious  proportions; 
showing  also  a  kindred  analogy  in  the  proportions  giving  the  sweetest 
of  musical  harmonies. 

There  is  much  to  confirm  the  justness  of  this  practical  application 
in  Art  of  the  theory  of  philosophers  that  there  is  an  instructive  ana- 
logy between  the  law  of  Beauty  in  lines  and  Melody  in  tones.  The 
two  arts  representative  of  these  two  departments,  drawing  and  music, 
are  naturally  admired  by  the  same  class  of  minds ;  as  was  seen  in 
young  Galileo.  When  the  one  cannot  be  enjoyed  the  other  takes  its 
place;  as  is  seen  in  the  fact  that  Deaf  Mutes  have  as  instinctive  a 
fondness  for  drawing  as  the  Blind  have  for  music.  As  to  the  sug- 
gestion that  the  eye  is  governed  by  angular  space  in  its  measure- 
ment, the  evident  analogy  of  the  muscular  sense,  already  alluded  to, 
has  its  force  in  proof.  As  confirmation  of  the  fact  that  the  Greeks 
made  this  practical  application  of  philosophy,  Winckelmann  arguCs ; 
"It  is  probable  that  the  Grecian,  like  the  Egyptian  artists  had  rules 
by  which  not  only  the  greater  but  the  smaller  proportions  of  the 
body  were  accurately  determined ;  and  that  the  length,  breadth,  and 
circumference  of  parts  suitable  to  each  age  and  station  were  laid 
down  with  precision  and  taught  in  the  writings  of  those  artists  who 
treated  of  symmetry;"  and  this  he  concludes  from  the  oneness  of 
these  proportions  generally  observed  by  all  Grecian  artists.  That 
this  system  of  proportion  was  founded  on  the  law  of  numbers  elabo- 
rated by  Pythagoras  and  Plato,  he  argues  from  the  fact  that  the 
"human  body  consists  of  triads;"  and  that  "three,"  the  perfect  num- 
ber of  Plato,  is  a  harmonizing  number,  since  it  is  "the  first  uneven 


124  ART   CRITICISM. 

number,  and  the  first  number  of  relation;  for  it  contains  in  itself  the 
first  even  number,  and  another  which  unites  the  two  together." 

Not  only  the  ideal  Plato,  but  the  practical  Aristotle  believed  that 
there  is  a  law  of  nature  controlling  the  forms  of  plants  and  animals 
based  on  the  principle  of  harmonious  and  proportionate  numbers ; 
and  the  reasonings  of  the  "Father  of  Natural  History,"  as  Agassiz 
calls  the  latter,  are  bewitching  in  interest  when  he  argues  with  ear- 
nest conviction,  that  the  beautiful  curves  of  the  beet,  radish,  and  like 
roots,  and  the  similar  ones  of  the  apple,  pear,  pine-apple,  acorn, 
pomegranate  and  like  fruits,  are  formed  after  mathematical  laws  as 
rigid  as  those  which  guide  the  architect  and  the  sculptor.  A  striking 
instance  of  this  law  of  harmony  is  found  in  the  fact  observed  by 
Gray\  that  while  in  the  arrangement  of  leaves  on  a  stalk  the  cir- 
cumference is  divided  by  two,  three,  four,  five,  six,  and  eight,  which 
are  accordant  ratios,  it  is  never  divided  by  seven,  the  discordant  ratio. 

Sect.  6.  Moral  Correspondence  ;  the  harmony  between  objects  pre- 
sented AND  ideas  represented  IN  ArT. 

As  art  addresses  the  mind  through  the  senses,  the  physical  coinci- 
dences which  affect  the  bodily  organs  are  naturally  considered  before 
the  moral  correspondences  which  impress  the  mental  sensibilities. 
We  have  seen  that  the  changing  relations  which  are  the  sources  of 
some  of  the  more  important  impressions  made  by  art,  embrace  moral 
as  well  as  physical  action ;  all  motion,  as  Aristotle  argued,  awaken- 
ing in  us  an  inquiry  as  to  its  cause  that  will  not  rest  till  we  have 
reached  a  spiritual  agent.  As,  therefore,  every  change  implies 
motion,  and  motion  a  spiritual  agent,  and  spiritual  agency  the  action 
of  a  mind  controlled  in  a  measure  by  worthy  or  unworthy,  by  agree- 
able or  disagreeable  emotions,  there  enters  into  the  impressions  made 
by  art  the  element  of  harmony  between  objects  presented  and  ideas 
represented ;  which  is  a  moral  correspondence. 

Lord  Kames  states  an  important  distinction  which  is  to  be  observed 
between  the  ideas  of  congruity  and  propriety.  Congruity  relates  to 
fitness  and  appropriateness  of  one  material  object  to  another;  as, 
when  referring  to  the  exhibition  of  the  naked  African  chief  donning 
the  cast-oflT  military  coat  of  an  English  oflScer  given  to  him,  and 
strutting  like  a  pea-cock  in  this  single  article  of  dress,  we  speak 
of  the  incongruity  between  the  scarlet  coat  and  the  naked  form  of 
the  black  savage;   the  relation  being  here  between  two  material 


Gray's  Structural  Botany,  Chap.  v.  Sect.  1. 


MORAL   PROPRIETIES   RELATED   TO   ART.  125 

objects.  On  the  other  hand,  questions  that  arise  as  to  the  moral 
fitness  of  the  savage's  nudity,  of  his  habits  of  life  as  a  polygamist, 
as  a  slave  hunter,  or  as  a  cannibal  relate  to  matters  of  propriety. 

The  Greek  philosophers,  as  Socrates,  Plato,  and  Aristotle,  urged 
as  the  higher  aim  of  art  that  it  be  made  to  correspond  to  true  con- 
victions of  moral  propriety,  because  of  its  power  for  good  or  evil  on 
youth  and  men  of  mature  age;  while  also  they  dwelt  on  the  physical 
coincidences  which  made  art  a  power  to  please.  The  Koman  critics, 
as  Cicero  the  Eclectic,  Cato  and  Seneca  the  Stoics,  and  even  Horace 
and  Juvenal  w^ho  leaned  to  Epicurean  notions,  discussed  especially 
the  moral  bearings  of  art ;  urging  the  demand  of  propriety  more 
than  of  congruity  in  works  of  art.  Most  of  the  numerous  references 
to  art  of  Cicero  in  his  "  Duties,"  of  Horace  in  his  "  Poetic  Art,"  and 
of  Seneca  in  his  "  Morals,"  are  of  this  character.  As  might  be  anti- 
cipated, the  allusions  to  art  which  fill  the  revelations  of  the  Old  and 
New  Testament  Scriptures,  relate  to  its  moral  proprieties  as  a  power 
for  good.  These  allusions  abound  in  the  pages  of  Moses  the  Hebrew 
Lawgiver,  of  Solomon  the  Hebrew  Moralist,  of  Isaiah,  Ezekiel,  and 
Daniel  the  Hebrew  Seers ; '  as  well  as  in  the  letters  of  Paul  the 
apostle  of  the  Christian  faith  to  European,  and  of  John  to  Oriental 
races. 

The  subject  of  moral  correspondence  has  a  bearing  on  the  analysis 
of  the  mental  capacities  and  faculties,  as  including  those  of  the 
intellect,  the  sensibilities  and  the  will ;  since  all  art  implies  in  its 
design  a  purpose  of  the  will,  in  the  ends  sought  by  that  purpose  an 
address  to  any  one  or  more  of  man's  varied  sensibilities,  and  in  the 
means  for  securing  the  ends  sought  the  employ  of  judgment,  imagi- 
nation and  other  intellectual  faculties.  It  is  only  a  legitimate 
employ  by  the  artist  of  all  these  powers  of  mind,  and  that  in  their 
healthful  condition,  which  can  secure  congruity  and  propriety  in  his 
works.  In  studying  the  moral  aspects  of  Art  and  of  its  appeals, 
regard  must  be  paid  to  the  laws  of  association  on  which  all  acts  of 
memory,  judgment  and  imagination  are  dependent ;  as  the  associa- 
tion of  ideas  by  resemblance  or  contrast,  by  contiguity  of  time  or 
place,  and  by  the  relation  of  cause  and  effect,  when  either  physical 
or  spiritual  agencies  are  concerned. 

The  applications,  therefore,  of  this  principle  of  moral  correspond- 
ence in  art  are  varied  and  numerous.  Moral  propriety  demands 
truth  in  position ;  requiring  ease  and  security  in  the  attitude  of  men 
represented  as  swaying  to  and  fro  under  excited  feeling ;  a  principle 
attained  only  gradually  in  the  early  stages  of  the  revival  of  art  in 
11  * 


126  ART   CRITICISM. 

Italy.  Moral  propriety  requires  truth  in  respect  to  time ;  censuring 
anachronisms ;  a  principle  which  the  secluded  lives,  and  especially 
the  reverence  for  ecclesiastical  precedents  common  to  Italian  artists 
of  the  best  age  has  led  them  to  overlook  in  the  dress,  attendants  and 
other  accessories  introduced  into  their  representations  of  the  life  of 
Christ.  Both  congruity  and  propriety,  not  to  mention  other  moral 
convictions,  are  opposed  to  that  mutilation  and  transportation  of 
fragments  of  works  of  art  which  causes  those  exquisitely  wrought 
gems  to  be  viewed  out  of  their  proper  position ;  a  principle  sensibly 
impressed  upon  the  visitor  to  the  detached  .and  fragmentary  speci- 
mens of  bas-reliefs  wrested  from  the  cornices  of  Egyptian  and  Gre- 
cian temples,  and  gathered  in  the  London  and  Paris  collections  of 
art ;  a  principle  which  is  still  more  deeply  felt  when  the  traveler's 
eye  rests  on  the  voids  in  the  original  structures,  lonely  and  voiceless 
on  their  native  soil,  from  whose  walls  have  been  cut  and  pried  out 
the  select  portions  of  those  masterpieces  of  ancient  art.  Congruity  and 
propriety,  too,  are  the  essential  elements  of  separate  excellences,  such 
as  that  of  grace,  in  works  of  art.  While,  for  instance,  there  is  the 
rarest  grace  in  a  weary  Hercules  leaning  on  his  club,  in  an  exhausted 
dancing  girl  resting  on  her  seat,  and  in  a  panting  warrior  reclining 
at  full  length  on  the  ground,  nothing  could  be  more  the  opposite  of 
true  grace  than  the  attitude  of  a  belle  or  courtier  lounging  in  ill- 
disguised  ennui ;  and  if  we  ask  for  the  ground  of  this  difference,  we 
find  it  in  the  principle  of  moral  propriety. 


CHAPTER    V. 

THE    FACULTIES   OF   THE   HUMAN   MIND    AS   AFFECTED    BY   ART. 

In  all  human  impressions  two  things  are  to  be  regarded ;  the  mind 
on  which  the  impression  is  made  and  the  object  without  the  mind 
which  makes  the  impression.  The  external  object  and  the  senses 
through  which  it  is  perceived,  have,  as  was  natural,  been  first  con- 
sidered ;  for  it  is  the  outward  that  first  absorbs  the  thought  not  only 
of  the  child  but  of  the  mature  man  in  the  practical  business  of  life. 
It  is  an  afterthought  which  leads  the  comprehensive  student  and 
master  in  any  department  to  bend  back  in  reflection  the  mind's 
thought  upon  itself  and  to  analyze  the  nature  of  its  own  impressions 


MENTAL   PHILOSOPHY   AN   AID   IN   ART   STUDY.  127 

in  themselves,  and  also  of  the  thinking  power  which  experiences 
these  impressions. 

Without  this  consideration  of  the  power  itself  which  he  employs, 
the  practical  artist  may  use  with  a  large  share  of  success  his  mental 
faculties  in  designing  and  executing  works  of  art.  Without  it,  how- 
ever, the  philosophic  student  of  art,  not  himself  a  practical  artist,  can 
gain  no  consistent  knowledge  in  this  or  any  other  department  of 
study;  while  moreover  the  artist  himself  may  add  indefinitely  to. the 
skill  with  which  he  can  wield  his  powers  when  like  the  master  in  the 
mechanic  arts  he  can  from  knowledge  of  their  nature  mould  and 
adapt  the  instrument  with  which  he  works.  This  Plato,  ignorant  of 
the  practice  but  master  of  the  theory  of  art,  intimated  in  the  inquiry, 
"  Indeed  then  do  those  men  seem  to  you  to  differ  from  blind  men 
who  in  reality  are  destitute  of  theoretic  knowledge ;  who  neither  have 
in  their  own  souls  a  distinct  ideal,  nor  like  painters  looking  above 
themselves  to  the  true  ideal,  always  referring  their  own  conceptions 
to  it  and  contemplating  it  with  the  greatest  accuracy  possible,  are 
enabled,  in  this  department  as  in  those  others,  to  establish  just  rules 
of  the  beautiful,  as  of  the  right  and  of  the  good?" 

When  this  consideration  is  attempted  a  careful  discrimination 
will  lead  the  mind  to  remark  and  to  trace  out  these  natural  divisions 
in  the  field  of  his  contemplation.  The  mind  will  fix  itself  now  upon 
the  impression  in  itself  considered ;  then  upon  the  power  of  the  mind 
which  either  receives  the  impression  from  an  object  presented,  or 
forms  for  itself  a  conception  of  an  object  when  none  is  before  it. 
Again  turning  aside  from  the  consideration  of  the  impression  sepa- 
rated from  the  object  producing  it,  it  will  dwell  on  it  in  connection 
with  different  elements  and  aspects  of  the  object,  and  will  trace  its 
features  in  other  objects;  when  yet  again  turning  back  to  review  its 
own  exercises  it  will  ask  how  these  several  modifications  of  the 
general  impression  are  arrived  at.  Finally,  since  there  is  so  universal 
agreement  among  men  as  to  the  general  impression  of  beauty,  and 
yet  great  differences  as  to  both  the  strength  and  the  character  of  the 
special  impressions  made  by  varied  individual  objects  on  different 
minds,  the  nature  and  the  source  of  both  this  agreement  and  of  this 
difference  wdll  be  sought.  The  general  impression  produced  on  the 
human  mind  by  works  of  art  is  entitled  "  Beauty ;"  and  the  power  of 
the  mind  both  to  appreciate  and  to  create  objects  of  beauty  is  styled 
"Taste."  Each  of  these  is  first  considered  in  itself  as  separated 
from  its  object,  or  in  the  abstract;  each  is  next  considered  in  connec- 
tion with  its  object,  or  in  the  concrete;  while  the  comparative  strength 


128  ART   CRITICISM. 

both  of  the  power  and  of  its  impression  in  different  beings  and  classes 
of  men  is  naturally  suggested  as  a  concluding  inquiry. 

Sect.  1.  Beauty  in  the  Abstract;  or  the  nature  of  our  idea  of 
THE  Beautiful. 

As  to  the  essential  nature  of  our  Idea  of  the  Beautiful  there  has 
been  far  greater  unanimity  than  would  be  apparent  to  one  failing  to 
discriminate  between  beauty  in  the  abstract  and  beauty  in  the  con- 
crete. Even  upon  the  latter  point  of  consideration  opinions  discord- 
ant at  first  view  assume  a  degree  of  harmony  when  principles  main- 
tained by  differing  theorists  are  put  into  their  legitimate  connections. 

The  distinction  between  the  four  elementary  principles  of  human 
apprehension,  the  True,  the  Beautiful,  the  Good,  the  Right,  has  been 
recognized  by  leading  philosophers  in  all  ages  and  of  the  most  oppo- 
site schools.  By  Plato  and  Aristotle  the  specific  meaning  of  these 
words  is  constantly  urged ;  Cousin  in  modern  times  has  ably  analyzed 
the  true,  the  beautiful,  and  the  good;  Wayland  has  given  a  masterly 
clearness  to  the  distinctive  element  of  the  right;  and  the  agreement 
of  so  many  logical  thinkers  must  have  attained  to  comparative  cor- 
rectness of  view.  Yet  more,  the  Divine  Teacher  and  his  inspired 
apostles  have  in  their  careful  use  of  the  Greek  tongue,  and  guided 
by  perfect  knowledge  of  man's  nature,  most  fully  discriminated  these 
four  elements;  often  referring  to  each  separately;  and  sometimes 
carefully  contrasting  two  or  more  of  them.  Paul,  the  learned 
"  apostle  to  the  nations,"  using  the  distinctive  words  of  Plato's  Meta- 
physics and  Aristotle's  Ethics  with  peculiar  precision,  is  most 
instructive  to  the  careful  student.^ 

The  distinct  meaning  of  the  terms  true,  beautiful,  good  and  right 
may  be  clearly  illustrated  by  a  simple  example.  If  any  one  behold- 
ing the  form  of  an  apple  on  a  mantle  should  say,  "that  is  a  true 
apple,"  he  would  be  understood  as  referring  to  the  essence  or  sub- 


*  Among  numerous  instances  "the  true"  is  distinguished,  John  viii.  32;  xviii. 
37;  Kom.  i.  25;  ii.  2;  iii.  4;  IJohn  ii.  8;  v.  20;  "the  beautiful"  generally 
rendered  "good"  or  "goodly,"  Matt.  v.  16;  xii.  33;  xiii.  45;  John  x.  11 ;  Kom. 
vii.  18,  21;  xii.  17;  Gal.  iv.  18;  Tit.  iii.  8;  "the  good,"  Matt.  xii.  35;  xix.  16, 
17;  Rom.  vii.  13;  1  Pet.  iii.  13;  3  .John  11;  "the  right,"  Matt.  i.  19;  x.  41; 
Luke  xii.  57;  John  v.  30;  Eom.  iii.  26;  Eph.  vi.  1;  1  Tim.  i.  9.  These  ele- 
ments are  contrasted;  the  true  and  right,  Phil.  iv.  8;  Eev.  xvi.  7;  xix.  2;  the 
beautiful  and  good,  Matt.  vii.  17,  18 ;  Eom.  vii.  16,  18 ;  the  good  and  the  right, 
Rom.  V.  7;  vii.  12;  Tit.  i.  8;  1  John  iii.  7;  and  the  beautiful,  good  and  right, 
Rom.  vii.  12—18. 


DISTINCTION   OF   TRUE,  BEAUTIFUL   AND   GOOD.  129 

stance  of  the  apple;  as  the  juicy  pulp  constituting  the  real  fruit,  in 
opposition  to  a  fictitious  representation  of  it  in  wax  or  marble.  If  he 
should  say,  "that  is  a  beautiful  apple,"  he  would  as  certainly  be 
regarded  as  referring  to  the  form  and  color  as  conveying  a  pleasant 
impression ;  an  idea,  entirely  aside  from  any  consideration,  as  to  the 
material  of  which  it  is  composed.  If  again  he  should  say  "that  it  is 
a  good  apple,"  he  would  as  manifestly  refer  to  the  adaptatimi  of  the 
real  or  fictitious  fruit;  the  one  as  a  true  apple  to  give  pleasure  by  its 
substance  to  the  palate  and  health  to  the  digestive  organs,  and  the 
other  to  give  pleasure  as  beautiful  by  its  form  and  color  addressing 
the  eye,  and  through  it  the  mind.  If  he  should  say,  yet  again, 
"that  is  a  right  apple,"  every  hearer  would  feel  that  violence  was 
done  to  the  common  meaning  of  language.  The  principle  of  right 
does  not  respect  the  essence  of  the  apple  as  true,  its  form  as  beau- 
tiful, nor  its  adaptation  as  good ;  it  can  only  be  ascribed  to  an  emo- 
tion, desire,  or  act  which  a  human  being  may  exercise  in  reference 
to  the  apple  as  possessing  either  of  these  qualities.  This  general  dis- 
tinction of  these  four  elementary  conceptions  is  of  universal  applica- 
tion; as  when  of  a  mental  or  moral  quality  or  exercise,  we  say, 
"that  was  a  true,  a  beautiful,  a  good  act." 

The  irrationality  of  the  inquiry  "What  is  beauty?"  was  often  and 
admirably  illustrated  by  Socrates,  as  Plato  has  recorded  in  his 
Dialogues;  as  the  similar  inquiry  "What  is  truth?"  was  one  to 
which  no  reply  was  expected,  when  proposed  to  the  Divine  Teacher 
by  the  Roman  Governor  at  Jerusalem.  Sir  Wm.  Hamilton's  clear 
analysis  of  the  nature  of  an  axiom  is  applicable  to  any  attempt  to 
define  the  elementary  principles  of  human  apprehension  and  concep- 
tion ;  they  are  in  themselves  the  simplest  form  of  expression  that 
can  be  used  to  embody  an  idea,  and  of  course  no  simpler  words  can 
be  found  by  which  to  explain  them.  If  an  attempt  be  made  to  define 
an  axiom,  it  can  only  be  said  that  an  axiom  is  a  proposition  self- 
evident,  or  one  containing  in  its  own  statement  its  evidence.  If  any 
reply  be  given  to  the  questions,  "  What  is  truth,  beauty,  goodness, 
and  right,"  it  can  only  be  stated ;  truth  is  that  which  in  the  essence 
of  a  thing  corresponds  with  the  convictions  of  our  understanding ; 
beauty  is  that  which  in  the  qualities  of  an  object  affords  pleasure  to 
our  sensibilities;  goodness  is  that  in  the  relation  of  one  thing  to 
another,  which  secures  the  welfare,  or  promotes  the  interest  of  the 
latter ;  and  right  is  that  in  the  act  of  an  intelligent  being  which 
corresponds  with  our  conviction  of  the  responsibility  of  one  moral 
bemg  to  another.     If  these  attempts  at  definition  seem  inadequate 


130  ART  CRITICISM. 

it  must  be  remembered  that  there  is  the  same  difficulty  in  defining 
by  simpler  language  any  abstract  term ;  as  the  words  white  or  round, 
equality  or  justice. 

As  the  inquiry,  "What  is  beauty,"  is  manifestly  superfluous,  so 
the  question  "Why  is  any  object  beautiful,"  is  in  one  sense,  irra- 
tional; since  one  of  the  characteristics  of  an  axiom  is  that  it  is 
"  incomprehensible ;"  or,  a  conviction  for  which  no  fact,  supposed  to 
be  a  reason,  can  be  found  back  of  the  conviction  itself.  When 
asked  why  I  believe  that  an  object  which  I  see  exists,  that  two  lines 
cannot  enclose  space,  that  every  effect  has  an  adequate  cause,  I  can 
only  say  that  I  am  so  made  that  I  cannot  believe  the  contrary.  So 
when  having  been  asked  "  why  I  regard  an  apple  beautiful,"  and  hav- 
ing mentioned  the  lines  in  its  form,  and  the  tints  of  its  color,  which 
give  me  the  impression  of  beauty,  if  it  be  farther  asked,  "why  I  regard 
such  lines  and  such  tints  beautiful,"  I  can  only  say  that  I  am  so  made 
that  I  cannot  but  so  regard  them.  When  the  question  of  beauty 
has  regard  to  certain  individual  forms,  or  to  particular  features  of 
those  forms,  differing  views  may  be  entertained ;  as  will  be  observed 
in  considering  beauty  in  the  concrete.  As  to  the  essential  principles, 
however,  which  relate  to  the  nature  of  beauty  in  the  abstract,  the 
thought  of  mankind  has  been  remarkably  coincident. 

Plato  is  the  earliest  Grecian  philosopher  from  whom  reasonings 
upon  the  nature  of  beauty  in  the  abstract  have  come  down  to  later 
generations ;  for,  the  recorded  teachings  of  earlier  philosophers  relate 
to  beauty  in  the  concrete.  Plato  reproduces  repeated  and  long  con- 
versations between  Socrates  and  his  contemporaries  on  the  nature  of 
the  beautiful ;  his  antagonists  constantly  citing  some  object  which  is 
beautiful,  or  some  one  of -many  elements  essential  to  beauty;  while 
he,  with  sagacity,  shows  that  their  definition  is  but  a  partial  one,  and 
applicable  only  to  concrete  forms,  not  to  the  abstract  quality  of 
beauty.  The  distinction  between  an  abstract  and  concrete  idea  is 
thus  illustrated.  After  mentioning  that  Right,  Goodness,  Honor, 
Magnitude,  Strength,  Health,  "  are  all  abstract  things,"  he  adds ; 
"We  speak  of  things  as  equal,  or  unequal.  We  not  only  see  one 
stick  as  equal  to  another  stick,  and  one  stone  as  equal  to  another 
stone,  but,  besides,  we  think  of  equality  in  itself,  as  separate  and 
real.  Now  where  do  we  acquire  this  knowledge?  Not  from  the 
sticks  or  stones ;  for  these  are  strictly  equal.  Equality  is  not  the 
game  as  equal  things.  But  yet  from  seeing  equal  things  we  think  of 
equality."  So  he  argues,  beauty  is  separate  from  beautiful  things ; 
and  of  beauty  in  itself,  he  says :  "  the  beautiful  is  difficult  to  define ;" 


AGREEMENT  OF  CRITICS  ON  THE  NATURE  OF  BEAUTY.      131 

meaning  that  it  is  undefinable.  Aristotle,  and  the  writers  of  his 
school,  confine  their  statements  to  beauty  in  the  concrete.  Eoman 
writers,  however,  teach  the  universal  common  impression  as  to  truth 
and  beauty  in  the  abstract.  Thus  Lucan,  the  Roman  poet,  says : 
"  The  idea  of  beauty  is  the  same  among  nations  in  their  decline  and 
in  their  infancy."  Augustine,  the  clear-thinking  Christian  philoso- 
pher, says :  "  If  we  both  see  that  to  be  true  which  you  say  is  true, 
and  both  see  that  to  be  true  which  /  say  is  true,  where,  I  ask,  do  Ave 
see  it  ?  Neither  do  I  see  it  in  you,  nor  you  in  me ;  but  both  in  that 
which  is  above  our  minds,  in  the  unchangeable  verity  itself." 

While  thus  the  ancients  seem  so  agreed  in  their  convictions  that 
the  idea  of  beauty,  like  that  of  truth  and  all  other  abstract  concep- 
tions, is  an  intuitive  and  instinctive  conviction,  the  reasoning  of 
modern  writers,  such  as  Locke,  Kames,  Reid,  Burke,  Alison  and 
others  in  England,  of  Kant  in  Germany,  and  of  Cousin  in  France, 
might  be  quoted  at  length  substantially  to  the  same  point;  even 
Jeffrey,  the  Scotch  Reviewer,  though  designing  to  argue  the  contrary, 
showing  a  recognition  of  the  same  principle.  The  popular  modern 
art-critic,  Ruskin,  without  any  attempt  at  logical  statement,  presents 
well  the  justly  received  view  as  to  the  nature  of  our  idea  of  beauty. 
"  Why  some  forms  and  colors  are  beautiful  is  as  unknown  as  why 
sugar  is  sweet,  and  wormwood  is  bitter."  Alluding  then  to  the  fact 
that  our  Creator  has  made  men  with  a  common  impression  of  beauty, 
he  adds,  "We  may,  indeed,  perceive  as  far  as  we  are  acquainted 
with  His  nature,  that  we  have  been  so  constructed  as  when  in  a 
healthy  and  cultivated  state  of  mind,  to  derive  pleasure  from  what- 
ever things  are  illustrative  of  that  nature ;  but  we  do  not  receive 
pleasure  from  them  because  they  are  illustrative  of  it,  but  instinct- 
ively and  necessarily ;  as  we  derive  sensual  pleasure  from  the  scent 
of  a  rose." 

Sect.  2.  Taste  ;  or  the  Power  of  the  Mind  which  gives  origin  to  the 
IDEA  of  the  Beautiful. 

It  is  natural  to  suppose  that  each  distinct  conception  and  act  of 
the  mind  originates  in  a  distinct  faculty.  As  we  designate  by  differ- 
ent names  the  members  and  organs  of  the  body  which  fill  different 
offices  and  perform  different  services,  distinguishing  the  feet  that 
carry  us  and  the  hands  that  labor  for  us,  the  eye  that  sees  and  the 
ear  that  hears,  so  we  naturally  and  properly  give  the  name  memory 
to  the  faculty  which  recals  what  has  already  been  before  the  mind, 
judgment  to  that  which  decides  as  to  the  character  of  what  is  now 


132  ART   CRITICISM. 

present  in  the  mind,  and  imagination  to  that  which  embodies  new 
images  to  bring  forward  for  its  contemplation. 

Since  the  four  conceptions  of  the  true,  the  beautiful,  the  good  and 
the  right,  seem  to  be  elementary  and  distinct  from  each  other  in 
their  nature,  it  is  natural  to  refer  them  to  powers  of  the  mind  dis- 
tinct in  name ;  though  the  mind,  like  the  body,  may  be  one,  both  in 
essence  and  in  concert  of  action.  From  the  earliest  known  records 
of  human  thought  and  expression  in  every  language,  a  name  has 
been  given  to  that  power  by  which  man,  as  distinct  from  every 
animal,  recognizes  abstract  truth.  That  name  in  the  English  tongue 
is  best  expressed  by  the  word  reason ;  for  if  any  one  were  asked  why 
he  believed  in  any  particular  truth,  as  for  instance,  "that  two  things 
equal  to  a  third  are  equal  to  each  other,"  we  would  reply,  "  because 
my  reason  assures  me  so ;"  as  instinctively  referring  that  conviction 
to  this  power  of  the  mind  as  he  would  refer  sight  to  his  eye.  So  the 
fourth  of  the  elementary  ideas  here  considered  is  as  naturally 
referred  to  a  distinct  faculty  of  the  mind  called  the  conscience ;  this 
term  designating  the  power  by  which  we  recognize  a  moral  element 
associated  with,  yet  distinct  from  the  knowledge  proper  taught  by 
reason.  Its  existence  and  nature  has  been  so  uniformly,  as  well  as 
universally  recognized,  that  it  has  its  cognate  synonym  in  the  Greek ; 
while  it  is  itself  a  word  borrowed  by  modern  European  tongues  from 
the  Latin.^  From  Plato  to  Kant,  and  from  Cicero  to  Wayland, 
nothing  in  the  range  of  metaphysical  statement  has  been  made 
clearer  than  the  distinct  nature  and  office  of  these  two  powers  of  the 
mind  ;  which  have  been  properly  called  faculties,  because  they  not 
only  receive  impressions  as  passive  capacities,  but  exercise  a  control- 
ling and  moving  influence  as  active  powers. 

The  third  of  the  ideas  mentioned,  the  good  has  not  been  referred 
ordinarily  to  any  distinctly  mentioned  faculty.  Yet  there  has  always 
been  recognized,  prominent  in  man  and  in  animals,  a  faculty  which 
with  great  care  has  been  distinguished  from  reason ;  while  at  the 
same  time  it  has  been  seen  to  be  a  guide  in  practical  matters,  so 
perfect,  that  some  have  without  due  thought  declared  it  superior  to 
reason.  That  faculty,  or  power  of  the  mind,  is  called  "  Instinct ;" 
which  leads  to  the  good,  or  to  the  adaptations  of  things  to  their 
ends.  Thus  we  say  that  the  bee,  and  the  bird,  and  the  beaver,  are 
guided  by  instinct  in  building  their  habitations ;  this  power  directing 


'  The  words  eidesis  and  suneidesis  in  Greek  are  cognate  to  scientia  and  con- 
scientia  in  Latin. 


DISTINCT  OFFICE  OF  REASON,  CONSCIENCE  AND  INSTINCT.    133 

them  to  adaptations  more  perfect  than  human  skill  can  attain,  while 
no  ray  of  reason  suggests  to  them  any  principle  of  truth.  So  we 
say  that  man  is  guided  by  instinct  when  without  thought  he  flies 
from,  or  breasts  himself  against  sudden  danger ;  instinct  manifestly 
guiding  him  to  the  good,  and  as  manifestly  not  to  the  true. 

To  the  power  by  which  the  mind  apprehends  the  second  of  these 
ideas,  the  beautiful,  modern,  popular  language,  as  well  as  modern 
philosophy,  has  consecrated  the  word  "  Taste."  It  is  a  designation 
borrowed  from  that  one  of  the  human  senses  which,  as  we  have  seen, 
is  grossly  and  thoroughly  corporeal ;  and  when  thus  transferred  to 
the  highest  field  in  which  the  material  and  spiritual  unite  to  afford 
man  impressions  of  delight,  the  word  refers  both  to  the  active  dis- 
crimination which  the  mind  exerts  in  searching  out  what  is  in  itself 
beautiful,  and  also  to  the  sensible  impressions  of  pleasure  arising 
from  the  appeals  of  beauty,  to  the  mind.  As  intimated,  this  special 
appropriation  of  this  term  to  designate  a  mental  impression,  is 
modern ;  yet  in  most  ancient  times,  and  in  tongues  most  diverse  the 
same  figure  of  speech,  borrowed  from  the  same  corporeal  sense  and 
transferred  to  one  or  another  of  the  four  fields  of  conception  we  are 
considering,  was  in  popular  use.  Thus  the  ancient  Asiatic  patriarch, 
speaking  in  the  cognate  Hebrew- Arabic  of  his  age  and  land,  employs 
this  figurative  allusion  to  express  the  power  of  the  mind  in  discern- 
ing first  the  right,  and  then  the  true ;  asking  at  one  time,  "  Is  there 
iniquity  in  my  tongue  ?  Cannot  my  taste  discern  perverse  things  ?" 
and  again  inquiring,  "  Doth  not  the  ear  try  words,  even  as  the  mouth 
tastes  its  meat  ?"^  In  the  Greek  and  Latin  tongues  also,  a  similar 
tropical  signification  was  given  to  the  word  meaning  taste,  by  such 
writers  as  Sophocles  and  Pindar,  Cicero  and  Quinctilian ;  Sophocles 
speaking  of  "  testing  a  truth  by  the  tongue ;"  Pindar  of  tasting  the 
sweets  of  song ;  Cicero  of  the  taste  for  literary  studies,  and  Quinc- 
tilian of  the  rhetorical  "taste  of  the  city."  From  those  ancient 
tongues  the  same  word  used  in  the  same  figurative  signification  has 
passed  to  their  modern  successors,  as  the  Italian  and  the  French. 
With  the  ancients,  however,  it  was  but  a  figure  of  speech,  not  an 
appropriated  name  for  a  mental  power  when  the  word  taste  was 
employed  to  illustrate  the  universality,  the  instantaneousness  and 
the  accuracy  with  which  the  common  mind  recognizes  the  true,  the 
beautiful,  the  good,  and  the  right. 

Plato,  when  using  terms  philosophically,  selects  the  general  desig- 


'  Job  vi.  30,  and  xii.  11. 
12 


134  ART   CRITICISM. 

nation  "  Intellect,"  or  the  more  specific  word  "  Reason,"  to  present 
his  view  of  the  power  by  which  abstract  ideas  in  all  the  four  depart- 
ments referred  to  are  apprehended.  In  his  early  Dialogues,  as  in 
the  Republic,  for  instance,  he  reasons :  "  As  to  the  beautiful  and  the 
good  in  existing  objects,  we  say,  indeed,  that  they  are  seen  by  the 
eye,  and  are  not  objects  of  intellectual  perception ;  but  we  also  say, 
that  the  ideas  themselves  of  beauty  and  goodness  are  perceived  by 
the  intellect  and  are  not  seen  by  the  eye."  In  his  Banquet,  written 
later  in  life,  alluding  to  his  favorite  opinion  that  man's  reason  is  so 
exalted  above  his  earthly  nature,  that  it  must  have  existed  in  a 
previous  higher  world,  an  opinion,  however,  which  has  no  necessary 
relation  to  the  power  of  the  mind  as  exercised  on  earth,  Plato  thus 
argues :  "  It  is  by  having  seen  the  True,  that  man  resumes  the  human 
form  in  the  higher  life.  To  this  end  men  must  understand  general 
propositions ;  which  by  Reason  are  collected  in  our  ideas  from  many 
sensations."  "  The  soul,  in  the  exercise  of  Reason,  recals  the  reality 
of  Beauty  which  it  has  seen  in  its  supernal  travels."  It  did  not 
come  within  the  province  of  Aristotle  and  of  other  practical  philo- 
sophers to  give  a  metaphysical  analysis  of  the  intuitive  powers  of 
human  reason ;  nor  did  Plato  enter  into  the  minute  distinctions  made 
by  modern  thinkers  and  writers  on  this  subject.  The  Christian 
Augustine,  however,  went  far  in  this  analysis. 

About  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  Reid,  the  Scotch 
metaphysician,  followed  by  Kames,  Burke  and  Alison,  fixed  the  use 
of  the  English  word  "Taste"  to  designate  the  power  by  which  the 
mind  recognizes  beauty;  while  Kant,  the  German  philosopher, 
brought  into  use  the  more  classic  name  (Esthetic  sense  or  judgment. 
Of  the  two  theories  then  for  a  long  time  discussed  Alison  gives  the 
following  statement.  "The  first  class  is  that  which  resolves  the  emo- 
tion of  taste  into  an  original  law  of  our  nature ;  which  supposes  a 
sense  or  senses,  by  which  the  qualities  of  beauty  and  sublimity  are 
perceived  and  felt  as  their  appropriate  objects;  and  concludes  there- 
fore that  the  genuine  object  of  the  arts  of  taste  is  to  discover  and  to 
imitate  those  qualities  in  every  subject  which  the  prescription  of 
nature  has  thus  made  essentially  either  beautiful  or  sublime.  To 
this  first  class  of  hypotheses  belong  almost  all  the  theories  of  music, 
of  architecture  and  of  sculpture;  the  theory  of  Mr.  Hogarth,  of  the 
Abbe  Winckelmann,  and  perhaps,  in  its  last  result,  also  the  theory  of 
Sir  Joshua  Reynolds.  It  is  the  species  of  hypothesis  which  is  natu- 
rally resorted  to  by  all  artists  and  amateurs ;  by  those  whose  habits 
of  thought  lead  them  to  attend  more  to  the  causes  of  their  emotions 


MODERN  THEORIES  OF  TASTE  AS  A  MENTAL  POWER.   135 

than  to  the  nature  of  the  emotions  themselves.  The  second  class  of 
hypotheses  arises  from  the  opposite  view  of  the  subject.  It  is  that 
which  resists  the  idea  of  any  new  or  peculiar  sense  distinct  from  the 
common  principles  of  our  nature ;  which  supposes  some  one  known 
and  common  affection  of  mind  to  be  the  foundation  of  all  the  emo- 
tions we  receive  from  the  objects  of  taste,  and  which  resolves, 
therefore,  all  the  various  phenomena  into  some  more  general  law  of 
our  intellectual  or  moral  constitution.  Of  this  kind  are  the  hypo- 
thesis of  M.  Diderot,  who  attributes  all  our  emotions  of  this  kind  to 
the  perception  of  relation ;  of  Mr.  Hume,  who  resolves  them  into  our 
sense  of  utility;  and  of  the  venerable  St.  Austin,  who,  with  nobler 
views,  a  thousand  years  ago  resolved  them  into  the  pleasure  which 
belongs  to  the  perception  of  order  and  design.  It  is  the  species  of 
hypothesis  most  natural  to  retired  and  philosophic  minds;  to  those 
whose  habits  have  led  them  to  attend  more  to  the  nature  of  the  emo- 
tions they  felt  than  to  the  causes  which  produced  them."  In  this 
classification  more  of  harmony  between  apparent  opposites  would 
appear  if  the  distinction  were  more  remarked  between  abstract  and 
concrete  beauty,  and  of  the  varied  and  diiferent  powers  of  the  mind 
through  which  their  impressions  are  received.  Metaphysical  thinkers 
have  generally  discriminated  between  powers,  which,  though  of  course 
parts  of  the  one  indivisible  mind,  are  in  the  results  of  their  operations 
as  distinct  as  different  classes  of  muscles,  nerves,  and  organs  in  the 
human  body. 

As  to  the  distinctive  character  of  Taste  as  an  intuitive  power  of 
the  mind  recognizing  beauty,  the  following  brief  statements  may  serve 
as  an  illustration.  Reid  says,  "  The  sense  of  beauty  may  be .  ana- 
lyzed in  a  manner  very  similar  to  the  sense  of  sweetness.  It  is  an 
agreeable  feeling  or  emotion  accompanied  with  an  opinion  or  judg- 
ment of  some  excellence  in  the  object  which  is  fitted  by  nature  to 
produce  that  feeling."  Blair  says,  "Taste  is  ultimately  founded  on 
an  internal  sense  of  beauty,  which  is  natural  to  men,  and  which  in 
its  application  to  particular  objects  is  capable  of  being  guided  and 
enlightened  by  reason."  Burke's  statement  is,  "I  mean  by  the  word 
Taste  no  more  than  that  faculty  or  those  faculties  of  the  mind  which 
are  affected  with,  or  which  form  a  judgment  of  the  works  of  imagi- 
nation and  the  elegant  arts."  While  the  writers  just  quoted,  with 
careful  discrimination  point  out  the  two-fold  character  of  taste  as  an 
impressible  sensibility  receiving  emotions  from  objects  of  beauty, 
and  also  as  a  discerning  faculty  deciding  upon  the  merits  of  an  object 
of  beauty,  other  authors  of  ability  make  taste  only  a  sensibility,  and 


136  ART   CRITICISM. 

imagination  the  active  faculty  of  intellection.  Alison's  statement  is, 
"In  every  operation  of  taste  there  are  two  different  faculties  em- 
ployed, namely,  some  affection  or  emotion  raised,  and  the  imagina- 
tion excited  to  a  train  of  thought  corresponding  to  this  emotion." 
Cousin  says,  "  Taste  is  not  a  simple  faculty ;  it  is  a  happy  combina- 
tion of  the  three  faculties  which  serve  for  the  perception  and  the 
reproduction  of  the  beautiful,  judgment,  sentiment,  and  imagination." 
Wayland  again  remarks,  "Taste  is  that  mental  sensibility  by  which 
we  recognize  the  beauties  and  deformities  of  nature  and  art."  "It 
is  a  sensibility  rather  than  a  faculty.  A  faculty  is  the  power  of 
doing  something."  "Imagination  is  the  faculty  by  which  we  com- 
bine; taste  is  the  sensibility  by  which  w^e  feel.  Imagination  forms 
pictures ;  taste  determines  whether  or  not  a  certain  quality  exists  in 
them  after  they  are  formed."  Alison's  statement  takes  shape  from 
his  efforts  to  expose  the  errors  of  a  theory  to  which  he  was  opposed; 
and  Cousin's  from  his  aspiring  after  an  eclecticism  which  should  do 
credit  to  both  theories.  The  very  language  of  both  these  writers, 
and  yet  more  of  Wayland,  shows  their  recognition  of  taste  as  a  posi- 
tive intellectual  poiver,  yvhich.  "recognizes"  and  "determines."  The 
characteristics  of  taste  as  a  power  of  the  mind  are  as  distinct  as  those 
of  Keason  and  Conscience  developed  by  Cousin  and  Wayland.  The 
imagination  forms  and  combines  conceptions,  not  deciding  on  either 
their  truth,  their  beauty,  or  their  moral  character.  It  is  Reason 
that  decides  upon  their  truth.  Taste  upon  their  beauty,  and  Conscience 
upon  their  moral  character.  No  element  of  that  which  constitutes  a 
power  or  faculty  and  which  makes  Reason  and  Conscience  to  be 
regarded  as  mental  faculties  is  wanting  in  Taste.  This  in  a  popular 
mode  of  statement  is  admirably  recognized  by  Ruskin ;  who,  after 
arguing  that  taste  is  a  power  of  the  mind  distinct  from  judgment 
which  decides  as  to  truth  and  that  power  unnamed  which  recognizes 
fitness,  he  says  of  taste,  "  It  is  the  instinctive  and  instant  preferring 
of  one  material  object  to  another  without  any  obvious  reason  except 
that  it  is  proper  to  human  nature  in  its  perfection  to  do  so  " 

Sect.  8.  Beauty  in  the  Concrete  ;  or  the  elements  in  objects  avhich 

GIVE  the  impression  OF  BEAUTY. 

It  is  in  the  concrete  that  beauty  is  seen  by  the  ordinary  eye ;  it  is 
only  the  mind  of  superior  thought  that  realizes  and  relishes  the  con- 
ceptions of  abstract  beauty.  All  language  for  abstract  ideas  is 
primarily  drawn  from  the  field  of  the  concrete ;  and  words  expres- 
sive of  spiritual  ideas  are  those  which  are  primarily  applicable  to 


ANCIENT   REASONINGS   AS   TO   WHAT   IS   BEAUTIFUL.         137 

material  objects.  We  must  speak  even  of  the  Supreme  Spirit  as 
having  eyes,  ears,  and  hands,  in  order  to  convey  any  conception  of 
his  wisdom,  knowledge,  and  power.  So,  too,  the  words  which  will 
express  the  ground  of  our  impression  that  any  object  is  beautiful 
must  be  borrowed  from  concrete  conceptions.  It  was  certainly 
natural  when  Socrates  asked,  "What  is  beauty?"  that  his  interlocu- 
tors should  constantly  make  the  mistake  in  reply  of  citing  some 
beautiful  object,  as  a  blooming  girl,  or  a  master-piece  of  statuary  to 
express  their  conception.  Hence,  also,  we  use  comparisons  to  illus- 
trate our  ideas ;  saying,  "  it  was  as  beautiful  as  a  rose ;  she  was  as 
fair  as  a  lily,  and  as  graceful  as  a  gazelle." 

When,  however,  any  object  gives  us  in  the  concrete  the  impression 
of  beauty,  we  instinctively  inquire  for  ourselves,  and  expect  others 
to  ask,  "  Why"  we  regard  it  as  beautiful ;  thus  showing  that  there 
are  principles  of  beauty,  elements  of  the  beautiful  in  objects  which 
we  may  abstract  from  the  object  in  which  they  are  found.  Thus,  if 
a  diamond  and  a  pebble  were  brought  before  a  company  of  men, 
women,  and  children,  in  any  age,  or  under  any  degree  of  cultivation, 
all  would  admire  the  diamond  as  beautiful  above  the  pebble ;  and 
in  giving  their  reasons  for  their  admiration  would  refer  to  the 
straight  lines  and  fixed  angles  constituting  its  regular  form,  and  to 
its  brilliant  reflection  of  light.  If  again,  a  rose  and  a  rush  were 
presented  to  the  same  company,  they  would  instinctively  agree  that 
the  rose  was  beautiful ;  and  would  all  refer  to  the  curved  lines  of  its 
contour  so  different  from  those  of  the  diamond,  and  to  the  new 
element  of  color,  the  white  or  red  set  off  by  its  back  ground  of 
green.  If  again,  a  spirited  saddle-horse  were  made  to  pass  before 
any  number  of  people  by  the  side  of  a  pack-mule,  the  same  attri- 
butes of  form  and  color  would  be  quoted  as  elements  of  beauty,  with 
the  additional  quality  of  grace  in  motion.  Yet  once  again,  if  a 
lovely  young  female  were  introduced,  the  three  classes  of  qualities 
already  mentioned  would  still  be  referred  to,  with  the  additional 
element  of  expression  in  the  eye  and  other  features  revealing  traits 
of  intellectual  and  moral  character.  In  each  of  these  successive 
examples  some  new  element  enters  in  to  make  up  what  in  each 
instance  we  designate  by  the  general  name  beauty ;  and  abstracting 
the  several  elements  in  each  case  we  can  look  for  their  counterpart 
elsewhere  in  nature,  or  seek  to  reproduce  them  in  art. 

As  already  observed,  most  of  the  ancient  Greek  writers  on  beauty, 
Plato  excepted,  satisfy  themselves  with  referring  to  objects  of  beauty 
in  the  concrete ;  and  their  definitions  should  not,  therefore,  be  con- 
12*  S 


138  ART   CRITICISM. 

founded  with  Plato's  discussion,  put  into  the  mouth  of  Socrates,  as 
to  beauty  in  the  abstract.  Thus  Thales,  the  earliest  Greek  philoso- 
pher, says :  "The  most  beautiful  existence  is  the  cosmos,"  or  universe; 
"  for  it  is  a  work  of  the  Deity's  art,"  and  in  later  times  this  Greek  word 
cosmos  came  to  have  the  abstract  meanings  of  order  the  cause,  and 
of  beauty  the  effect,  as  well  as  the  concrete  meaning  of  the  universe,  the 
object  in  which  both  cause  and  effect  are  recognized.  Pythagoras 
taught  that  beauty  is  "unity  in  variety,  and  harmony  in  opposite 
qualities."  Commencing  with  Pythagoras,  first  among  Greek  critics, 
an  analysis  of  the  elements  of  beauty  more  or  less  distinct  may  be 
traced ;  and  for  the  understanding  of  their  apparently  conflicting 
views  attention  is  requisite  to  these  two  principles.  In  the  first 
place,  beauty  is  universally  recognized  among  men  as  a  quality  in 
objects  entirely  distinct  from  both  truth  and  goodness ;  and  among 
its  elements  are  those  of  form,  color,  motion  and  relation.  In  the 
second  place,  though  truth  and  goodness  are  not  themselves  beauty, 
nor  fundamental  elements  of  it,  yet  they  are  indispensable  associate 
principles.  Hence,  no  painting,  for  instance,  of  a  horse,  can  be 
beautiful  unless  time  to  nature;  that  is  unless  it  presents  his  real  form 
and  color  as  found  in  nature.  Hence,  again,  no  work  of  art  can  in 
the  highest  sense  be  beautiful,  unless  also  it  is  good.  This  attribute 
in  its  lowest  form  is  the  useful;  a  plough,  which  is  useful,  being  for 
that  reason  beautiful  to  the  farmer.  The  highest  expression  of  the 
good  is  in  the  suitable;  which  embraces  the  idea  of  the  true  as  well 
as  the  beautiful,  and  is  illustrated  in  the  fact,  that  even  a  deformed 
man  appears  beautiful  when  his  character  comes  to  be  admired. 
These  principles  recognized,  but  not  always  kept  distinct  by  ancient 
and  modern  writers,  if  held  clearly  and  constantly  in  mind,  will 
greatly  aid  to  just  views  of  beauty  in  the  concrete. 

Plato  recognizes  four  classes  of  concrete  beauty:  first,  that  of  cor- 
poreal existences ;  second,  that  of  spiritual  attributes  in  individual 
character ;  third,  that  of  laws  and  science  in  the  physical  and  intel- 
lectual worlds;  fourth,  absolute  beauty  as  it  exists  in  the  perfect 
being  who  is  the  author  of  all  inferior  existences.  Socrates,  when  he 
had  asked  "What  is  the  beautiful  f  and  had  received  the  reply  that 
"£i  fair  maiden  is  beautiful,"  asks  "why  then  did  not  Phidias  make 
his  Minerva  thus  fair;  all  gold  instead  of  the  flesh  ivory,  the  robe 
gold,  and  the  eyes  precious  stones."  Keceiving  again  the  reply  that 
these  materials  are  beautiful  when  "  suitable  to  their  use,"  he  asks 
again,  if  a  wooden  spoon  is  more  beautiful  than  a  gold  one,  because 
it  is  more  use^S&l.     In  these  examples  the  good  is  made  distinct  from, 


Plato's  analysis  of  the  elements  of  beauty.   139 

yet  an  accompaniment  essential  to  the  beautiful.  Again  having 
obtained  two  disconnected  admissions  that  purple  is  the  most  beau- 
tiful color,  and  the  eye  is  the  most  beautiful  part  of  the  bod} %  he 
asks,  "why  then  do  not  painters  add  beauty  to  the  eyes  by  painting 
them  purple ;"  and  having  kept  his  weak  antagonist  perplexed  awhile 
he  exclaims,  "  Wonderful  critic !  you  do  not  imagine,  do  you,  that  in 
order  to  make  the  eyes  more  beautiful  we  should  paint  them  so  that 
they  would  not  appear  to  be  eyes?"  Thus  again,  he  recognizes  that 
tliough  truth  is  not  beauty,  yet  no  object  destitute  of  truth  can  be 
beautiful.  Again,  he  thus  distinguishes  concrete  from  abstract 
beauty.  "  Things  which  please  us  through  sight  and  hearing  call 
attention  to  the  circumstances  attending  the  idea,  not  to  the  prmciple 
of  beauty."  The  special  qualities  which  united  produce  the  impres- 
sion of  beauty  are  graphically  pictured  as  meeting  in  Cupid ;  "  Love 
is  .  .  .  the  most  blessed  of  the  gods ;  at  once  the  most  beautiful  and 
the  best."  "  He  is  very  young  and  very  delicate ;  and  in  addition 
to  these  qualities,  he  is  of  a  most  flexible  form ;  otherwise  he  would 
not  be  able  to  entwine  himself  around  every  form."  "Another 
great  proof  that  his  form  excels  in  symmetry  and  flexibility  is  found 
in  its  gracefulness ;  which  excellence  Love  confessedly  possesses  in  a 
manner  superior  to  all  beings."  "His  diet,  too,  on  flowers  points  out 
the  beauty  of  his  color."  The  essential  principle  of  ideal  beauty 
Plato  finds  in  "  proportion  and  symmetry,"  when  they  exist  in  ^^per- 
fection;'" since  "nothing  incomplete  can  ever  be  beautiful."  He 
cites  as  an  example  Zeuxis'  celebrated  picture  of  Helen  ;  in  which 
the  artist  sought  to  combine  in  a  perfect  ideal  the  excellences  of 
form  and  color  which  he  had  gathered  by  observing  many  fair 
women  and  uniting  their  select  beauties  in  one  being.  He  finds  also 
the  same  elementary  principles  in  the  true  and  the  good ;  and  hence 
he  illustrates  the  indispensableness  of  their  association.  "  The  true," 
he  says,  "is  allied  with  proportion,  not  with  disproportion ;"  the  true 
rose  or  horse  is  the  perfectly  proportioned  one.  Again,  he  says, 
"  Men  are  wont  to  regard  the  beautiful  as  the  good ;  though,  in  fact, 
in  the  beautiful  they  only  love  the  good."  The  power  of  simple 
goodness  to  give  the  impression  of  beauty  is  admirably  illustrated 
by  a  fancied  or  real  conversation  between  Socrates,  whose  ugliness 
of  form  has  passed  into  a  proverb,  and  Alcibiades,  who  was  a  paragon 
of  manly  beauty.  Alcibiades  having  said  to  Socrates  that  in  per- 
sonal appearance  he  seemed  to  him  like  "  the  figures  of  Silenus," 
noted  for  his  flabby  and  beast-like  grossness ;  and,  indeed,  like  "  to 
the  satyr  Marsyas,"  the  eminent  flute-player,  characterized  by  his 


140  ART   CRITICISM. 

grimaces  in  blowing  his  instrument ;  having  then  added,  "  That  in 
your  outward  appearance,  Socrates,  you  resemble  those  beings,  you 
yourself  will  not  deny ;"  and  finally  having  dwelt  on  the  fact,  that 
in  spite  of  his  ugly  aspect,  he  was  irresistibly  drawn  to  him  and 
even  admired  his  features,  Socrates  recognizes  this  as  illustrating  his 
ow^n  principle  of  beauty ;  and  exclaims,  "  What  is  that  matchless 
beauty  you  could  see  in  me  so  vastly  superior  to  your  own  fine  form?" 
This  early  teaching  of  the  Greek  philosopher  in  the  age  of  the  per- 
fection of  Grecian  art,  may  prepare  us  for  the  proper  consideration 
of  the  views  urged  by  modern  artists  and  art  critics,  that  beauty  is 
essentially  distinct  from  truth  and  goodness,  having  its  own  special 
laws  of  excellence;  while  at  the  same  time,  the  artist  never  can 
reach  beauty  without  careful  study  of  the  real  and  true  as  he  sees 
them  in  nature,  nor  unless  he  seeks  the  useful,  or  at  least  the  suitable 
as  an  attribute  associated  with  the  truly  beautiful. 

Passing  over  the  kindred  statements  of  Aristotle,  the  practical 
philosopher  of  Greece  as  opposed  to  the  ideal  Plato,  and  also  of  Cicero 
the  Koman  eclectic  who  drew  from  both,  and  observing  that  beauty 
in  the  concrete  is  the  special  aim  of  their  research,  we  do  well  to 
notice  more  particularly  the  views  of  several  modern  critics.  The 
early  master  in  English  painting,  Hogarth,  wTote  a  treatise  which  he 
styled  the  "  Analysis  of  Beauty ;"  on  whose  title  page  as  the  symbol 
of  his  theory  he  inscribed  a  triangle,  within  which  he  drew  a  serpent 
in  the  waving  line  which  his  body  takes  when  moving.  In  his 
Introduction,  he  dwells  on  the  opinion  that  writers  on  the  principles 
of  beauty  are  generally  theoretic  men,  who  fall  into  the  discussion 
of  moral  instead  of  physical  elements  constituting  beauty.  His  own 
idea  of  the  latter,  he  says,  is  borrowed  from  Michel  Angelo's  maxim 
for  his  pupils,  that  figures  should  always  be  made  "pyramidal,  ser- 
pentine, and  with  a  ratio  of  increase  by  one,  two  and  three."  This 
maxim  he  states  so  influenced  Paphael's  method  when  he  became 
acquainted  with  M.  Angelo  that  he  "  changed  his  straight  and  stiff 
manner,  and  became  so  fond  of  the  serpentine  line  that  he  carried  it 
into  a  ridiculous  excess,  particularly  in  his  draperies."  This  maxim 
M.  Angelo  himself  had  borrowed  from  Aristotle's  suggestion  that 
"flame,  pyramidal  in  form  and  serpent-like  in  its  motion,  is  most 
indicative  of  life  and  symbolic  of  spirit."  Hogarth  thinks  that  he 
finds  the  influence  of  this  principle  in  the  waving  lines  introduced 
into  Grecian  and  especially  Koman  architectural  ornament  and 
decorative  art ;  while  in  the  group  of  Laocoon  the  two  sons  at  the 
side  of  the  father  are  made  of  natural  size,  and  the  central  figure 


HOGARTH,   KAMES,    AND   BURKE   ON   THE   BEAUTIFUL.      141 

colossal,  so  as  to  make  the  whole  come  within  the  triangle  or  pyra- 
mid. He  distinguishes  the  waving,  serpentine  and  spiral  lines  as 
divisions  of  his  general  theory ;  giving  numerous  instances  in  vege- 
table, animal,  and  human  forms  illustrative  of  these  curves.  A  large 
portion  of  Hogarth's  work  is  filled  up  with  the  consideration  of  the 
principles  usually  discussed  by  writers  on  Beauty  as  entering  into  its 
elements;  as  fitness,  variety,  uniformity,  simplicity,  intricacy  and 
quantity ;  to  all  of  which  he  gives  such  a  turn  as  to  make  them  seem 
to  favor  his  theory.  Hogarth  has  the  frankness  to  acknowledge  that 
the  universally  admired  straight  line  of  the  Grecian  profile  seems  an 
exception  to  his  theory ;  but  he  omits  to  allude  to  the  fact  that  the 
straight  line,  and  that  unbroken,  was  the  Grecian  ideal  of  the  line 
of  architectural  beauty  also.  Of  course  it  is  beauty  in  the  concrete, 
not  in  the  abstract,  that  is  before  Hogarth's  mind  in  the  study  of 
his  theory. 

The  admirable  critic  Beattie,  finds  the  chief  elements  of  beauty  to 
reside  in  form,  color  and  expression ;  united  with  the  moral  idea  of 
suitableness,  or  fitness.  Thus  he  says,  "Colors  are  beautiful,  first 
when  they  convey  to  the  mind  a  lively  sensation,  as  white  and  red ; 
second,  when  they  cherish  the  organ  of  vision  as  green ;  third,  when 
they  have  that  character  which  we  term  delicacy,  and  yield  a  sensa- 
tion both  lively  and  gentle,  as  pale  red  and  light  blue.  But,  fourth, 
the  beauty  of  color  depends  chiefly  on  the  agreeableness  of  the  ideas 
it  conveys  to  the  mind.  The  verdure  of  the  fields,  for  instance,  is 
delightful  because  it  leads  us  to  think  of  fruitfulness,  fragrance,  and 
many  other  pleasant  things ;  but  greenness  in  the  human  face  would 
be  horrible  because  it  would  suggest  the  notion  of  pain,  of  disease, 
and  of  something  unnatural."  Again  he  says,  "That  which  in  the 
smallest  compass  exhibits  the  greatest  variety  of  beauty  is  a  fine 
human  face.  The  features  are  of  various  sizes  and  forms;  the  cor- 
responding ones  are  exactly  uniform ;  and  each  has  that  shape,  size, 
position,  and  proportion  which  is  most  convenient.  Here,  too,  is  the 
greatest  beauty  of  colors,  which  are  blended,  varied  and  disposed 
with  marvellous  delicacy.  But  the  chief  beauty  of  the  countenance 
arises  from  its  expression." 

Lord  Kames,  a  critic  of  the  greatest  acuteness,  divides  beauty  into 
two  species,  intrinsic  and  relative.  Relative  beauty  depends  not  on 
what  the  thing  is  in  itself,  but  on  its  relations  to  other  things,  its 
associations,  its  utility,  and  its  propriety.  "Intrinsic  beauty,"  he 
says,  "must  be  analyzed  into  its  constituent  parts.  If  a  tree  be 
beautiful  by  means  of  its  color,  its  figure,  its  size,  its  motion,  it  is  in 


142  ART   CRITICISM. 

reality  possessed  of  so  many  different  beauties,  which  ought  to  be 
examined  separately,  in  order  to  have  a  clear  notion  of  them  when 
combined.  The  beauty  of  color  is  too  familiar  to  need  explanation." 
"The  beauty  of  figure,  arising  from  various  circumstances  and  dif- 
ferent views,  is  more  complex ;  for  example,  viewing  any  body  as  a 
whole  the  beauty  of  its  figure  arises  from  regularity  and  simplicity ; 
viewing  the  parts  with  relation  to  each  other,  uniformity,  proportion 
and  order  contribute  to  its  beauty.  The  beauty  of  motion  deserves 
a  chapter  by  itself"  The  more  elaborate  Reid  in  presenting  his 
analysis  of  beauty,  says,  ''Our  sense  of  beauty  is  resolvable  into 
instinctive  and  rational,  and  beauty  itself  into  original  and  derived." 
These  he  further  analyzes  thus:  "The  qualities  of  inanimate  matter 
in  which  we  perceive  beauty  are  sound,  color,  form,  and  motion ;  the 
first  an  object  of  hearing,  the  others  of  sight."  "All  that  can  be 
called  beauty  in  the  human  species  may  be  reduced  to  these  four 
heads;  color,  form,  expression,  and  grace.  The  two  former  may  be 
called  the  body,  the  two  latter  the  soul  of  beauty." 

The  thoughtful  reader  of  Burke  on  the  "  Sublime  and  Beautiful " 
is  surprised  at  the  low  view  taken  in  his  section  on  "Beauty"  in 
itself  considered.  It  is  but  a  continuation  of  his  consideration  of  the 
final  cause  originating  the  difference  in  the  sexes;  the  "mixed  pas- 
sion," he  says,  "which  w^e  call  love,  is  the  beauty  of  the  sex.  Men 
are  carried  to  the  sex  in  general,  as  it  is  the  sex,  and  by  the  common 
law  of  nature;  but  they  are  attached  to  particulars  by  personal 
beauty.  I  call  beauty  a  social  quality."  This  confusion  of  ideas  in 
the  great  scholar-statesman,  always  heavy  as  a  thinker  and  speaker, 
never  acute  in  metaphysical  analysis,  though  massive  in  practical 
logic,  illustrates  the  fact  that  a  general  critic  may  not  only  fail  to 
discriminate  between  beauty  in  the  abstract  and  beauty  in  the  con- 
crete, but  even  between  the  impression  itself  of  beauty  and  other 
emotions  entirely  distinct  from  it.  The  same  confusion  of  ideas, 
amid  many  valuable  suggestions,  is  found  in  his  discussion  of  the 
elements  of  beauty  in  the  concrete ;  in  which  it  is  first  argued  that 
neither  proportion,  nor  fitness,  nor  perfection  is  the  cause  of  beauty ; 
that  nevertheless  "beauty  is  some  quality  in  bodies  acting  mechani- 
cally upon  the  human  mind  by  the  intervention  of  the  senses;" 
among  which  qualities  smallness,  smoothness,  gradual  variation, 
delicacy  and  color  are  named. 

Alison  who  devoted  his  pages  as  a  critic  to  the  exclusive  considera- 
tion of  the  Subject  of  Taste  ably  argues  that  the  beauty  both  of 
color  and  form  arises  mainly  from  our  associations  connected  with 


ANALYSIS  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL  BY  ALISON  AND  COUSIN.      143 

them.  Colors  possessed  of  one  or  the  other  of  these  three  character- 
istics appear  beautiful ;  "first,  such  as  arise  from  the  nature  of  the 
objects  thus  permanently  colored,"  as  green  in  grass;  "second,  such 
as  arise  from  some  analogy  between  certain  colors  and  dispositions 
of  mind,"  as  white  for  bridal  dresses;  "third,  such  as  arise  from  acci- 
dental connections  whether  national  or  particular,"  as  purple  in 
every  land  for  a  royal  robe,  and  scarlet  in  England  for  soldier's  uni- 
form. Forms,  he  argues,  as  truly  as  colors,  are  dependent  on  the 
same  law  of  natural,  moral  or  accidental  association  for  the  pleasure 
they  give;  his  statement  being,  "the  sublimity  or  beauty  of  forms 
arises  altogether  from  the  associations  we  connect  with  them,  or  the 
qualities  of  which  they  are  expressive  to  us."  In  illustration  of  the 
law  of  natural  association  as  constituting  beauty,  he  cites  the  lan- 
guage of  common  men  who  when  describing  beauty  in  landscape 
speak  of  "gentle  swells"  in  its  surface  and  of  its  vegetable  and  ani- 
mal accompaniments.  This  he  thinks  constitutes  the  beauty  of 
wreath  decorations ;  in  which  foliage  and  flower  are  beautiful  only 
when  the  material  seems  adequate;  delicacy  in  marble,  for  instance, 
being  a  blemish  unless  cut  in  low  relief,  so  that  it  seems  firm  as  well 
as  delicate;  while  also  the  serpentine  curve,  specially  expressive  of 
delicacy,  is  a  blemish  when,  as  in  the  rose  stem,  strength  and  erect- 
ness  seem  to  be  naturally  requisite.  It  will  be  observed  at  once 
that  Alison  here  but  recalls  Plato's  idea  of  the  necessary  union  of  the 
tme  and  the  good  in  that  which  is  beautiful ;  an  idea  which  artists  in 
every  cultured  age  have  embodied  in  the  watchword,  "Be  true  to 
nature."  Akenside  the  poet,  in  his  'Pleasures  of  the  Imagination," 
anticipated  Alison  in  this  statement: — 

"Thus  was  Beauty  sent  from  heaven. 
The  lovely  ministress  of  Truth  and  Good 
In  this  dark  world ;  for  Truth  and  Good  are  one. 
And  Beauty  dwells  in  them,  and  they  in  her, 
AVith  like  participation." 

The  chief  fault  in  Alison's  analysis  of  beauty  is  that  he  does  not 
make  it  sufficiently  distinct  from  truth  to  which  it  is  neccvssarily 
wedded ;  and  that  he  argues  against  the  idea  that  beauty  has  its  seat 
in  proportion,  fitness,  and  other  attributes,  while  nevertheless  he 
makes  them  essential  attributes  of  truth ;  the  true  rose  being  the  rose 
that  has  regularity  and  symmetry  of  form,  and  a  color  specially 
adapted  to  set  off"  its  form. 

The  modern  French  philosopher,  Cousin,  is  one  of  the  ablest,  as 


144  ART  CRITICISM. 

well  as  most  comprehensive  analyzers  of  Beauty.  His  division  of 
his  two  Courses  of  Lectures,  the  first  treating  of  the  "True,  the 
Beautiful,  and  the  Good"  in  themselves,  and  the  second  of  "  Beauty 
in  Things,"  indicates  a  recognition  of  the  distinction  between  abstract 
and  concrete  beauty.  He  thinks  that  the  theory  of  Plato,  in  his 
Hippias,  that  beauty  consists  of  the  suitableness  of  means  to  an  end, 
is  nearest  to  the  true  view.  A  condition,  however,  of  suitableness,  is 
proportion  and  order;  unity  and  variety  are  among  its  essential 
elements;  while  even  the  ideal,  the  fictitious,  is  in  an  important 
respect  suited  to  our  nature.  Summing  up  his  views  of  the  multi- 
plied elements  that  unite  to  give  us  the  impression  of  "  beauty  in 
things,"  he  concludes :  "  These  distinctions  and  these  reunions  are  not 
contradictory ;  the  great  law  of  beauty,  like  that  of  truth,  is  unity 
as  well  as  variety."  Having  developed  thus  the  natural  elements 
of  beauty,  or  the  principles  of  law  in  natural  forms  that  give  the 
impression  of  beauty,  he  refers  to  Winckelmann's  masterly  analysis 
of  the  Apollo  Belvidere,  especially  of  the  "face,"  as  "expressing 
beauty  of  soul ;"  and  uses  Plato's  own  illustration  to  show  that 
moral  beauty  may  be  so  eminent  as  to  make  natural  ugliness  to 
appear  beautiful.  "  The  natural  face  of  Socrates  contrasts  strongly 
with  the  type  of  Grecian  beauty ;  but  look  upon  him  on  his  death- 
bed, at  the  moment  of  drinking  the  hemlock,  conversing  with  his 
disciples  on  the  immortality  of  the  soul ;  and  his  face  will  appear  to 
you  sublime."  There  can  be  no  question  that  a  correct  analysis  of 
beauty  in  the  concrete  will  lead  us  to  fix  upon  the  particulars  already 
considered  in  the  preceding  chapter  as  its  chief  elements. 

Sect.  4.  ^Esthetic  Judgment  ;  the  process  of  the  mind  by  which  we 
decide  that  an  object  is  beautiful. 

As  the  relation  between  the  true,  the  beautiful,  the  good,  and  the 
right,  is  so  close,  we  might  anticipate  that  the  process  by  which  in 
any  case  we  decide  that  a  thing  is  true,  good,  or  beautiful,  or  an  act 
right,  would  be  similar.  As  the  idea  of  abstract  beauty,  like  that  of 
truth,  goodness,  or  right,  is  a  suggestion  arising  spontaneously  in  the 
mind,  so  we  decide  that  an  object  is  beautiful  by  exercising  upon  its 
consideration  the  same  powers  of  mind  which  we  employ  in  deciding 
that  it  is  true,  good,  or  right. 

When  a  child  first  sees  a  cricket-ball  neatly  rounded  and  stitched, 
at  rest  or  flying  in  the  air,  a  process  of  syllogistic  reasoning  with  its 
two  premises  and  its  consequent  conclusion  is  instinctively  suggested. 
He  sees  the  ball,  its  elaborated  form,  its  projectile  motion ;  he  has 


MODE  OF  REASONING  AS  TO  TRUTH,  RIGHT  AND  BEAUTY.    145 

confidence  in  the  testimony  of  his  eyesight ;  and  this  axiom  is  his 
first  premise.  At  the  same  moment  he  has  the  consciousness  of  an 
inward  conviction  that  the  ball  could  not  possess  such  a  form,  or 
move  in  such  a  manner,  unless  the  hand  of  some  intelligent  being 
had  formed  it  and  given  it  its  impulse ;  he  has  confidence  in  this 
testimony  of  his  consciousness ;  and  this  axiom  is  his  second  premise. 
He  has  thus  arrived  at  absolute  truth,  by  a  process  of  metaphysical 
reasoning,  upon  which  no  philosopher  can  improve;  for  it  is  only 
superior  skill  in  employing  the  powers  of  reasoning  native  to  man, 
the  power  of  observing  facts,  of  marking  the  mind's  suggestions  as  to 
their  causes,  and  of  referring  the  one  to  the  other,  that  distinguishes 
a  Newton  from  a  child  or  a  savage. 

By  a  similar  process,  a  child,  or  a  barbarian,  is  led  to  decide  upon 
the  goodness  of  a  thing,  or  the  right  of  an  action.  If  a  parent 
would  satisfy  his  child  that  any  article  of  food,  clothing,  or  medicine, 
s  good  for  him,  he  takes  for  granted,  first,  that  the  child  has  the 
dea  that  a  thing  is  good  which  is  adapted  to  promote  his  individual 
nterest  ancK  permanent  welfare ;  second,  that  he  can  observe  the 
effects  of  what  he  eats ;  and  that  these  two  impressions  may  lead  him 
to  a  wise  decision.  Thus  by  a  satisfactory  conclusion  from  two 
credible  premises,  the  one  a  self-evident  truth,  the  other  an  observed 
fact,  men  are  led  to  the  good  precisely  as  they  are  to  the  true  in 
their  material,  intellectual,  moral,  and  religious  relations  to  the 
world  and  to  their  fellow-beings.  So  if  the  parent  would  convince 
a  child  that  an  act  of  falsehood,  theft,  or  retaliation,  is  wrong,  he 
pre-supposes  that  the  child  has  the  idea  of  right  and  wrong,  and  the 
impulse  to  do  right ;  and  he  endeavors  so  to  present  the  facts  in  the 
case  as  to  lead  the  child  himself  to  bring  that  case  under  the  law. 
In  every  age  and  land,  before  courts  of  justice  or  assemblies 
gathered  for  moral  and  religious  instruction,  through  a  syllogistic 
chain  embracing  two  established  premises  and  their  legitimate  con- 
clusion, the  mind  is  led  to  judge  of  right  in  individual  cases. 

It  would  seem  that  no  question  could  arise  as  to  the  propriety  and 
the  necessity  of  a  similar  mode  of  judging  where  the  beauty  of 
objects  is  the  subject  of  inquiry.  At  the  sound  of  a  sweet- voiced 
singing  bird,  or  of  a  well-trained  musical  band,  at  sight  of  a  richly 
colored  flower,  a  gracefully  moving  horse,  or  of  a  lovely  female  face, 
the  eye  of  the  child,  of  the  savage,  and  of  the  philosopher,  would 
alike  sparkle  with  delight ;  and  were  any  one  of  this  company  of 
beholders,  so  diversified  in  character,  asked  the  cause  of  his  pleasure, 
he  would  present  the  same  view  and  in  the  same  order  of  thought. 
13  T 


146  ART   CRITICISM. 

He  has  heard  the  peculiar  melody  from  the  single  note  of  the 
warbler  and  the  combined  harmony  of  many-toned  instruments;  he 
has  seen  the  peculiar  color,  form,  movement,  and  expression ;  and 
this  is  his  first  premise.  He  has  within  him  the  common  organism 
of  ear,  eye,  and  associated  soul,  on  which,  such  sounds  and  sight  are 
made  to  produce  a  pleasant  impression;  and  this  is  his  second 
premise.  It  is  by  the  use  of  his  judgment  upon  the  facts,  and  of 
his  taste  upon  a  principle,  that  every  beholder  of  an  object  decides 
upon  its  beauty  as  he  does  upon  its  truth. 

The  careful  student  will  be  able  to  trace  this  as  the  virtual  teach- 
ing of  critics  in  ancient  and  modern  times.  Socrates,  according  to 
Plato's  representation  employed  his  keenest  power  of  analysis,  his 
most  comprehensive  range  of  illustration  and  his  closest  logic  as  well 
as  his  most  admirable  wit  in  his  reasoning  upon  beauty;  this  theme 
seeming  to  call  forth  the  sculptor-son  of  Sophroniscus  in  the  age  of 
the  triumph  of  Grecian  art  more  than  the  subject  of  the  true,  if  not 
also  more  than  the  consideration  of  the  good  and  the  right.  The 
fact  that  we  are  to  use  our  judgment  and  reasoning  powers  not  only 
in  arriving  at  the  abstract  idea  of  beauty,  but  also  in  deciding  on  the 
questions  '  what  is  beautiful,'  and  '  why  do  we  decide  that  this  or  the 
other  thing  is  beautiful,'  is  plainly  indicated  in  the  elaborate  treatises 
which  metaphysicians,  critics  and  rhetoricians  have  devoted  to  the 
discussion  of  the  subjects  of  taste  and  of  beauty.  The  important 
place  which  the  study  of  Beauty  holds  in  true  science  and  in  the 
legitimate  use  of  the  mental  faculties  is  intimated  by  Lord  Bacon 
when  in  his  "Novum  Organon,"  he  divides  the  powers  of  the  mind 
and  their  fields  of  employ  into  memory  for  history  natural,  civil  and 
sacred,  phantasy  for  poetry  and  art,  and  reason  for  science  and  philo- 
sophy. Kant  gives  the  leading  position  to  this  field  of  investigation, 
when  treating  of  judgment  he  ascribes  to  it  two  modes;  the  sesthe- 
tical  which  considers  the  concurrence  of  elements  in  the  forms  of 
things  to  produce  a  sentiment  of  pleasure ;  and  the  teleological 
which  considers  the  simple  truth  of  things  without  regard  to  any 
pleasure  afforded  by  them.  Reid,  in  arguing  against  Hume's  position 
that  judgment  and  reasoning  do  not  lead  to  moral  truth,  indirectly 
illustrates  how  the  mind  is  employed  on  questions  of  beauty.  Hume 
in  support  of  his  position  had  urged;  "Euclid  fully  explained  all 
the  qualities  of  the  circle ;  but  has  not,  in  any  proposition,  said  a 
word  of  its  beauty.  The  reason  is  evident;  beauty  is  not  a  quality 
of  the  circle."  To  this  Reid  replied ;  first,  that  Euclid  did  not  dis- 
cover all  the  properties  of  the  circle,  many  having  been  discovered  in 


DIFFERENT   POWERS   OF   APPREHENDING    BEAUTY.        147 

later  times ;  second,  Euclid  never  digresses  from  his  one  purpose, 
whicli  is  to  demonstrate  mathematical  truths;  and,  adds  Reid, 
"beauty  is  a  quality  of  the  circle  not  demonstrable  by  mathematical 
reasoning,  but  immediately  perceived  by  a  good  taste."  Yet  again, 
Cousin's  conviction  of  the  active  and  logical  employ  in  this  field  of 
the  powers  of  the  mind  is  so  strong  that  it  leads  him  to  make  taste  a 
compound  faculty;  his  language  being,  "Taste  is  not  a  simple 
faculty ;  it  is  a  happy  combination  of  the  three  faculties,  judgment, 
sentiment,  imagination,  which  serve  for  the  perception  and  the 
reproduction  of  the  beautiful."  His  second  course  of  Lectures  on 
"  Beauty  in  Things"  is  entirely  devoted  to  the  exercise  of  the  mind 
in  this  department. 

In  fine  a  careful  observation  will  lead  us  to  conclude  that  the 
mind  with  its  varied  powers  is  employed  in  deciding  on  the  beauty, 
as  it  is  on  the  truth  of  things  or  principles  brought  before  us.  No 
man  can  give  a  theoretical  reason  why  he  thinks  an  object  beautiful, 
any  more  than  why  he  declares  it  true ;  he  can  only  appeal  to  the 
innate  conviction  of  all  men.  Yet  every  man  does  refer  to  particular 
qualities  in  the  form,  color,  motion  and  relations  of  objects  in  stating 
ivhat  he  regards  as  actually  beautiful.  When  an  object,  as  an  apple, 
is  placed  before  us,  and  we  are  asked  whether  it  is  a  true,  or  a  beautiful 
apple,  the  exercise  of  our  powers  of  mind  is  substantially  the  same 
in  the  decision  of  the  two  questions.  First,  our  eye  scans  the  appa- 
rent qualities  of  the  object,  its  form  and  its  color,  in  order  to  gain  a 
judgment  of  its  substance  as  true  and  of  its  character  as  beautiful ; 
second,  our  innate  previous  conviction  of  what  constitutes  truth  or 
beauty  is  called  up ;  third,  judgment,  aided  by  memory  which  recalls 
other  specimens,  and  imagination  which  supplies  what  is  not  visible 
so  as  to  fill  up  the  mind's  conception,  scrutinizes  appearances  and 
decides  whether  they  accord  with  the  laws  of  truth  and  beauty.  To 
use  Kant's  mode  of  designation,  the  aesthetic  judgment  acts  in  deciding 
on  the  beauty  of  an  object  as  the  teleological  judgment  in  deciding 
upon  the  truth  of  the  same  object. 

Sect.  5.  Comparative  Taste;  the  varied  development  of  the  idea 
OF  beauty  among  men;  its  probable  absence  in  beings  inferior, 

AND  its  possible  PERFECTION  IN  BEINGS  SUPERIOR  TO  MAN. 

If  the  powers  of  the  mind  are  employed  in  the  same  manner  to 
decide  upon  the  beauty  as  on  the  truth  of  an  object,  it  is  a  legitimate 
inference  that  the  natural  and  acquired  power  of  correct  decision  on 
questions  of  beauty  must  difier  in  different  persons,  as  does  the 


148  ART  CRITICISM. 

power  of  logical  reasoning  upon  questions  of  truth.  Moreover  as 
no  being  inferior  to  man  is  supposed  to  possess  the  power  of  arriving 
at  principles  of  abstract  truth,  though  all  animals  below  man 
have  an  intelligence  which  gives  them  practical  knowledge  of  truth 
in  the  concrete,  so  animals  may  be  supposed  to  have  no  theoretical 
apprehension  of  principles  of  beauty  though  subject  in  a  measure  to 
impressions  from  its  objects.  Yet  again,  as  we  are  assured  that  there 
are  beings  higher  than  man  in  the  gift  of  reason  which  apprehends 
truth,  and  as  we  ourselves  may  in  another  state  of  being  possess  this 
endowment  in  a  higher  degree,  so  may  it  be  with  the  power  of  appre- 
hending and  judging  of  beauty. 

There  are  differences  in  native  power  both  of  conceiving  and  judg- 
ing of  beauty  which  seem  to  be  fixed  by  circumstances  of  age,  sex, 
race,  and  national  culture;  while  also  in  men  of  the  same  age,  race, 
and  general  culture,  the  facility  of  using  this  power  varies  with  both 
natural  aptitude  and  special  study.  The  child  is  fond  of  pure  un- 
mixed colors  and  rudely  carved  forms;  while,  too,  as  a  child,  both 
his  power  to  reach  higher  truth  and  to  appreciate  higher  beauties 
seems  restricted  by  the  limit  of  a  child's  development.  The  female 
sex,  though  quicker  than  the  male  in  rudimentary  studies,  seem  to 
stop  at  a  limit  in  the  grasp  of  advanced  philosophy  and  science;  just 
as  in  the  physical  development  of  the  vocal  organs  by  which  thought 
is  uttered,  they  come  to  a  bound  beyond  which  man  passes.  So, 
too,  either  from  the  force  of  nature  or  custom,  it  seems  to  be  in  the 
attainment  of  higher  conception  and  execution  in  the  field  of  beauty ; 
since  in  the  history  of  art  eminent  female  sculptors  and  painters  are 
as  rare  as  eminent  female  sages  and  poets.  The  Asiatic,  and  espe- 
cially the  African  race,  is  quick  to  attain  the  elements  of  science ; 
but  in  the  progress  of  advancement  both  these  races  stop  short,  each 
at  its  own  fixed  limit,  of  the  goal  attained  by  the  European  race ; 
as  is  seen  in  Egypt  where  forms  in  architecture  and  sculpture, 
and  colors  in  dress  and  painting  beyond  which  the  progressing  Greek 
passed  at  once,  became  stereotyped  models  never  improved.  Yet 
again,  while  even  the  Turk  has  laid  aside  the  gaudy  equipage  that 
helps  to  make  the  pomp  of  royalty,  the  sovereign  of  the  most  ad- 
vanced European  nation,  the  English,  still  retains  the  relics  of  me- 
diaeval taste ;  indicating  that  in  improving  taste,  fashion  and  national 
custom  have  much  to  do.  The  general  fact  here  presented,  that  age, 
sex,  race,  and  nationality  place  limits  to  the  development  of  powers 
made  to  be  improved,  is  too  palpably  manifest  not  to  be  recognized ; 
while  the  many  and  marked  exceptions  both  confirm  the  rule  by 


JUDGMENT   AS   TO   ART   IN   RUDE   MINDS.  149 

the  fact  that  they  are  exceptions,  and  at  the  same  time  illustrate  its 
principle  by  revealing  when  examined  the  causes  through  whose  ope- 
ration they  have  become  exceptions. 

This  general  principle  was  recognized  by  the  ancients.  Aristotle 
discusses  the  limits  of  development  in  the  appreciation  of  truth  and 
beauty  reached  by  different  ages  and  sexes ;  and  mentions  the  fact, 
that  men  of  the  same  culture  have  keener  or  blunter  native  appre- 
hension, and  become  more  or  less  advanced  in  true  taste  according 
as  they  exercise  their  powers  in  the  criticism  and  execution  of  works 
of  art.  Modern  writers  dwell  upon  the  same  fact ;  though  sometimes 
without  logical  discrimination.  K-eid  says,  "  The  most  perfect  works 
of  art  have  a  beauty  that  strikes  even  the  rude  and  ignorant ;  but 
they  see  only  a  small  part  of  that  beauty  which  is  seen  in  such  works 
by  those  who  understand  them  perfectly  and  can  produce  them." 
"As  the  color  of  the  body  is  very  different  in  different  climates, 
every  nation  preferring  the  color  of  its  climate,  and  as,  among  us, 
one  man  prefers  a  fair  beauty,  another  a  brunette,  without  being 
able  to  give  any  reason  for  this  preference,  this  diversity  of  taste 
has  no  standard  in  the  common  principles  of  human  nature,  but 
must  arise  from  something  that  is  different  in  different  nations,  and 
in  different  individuals  of  the  same  nation."  Blair,  while  maintain- 
ing that  there  is  among  all  mankind  a  common  standard  of  taste,  as 
like  in  its  decisions  as  are  those  of  reason  and  conscience,  and  con- 
tending that  palpable  differences  of  taste  are  as  much  perversions 
of  a  common  nature  as  are  abuses  of  the  palate,  yet  urges  that 
culture  has  as  much  to  do  with  accuracy  of  judgment  in  art  as  it 
has  in  science.  His  words  are,  "When  we  refer  to  the  concurring 
sentiments  of  men  as  the  ultimate  standard  of  taste,  or  of  what  is  to 
be  accounted  beautiful  in  the  arts,  this  is  to  be  always  understood  of 
men  placed  in  such  situations  as  are  favorable  to  exertions  of  taste." 
Burke  remarks,  "Sensibility  and  judgment,  which  are  the  qualities 
that  compose  what  we  commonly  call  taste,  vary  exceedingly  in 
various  people ;"  yet  he  adds,  "  there  is  rather  less  difference  upon 
matters  of  taste  among  mankind  than  upon  most  of  those  matters 
which  depend  upon  the  naked  reason."  Alluding  to  the  taste  of 
early  youth,  and  of  men  in  the  infancy  of  natural  culture,  he  says : 
"  I  despair  of  ever  receiving  the  same  degree  of  pleasure  from  the 
most  excellent  performances  of  genius,  which  I  felt  in  youth  from 
pieces  which  my  present  judgment  regards  as  trifling  and  contempt- 
ible." "The  most  powerful  effects  of  poetry  and  music  have  been 
displayed,  and  perhaps,  are  still  displayed,  where  these  arts  are  but 

13- 


150  ART   (TRITICISM. 

in  a  low  and  imperfect  state."  "  But  as  arts  advance  towards  their 
perfection,  the  science  of  criticism  advances  with  equal  pace." 

As  taste  is  of  a  very  low  order  when  it  first  shows  itself  in  a  child, 
reason  and  conscience  and  general  instinct  having  the  same  gradual 
development,  as  it  is  impossible  to  say  at  what  precise  period  these 
innate  powers  begin  their  exercise,  and  as  there  is  certainly  a  portion 
of  early  infancy  when  they  are  as  undeveloped  as  if  they  had  no 
existence,  so  probably  in  all  animals  inferior  to  man  there  is  no  com- 
mencement of  development  to  these  higher  powers  which  mark  the 
human  race.  Here  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  to  discriminate, 
as  the  ancient  metaphysicians  did  more  than  the  moderns  do,  between 
the  active  power  of  forming  conceptions  of  beauty  in  the  abstract 
and  the  passive  capacity  of  being  affected  by  beauty  in  the  concrete. 
This  latter,  to  a  certain  extent,  animals  may  enjoy ;  the  ancients 
analyzed  the  fact ;  and  modern  critics,  as  Reid,  Addison,  and  Burke, 
recognize  it.  It  is  a  proverb  that  the  camel  is  inspirited  on  his 
weary  journey  by  his  rider's  rude  flute,  and  the  horse  seems  to  feel 
pride  in  a  gay  equipage ;  but  neither  has  any  essential  apprehension 
of  the  arts  that  thus  affect  them,  for  they  do  not,  like  the  youngest 
child  in  whom  reason  has  dawned,  attempt  to  copy  them.  The 
nightingale  sings  sweetly,  and  the  bee  builds  skilfully ;  but  if  these 
were  arts  with  them,  they  could  vary  and  improve  upon  their  per- 
formance. Beings  inferior  to  man  may  both  be  affected  by,  and 
also  execute  objects  of  beauty  in  the  concrete;  but  they  have  no 
sense  of  the  beautiful  any  more  than  they  have  a  mathematical  or 
metaphysical  conception  of  the  true;  and,  therefore,  having  no 
principles  to  guide  them  in  their  execution,  they  operate  not  as  men, 
but  as  machines,  turning  out  ever  the  same  work. 

As  there  seems  to  have  been  in  the  history  of  art,  as  well  as  of 
science,  in  Greece,  Rome,  and  Modern  Italy,  a  limit  beyond  which 
a  nation,  as  an  individual,  could  not  go  in  their  advance,  and  as 
nevertheless  each  stage  of  the  new  rise  and  progress  of  science  and 
art  in  each  nation  has  seemed,  in  some  respect,  to  exceed  any  pre- 
ceding, so  it  may  be,  as  the  ancients  believed,  that  there  is  a  state  of 
being  where  the  soul  of  man  untrammeled  by  the  body's  grossness 
may  have  clearer  perceptions,  and  attain  higher  executions  in  the 
fields  of  truth  and  beauty,  than  are  possible  to  even  the  most  gifted 
genius  on  earth.  Plato's  peculiar  philosophy  of  the  transmigration 
of  souls  and  of  man's  spiritual  existence  prior  to  his  life  on  earth, 
led  him  to  the  fancy  that  gifted  men  on  earth  are  beings  that  have 
had  a  higher  life  in  a  spirit  world,  and  that  in  them  the  cramped 


POWER  OF   BEAUTY   IN   A   HIGHER   SPHERE.  151 

spirit  is  striving  in  bonds  to  exert  its  innate  power.  The  theory  of 
Plato  may  be  rejected;  yet  in  his  picture  of  this  supposed  past  of 
genius  in  art,  there  may  be  a  truth  as  to  its  future  worthy  of  thought. 
It  is  important  to  observe,  that  the  philosophy  of  art,  as  maintained 
by  the  ancients,  cannot  be  understood  unless  this  feature  of  it  be  kept 
in  mind.  In  speaking  of  Phantasy,  a  word  which  Lord  Bacon  adopted 
as  the  best  name  for  the  mind's  creative  energy,  Plato  thus  alludes 
to  the  more  exalted  conceptions  of  Truth  and  Beauty,  which  belong 
to  the  higher  state  of  existence.  "It  is  by  having  seen  the  Truth 
that  man  resumes  the  human  form  in  the  second  life.  The  soul  recol- 
lects the  reality  of  Beauty  it  has  seen  in  its  celestial  journeyings. 
This  is  the  most  desirable  of  all  the  forms  of  Phantasy;  the  Phan- 
tasy of  the  lover  of  the  beautiful."  The  grave  metaphysician,  Reid, 
does  not  deem  it  unworthy  his  severe  logic,  as  a  teacher  of  mental  phi- 
losophy, to  notice  this  feature  of  comparative  taste.  He  says :  "  We  see 
many  beauties,  both  of  human  and  divine  art,  which  the  brute  animals 
are  incapable  of  perceiving ;  and  superior  beings  may  excel  us  as  far 
in  their  discernment  of  true  beauty,  as  we  excel  the  brutes."  He 
refers  for  illustration  to  Milton's  picture  of  Satan,  who  almost  falters 
in  his  fell  purpose,  as  he  gazes  in  admiration  on  the  beauty  of  Adam 
and  Eve.  It  is  in  keeping  with  this  philosophy  that  the  same  sacred 
volume  which  pictures  man  in  his  original  perfection,  placed  in  a 
garden,  whose  every  object  was  "pleasant  to  the  eyes,"  "to  dress  and 
keep  it,"  also  paints  the  future  world  as  a  "Paradise,"  whose  rivers 
are  "clear  as  crystal,"  whose  trees  are  "trees  of  life  bearing  every 
manner  of  fruit,"  whose  central  city  is  glittering  with  gems  and  gold, 
in  whose  abode  every  tongue  sings  and  every  hand  strikes  a  golden 
harp,  whose  central  head,  the  special  object  to  be  loved,  is  "  chief 
among  ten  thousands,  fairer  than  the  children  of  men,  and  altogether 
lovely."^ 


CHAPTER    VI. 


THE   CLASSES   OF   IMPRESSIONS    PRODUCED    ON    MAN   BY   WORKS    OF 

ART. 

In  speaking  of  the  impression  made  by  art  on  the  human  mind 
the  general  word  beauty  has  been  employed.     This,  however,  like 

*  Kev.  xxi.,  xxii. 


152  ART  CRITICISM. 

the  word  truth  is  a  term  of  comprehensive  import.  As  there  are 
various  classes  of  truths,  differing  in  their  nature  as  widely  as  things 
and  principles  can,  so  there  are  classes  of  beauties  proper,  and  there 
are  associations  of  the  general  impressions  of  beauty  with  other  spe- 
cial impressions  on  the  sensibilities,  calling  for  classification  of  these 
varied  impressions  of  art. 

While  Truth  as  its  ultimate  end  addresses  the  intellect.  Beauty  is 
designed  to  address  the  sensibilities.  Some  of  the  sensibilities  of  our 
nature  are  directly  affected  by  art,  others  indirectly ;  while  yet  others 
have  little  relation  to  art  criticism.  Some  designations,  also,  of  these 
impressions  have  been  employed  in  all  languages  and  ages ;  while 
others  have  been  special  and  local.  Thus,  everywhere  and  always 
tlie  two  general  classifications  of  the  beautiful  and  the  sublime  have 
been  recognized ;  but  the  special  conception  of  the  graceful  originated 
in  Greece;  the  word  elegant  and  its  idea  were  Roman;  while  the 
designation  picturesque  is  of  modern  coinage,  French  in  origin  and 
English  in  development.  A  general  notice  of  the  Mental  Sensibili- 
ties to  which  art  appeals,  and  a  classification  of  the  leading  impres- 
sions awakened  by  its  varied  addresses,  naturally  follows  the  con- 
sideration of  the  Intellectual  Faculties  as  employed  in  the  field  of 
the  Beautiful. 

Sect.  1.   Classification  of  Mental  Sensibilities;  and  designation  op 

IMPBESSIONS  properly  ESTHETIC,   OR  CAPABLE  OF  BEING  ADDRESSED  BY 

Art. 

The  general  division  of  the  sensibilities  is  into  three  classes;  emo- 
tions, which  are  simple  passive  sensibilities ;  affections  which  are  emo- 
tions with  an  impulse  awakened  by  the  object;  and  desires  which 
are  affections  with  a  craving  to  possess  or  to  serve  the  object.  This 
division  of  the  sensibilities,  substantially  recognized  by  the  Greeks, 
and  even  by  the  Hebrews,  is  fixed  in  modern  metaphysical  analysis. 

Emotions  are  divided  into  two  general  classes ;  instinctive  or  those 
instantaneously  awakened  whenever  the  object  is  presented;  and 
deliberative,  or  rational,  which  arise  when  the  reasoning  powers  are 
employed  on  an  object.  Among  the  Instinctive  Emotions  the  fol- 
lowing counterparts  are  most  important;  cheerfulness  and  sadness, 
arising  from  an  undefined  object;  exhilaration  and  depression  result- 
ing from  the  condition  of  the  individual  affected;  joy  and  sorrow, 
awakened  by  the  condition  of  objects  indirectly  related  to  us;  and 
gratification  and  regret  called  forth  by  the  condition  of  things  and 
beings  so  related  to  us  as  to  involve  responsibility.     The  general 


DISTINCTION   OF   EMOTIONS,  AFFECTIONS   AND   DESIRES.      153 

division  of  the  Deliberative  Emotions  is  into  the  opposites,  admiration 
and  disgust;  which  two  general  emotions  are  awakened  by  the  general 
negative  quality  of  the  novel  or  common,  by  the  general  positive 
quality  of  lively  or  tiresome,  by  the  aesthetic  attributes  the  beautiful 
or  deformed,  by  the  intellectual  characteristics  of  witty  or  stupid,  by 
the  moral  elements  of  proper  or  improper. 

Affections,  styled  Passions  when  inordinate,  are  generally  designated 
by  the  opposites  Love  and  Hate ;  suggesting  the  classification  into 
benevolent  and  malevolent  affections.  Among  the  benevolent  the 
following  are  chief;  love  of  kindred,  of  congenial  friends,  of  bene- 
factors, of  dependents,  of  our  Creator  and  Redeemer,  as  intelligent 
objects ;  and  of  home,  country  and  nature,  as  objects  without  intelli- 
gence. Among  the  malevolent  the  principal  are  these ;  three  that 
have  reference  to  individual  social  relations,  jealousy  of  domestic 
rivals,  suspicion  of  untrustworthy  business  associates,  and  envy  of 
fellow-aspirants  for  popular  esteem ;  three  that  have  regard  to  civil 
relations,  indignation  against  the  unw^orthy  and  the  vicious,  resent- 
ment against  the  unjust  and  the  injurious,  and  revenge  against  the 
implacable  and  unmerciful;  and  three  that  enter  into  our  religious 
relations,  unsubmissiveness  to  the  rightful  authority  of  our  Divine 
Maker  and  Ruler,  indifference  to  the  supreme  excellence  of  the 
Author  of  all  that  is  true,  beautiful,  good,  and  right,  and  ingratitude 
for  the  impartial  and  unmerited  bounty  of  our  Divine  Benefactor 
and  Saviour. 

Desires,  called  Appetites  when  inordinate  and  unworthy,  may  be 
classified  as  to  origin  into  physical  and  mental;  while  as  to  their 
end  they  relate  to  the  present  or  the  future.  In  their  nature  as 
relating  to  present  objects,  desires  take  the  general  character  of 
Attachment  to,  or  its  opposite  Aversion  from  the  thing  or  being, 
which  calls  forth  the  impulse ;  while  as  relating  to  the  future  they 
come  under  the  general  designations  of  Hope  and  its  opposite  Fear. 
Desires  arising  from  man's  physical  nature  have  their  origin  in  the 
lower  senses  of  smell,  taste,  touch,  muscular  action  and  nervous 
stimulation ;  and  when  in  excess  and  called  appetites  they  receive 
special  names,  as  gluttony,  bestiality  and  inebriety.  Desires  arising 
from  the  mental  nature  may  be  limited  in  their  end  to  the  indi- 
vidual, and  have  as  their  aim  either  a  material  object  as  wealth,  an 
intellectual  as  knowledge,  or  a  moral  as  integrity ;  they  may  relate  to 
social  connections,  and  have  as  objects  companionship,  power, 
esteem  or  usefulness ;  or  they  may  be  originated  by  our  religious 

U 


164  AET  CRITICISM. 

connections,  and  have  as  their  aspiration  negative  Divine  approval, 
or  positive  Divine  benefaction. 

These  three  principles  are  to  be  observed  in  the  relations  which 
these  three  classes  of  sensibilities  respectively  hold  to  art ;  first,  the 
impressions  made  by  the  fine  arts  are  emotions  only ;  second,  the  ends 
sought  by  design  in  the  fine  arts  are  the  direct  awakening  of  affec- 
tions; and  third,  an  indirect  result,  though  not  a  direct  aim  or 
effect  of  works  of  art,  may  be  the  stimulating  of  desires.  That  the 
impression  of  beauty  on  the  sensibilities  as  distinct  from  the  intel- 
lectual nature,  is  an  emotion,  with  the  impulse  towards  an  object 
which  characterizes  affection,  or  the  craving  for  the  possession  of  an 
object  which  constitutes  desire,  was  clearly  recognized  by  the  ancient 
Greek  philosophers  Plato  and  Aristotle,  and  is  carefully  observed 
by  writers  of  the  present  age,  such  as  Alison,  Cousin,  Wayland  and 
Haven.  The  design  of  the  Fine  Arts,  not  as  an  end  but  as  a  means 
to  an  end,  to  awaken  affections,  is  well  set  forth  by  Reid ;  while  the 
overlooking  of  this  distinction  seems  to  lie  at  the  foundation  of  an 
important  error  of  the  Edinburgh  critic.  Lord  Jeffrey.  Reid  says, 
"The  emotion  produced  by  beautiful  objects  is  gay  and  pleasant. 
It  sweetens  and  humanizes  the  temper,  is  friendly  to  every  benevo- 
lent affection,  and  tends  to  allay  sullen  and  angry  passions.  It 
enlivens  the  mind  and  disposes  it  to  other  agreeable  emotions,  such 
as  those  of  love,  hope  and  joy."  "Beauty  naturally  produces  love." 
Here  the  distinction  is  not  preserved  between  emotions  as  "joy," 
affections  as  "love"  and  desires  as  "hope;"  yet  the  important  dis- 
tinction between  the  immediate  impression  of  beauty  and  the  end  it 
accomplishes  as  a  means  is  well  presented.  Lord  Jeffrey's  expres- 
sions are  like  the  following.  "The  basis  of  our  theory  is  that  the 
beauty  which  we  impute  to  outward  objects  is  nothing  more  than  the 
reflection  of  our  own  inward  emotions,  and  is  made  up  entirely  of 
certain  little  portions  of  love,  pity  and  other  affections  which  have 
been  connected  with  these  objects,  and  still  adhere,  as  it  were,  to 
them,  and  move  us  anew  whenever  they  are  presented  to  our  obser- 
vation;" in  which  there  is  a  failure  to  discriminate  between  emo- 
tions and  affections  as  well  as  an  inadmissible  theory  of  the 
origin  of  the  idea  of  beauty.  Burke  going  farther  in  the  same  con- 
fused pathway  makes  the  "attachment"  which  unites  the  sexes  in 
that  "mixed  passion"  called  "love,"  the  "beauty  of  the  sex;"  in 
which  a  desire  of  human  nature,  and  that  of  a  low  order,  is  consti- 
tuted into  the  essential  principle  of  beauty.  Cousin  with  great  clear- 
ness and  force  makes  the  just  discrimination;  urging  that  "the  idea 


SENSIBILITIES   ADDRESSED    BY   ART.  165 

of  the  beautiful  is  free  from  all  desire;"  "the  artist  sees  only  the 
beautiful  where  the  sensual  man  sees  only  the  alluring  and  the 
frightful."  He  cites  Horace  Vernet  lashed  to  the  mast  of  a  vessel 
in  a  storm  that  he  might  enjoy  and  then  paint  the  scene,  as  proof 
that,  "when  he  knows-  fear  the  artist  vanishes;"  and  urges  with 
warmth  that  the  admiration  of  beauty  in  the  female  form  utterly 
excludes  every  sensuous  impression. 

Kecurring  then  to  the  classes  of  emotions  above  mentioned,  it  may 
be  fixed  in  mind  that  any  one  of  them,  either  instinctive  or  delibera- 
tive, may  be  directly  awakened  by  works  of  art ;  and  in  works  of 
sculpture  and  painting  we  may  look  to  find  a  legitimate  appeal  alike 
to  the  indefinite  emotions  of  cheerfulness  and  sadness,  or  to  the 
more  definite  class,  joy  and  sorrow;  while,  too,  the  lowest  of  all 
deliberative  emotions,  the  impression  of  novelty,  may  be  in  its  place 
as  dignified  as  the  nobler  emotion  of  the  beautiful  proper.  Kecall- 
ing  the  classes  of  affections  grouped  together,  it  may  be  remembered 
that  in  the  work  of  design  the  artist  may  make  the  awakening  of 
either  of  these,  as  love  of  home,  of  country,  or  of  the  Creator,  his 
direct  aim.  Returning  yet  again,  to  the  review  of  the  desires  above 
classified,  it  may  be  remarked  that  the  nurturing  of  any  one  of 
these  in  the  individual  and  the  nation,  as  thirst  for  knowledge,  fame, 
or  moral  excellence,  may,  as  Plato  in  his  Republic  and  in  his  Laws 
argues,  be  a  result  indirectly  sought  by  the  statesman  in  his  patron- 
age of  art. 

Sect.  2.  The  Beautiful  proper  and  ideas  allied  ;  as  the  delicate,  the 

EXQUISITE,  the  FAIR,  THE  BRILLIANT,  THE  GRACEFUL,  THE  PRETTY ;  IN 
WHICH  BEAUTY  OF  SUBSTANCE,  FORM,  COLOR,  LUSTRE,  MOTION  AND  MORAL 
LOVELINESS  SEVERALLY  PREDOMINATE. 

In  discriminating  the  beautiful  proper  from  its  varied  allied 
attractive  qualities,  regard  must  be  had  to  the  organ  that  perceives 
the  quality,  and  to  the  size  of  the  object  in  which  the  quality  resides; 
as  well  as  to  the  characteristics  of  substance,  form,  color,  lustre, 
motion  and  moral  loveliness,  which  may  attend  upon,  or  specially 
constitute,  the  quality  of  beauty  which  impresses  us  in  the  object. 
It  was  the  Greeks  who  most  thoroughly  and  exclusively  entered  into 
the  spirit  of  the  beautiful  proper ;  and  it  is  among  them  that  we  find 
the  nicest  discrimination  of  differences  in  this  their  special  field  of 
art  execution.  Not  only  did  they  in  the  words  of  their  mother- 
tongue,  before  Homer's  day,  distinguish  between  the  general  idea  of 
Beauty  called  kosmos,  covering  all  the  impressions  of  sesthetic  sensi- 


156  AET  CRITICISM. 

bility,  and  the  special  conception  of  beauty  proper,  called  kallos; 
but  their  philosophers,  and  even  their  poets,  going  farther,  made  the 
yet  nicer  discriminations  in  the  field  of  beauty  proper  which  sepa- 
rate its  allied  elements,  one  from  another. 

Lord  Kames  observes:  "Beauty  in  its-  native  signification  is 
appropriated  to  objects  of  sight."  "An  agreeable  impression  is 
made  by  the  musical  sounds  of  a  bugle,  by  the  soft  texture  of  velvet, 
by  the  delicious  flavor  of  a  peach,  and  the  spicy  fragrance  of  the 
honey-suckle;  but  it  is  only  the  agreeable  impression  made  by 
objects  as  they  address  the  eye  to  which  the  word  beauty  is  properly 
applied.  Yet  the  designation  beautiful  is  given  to  each  of  the 
impressions  on  other  senses  than  sight  above  referred  to ;  probably 
at  first,  from  the  fact,  that  because  of  the  pleasure  they  give  to  other 
senses,  objects  which  otherwise  would  make  no  pleasant  impression 
on  the  eye,  come  to  be  so  agreeable  to  it,  that  we  call  the  bugle,  the 
velvet,  the  peach,  the  honey-suckle,  beautiful.  Going  farther,  we 
speak  of  a  beautiful  thought,  metaphor,  theorem,  discovery;  apply- 
ing the  word  to  ideas  or  objects  that  address  us  through  no  one  of 
the  bodily  senses,  but  appeal  to  the  mind  itself  without  the  inter- 
vention of  the  bodily  senses ;  in  which  case  there  is  not  as  before  a 
transfer  of  the  language  of  one  of  the  senses  to  that  of  another,  but 
a  transfer  of  the  terms  of  the  material  to  the  spiritual."  The  oft- 
repeated  censure  of  the  American  people  for  the  excessive  latitude 
with  which  they  use  the  word  "beautiful,"  is  probably  only  in  a 
measure  legitimate ;  and  that  upon  the  principle  thus  stated  by  Reid, 
"There  are  moral  beauties  as  well  as  natural;  beauties  in  the  objects 
of  sense  and  in  intellectual  objects;  in  the  works  of  men  and  in  the 
works  of  God ;  in  things  inanimate,  in  brute  animals  and  in  rational 
beings ;  in  the  constitution  of  the  body  of  man,  and  in  the  constitu- 
tion of  his  mind.  There  is  no  real  excellence  which  has  not  in  it 
beauty  to  a  discerning  eye,  when  placed  in  a  proper  point  of  view ; 
and  it  is  as  difiicult  to  enumerate  the  ingredients  of  beauty  as  the 
ingredients  of  real  excellence."  Reid's  statement  is  a  confirmation 
of  the  sentiment  that  "the  beautiful"  is  indissolubly  associated  with 
the  good,  or  "excellent,"  as  well  as  the  true  or  existing  "works"  of 
God  and  man.  His  language,  too,  afibrds  an  illustration  of  the  fact 
that  we  do  transfer,  even  without  thought,  the  language  of  one  sense 
to  another,  and  the  language  of  the  material  to  the  spiritual ;  for  it 
is  apparently  without  being  aware  of  his  own  usage  that  Reid  here 
used  the  words  "eye"  and  "view"  in  a  general  and  even  incorporeal 
signification. 


COMPLETENESS  OF  VIEW  AN  ELEMENT  OF  BEAUTY.   157 

A  more  important  consideration  in  fixing  the  limits  of  the  field 
of  the  beautiful  proper  is  suggested  in  the  following  remark  of 
Burke:  "Attending  to  their  5itan^%  beautiful  objects  are  compara- 
tively small."  In  illustrating  this  remark,  Burke  is  influenced  by 
his  fundamental  theory  already  alluded  to ;  and  hence  presents  as 
confirmation,  the  fact,  that  "in  most  languages  the  objects  of  love 
are  spoken  of  under  diminutive  epithets ;"  a  fact  which  he  illustrates 
by  reference  to  the  Greek  and  the  English  vocabularies.  The  true 
idea  in  this  respect,  as  careful  reflection  intimates,  seems  to  be  this; 
we  properly,  and  therefore  naturally,  apply  the  word  beautiful  to  an 
object  however  small  or  large,  which  the  eye  takes  in  at  its  ordinary 
angle  of  vision;  whose  range  and  law  will  be  considered  under  the 
subject  of  Drawing.^  Thus  we  speak  of  a  statue  of  natural  dimen- 
sions, and  of  ordinary  easel  paintings,  as  beautiful  works  ;  because  at 
the  point  to  which  we  naturally  retire  to  view  them,  we  take  in  the 
entire  work.  So,  too,  we  instinctively  speak  of  a  building  as  beau- 
tiful, when  at  a  distance  the  eye  takes  it  in  as  a  small  object;  and  so 
of  a  vista  view  in  a  landscape,  even  when  the  eye  courses  over  miles 
of  a  narrow  valley,  closed,  perhaps,  by  a  broad  and  lofty  mountain. 
We  cannot  use  any  other  word  than  "beautiful,"  to  express  our  admi- 
ration of  any  view,  however  extended,  that  comes  into  the  range  of 
the  eye's  single  glance.  It  is  not  the  smallness  of  the  object  which 
makes  it  seem  natural  to  apply  the  word  beautiful ;  for  it  is  as 
natural  to  call  a  minute  object  that  does  not  fill  the  range  of  vision 
"tiny"  and  "exquisite,"  as  it  is  to  call  an  object  admired,  but  too 
large  to  be  taken  in  at  a  glance,  "grand"  or  "magnificent."  It  is 
the  completeness  and  fullness  of  view  which  gives  the  limit  of  the 
field  of  the  beautiful  proper. 

Proceeding  from  the  mere  general  element  of  quantity  as  relating 
to  beauty,  the  consideration  of  substance  is  naturally  next  suggested. 
There  is  as  we  have  seen,^  a  beauty  in  substance;  and  when  this 
element  enters  largely  into  beauty,  the  word  delicate  is  appropriately 
employed  to  express  it.  To  this  element  of  beauty  Karnes  merely 
alludes  when  mentioning  "the  slender  make  of  a  horse,"  as  a  chief 
charm ;  while  Burke  devotes  a  section  to  delicacy ;  urging  that  it  is 
specially  slenderness  and  tenuity  of  material  that  gives  us  the 
impression  of  beauty ;  and  citing  the  myrtle  as  opposed  to  the  oak, 
the  greyhound  as  opposed  to  the  mastiff*,  and  the  Arabian  steed  as 
opposed  to  the  war-horse,  in  confirmation  of  his  view.     Alison  tends 


Book  II.,  Chap,  ii.,  Sect.  4.  »  Book  I.,  Chap,  iv.,  Sect.  1. 

14 


158  ART   CRITICISM. 

towards  the  correct  analysis,  in  his  argument  that  "  it  is  not  delicacy 
in  itself,  but  delicacy  in  the  appropriate  material,  that  constitutes 
beauty;  since  delicate  foliage  in  marble  and  iron  seems  unnatural, 
and  therefore  inappropriate.  Delicacy  is  properly  an  attribute  of 
substance ;  it  is  that  quality  in  material,  from  fineness  of  texture  and 
tenacity  of  particles  united,  that  admits  of  a  prolonged  and  slender 
form."  Hence  the  lexicographers  make  "fineness  of  texture,"  the 
primary  definition  of  "delicacy;"  hence  the  usual  designation  of 
"  delicate"  applied  to  the  tendrils  of  a  vine,  to  the  legs  and  beak  of  a 
bird,  to  the  horns  and  tails  of  animals,  to  thread  of  gold,  and  to  fine 
tracery  cut  in  marble  or  cast  in  iron  having  a  relief  so  slight  that  it 
is  not  exposed  to  fracture;  and  hence,  too,  our  association  of  the 
word  "fine"  with  "delicate,"  in  metaphorical  usage,  as  when  we 
speak  of  a  man  of  delicate  sensibility,  adding  by  way  of  explana- 
tion that  he  is  a  person  of  "refined  nature,"  and  therefore  of  "fine 
feelings."  It  is  to  beauty  in  substance  we  are  to  look  for  the  force 
of  Alison's  remark:  "The  least  attention  to  the  common  language 
of  mankind  on  such  subjects  will  sufficiently  show  how  much 
the  expression  delicacy  determines  the  beauty  of  all  ornamental 
forms."  We  shall  have  occasion  to  observe  that  this  statement  is 
referable  mainly,  as  its  language  may  imply,  to  the  "Decorative 
Arts." 

The  beauty  found  iwform  is  naturally  suggested  after  that^of  sub- 
stance. When  this  element  is  so  marked  as  to  overshadow  other 
features  of  beauty,  or  when  it  is  separated  from  others  for  special 
consideration,  the  natural  term  by  which  to  express  its  impression  is 
the  word  "exquisite."  As  its  derivation  indicates  the  w^ord  refers 
properly  to  the  exact  nicety  with  which  straight  or  regularly  curved 
lines  are  drawn  by  a  master  in  art.  Hence  the  English  lexicogra- 
pher gives  as  its  first  meaning  "nice,  exact;"  hence  w^e  speak  of 
"  exquisite  Avorkmanship  "  referring  only  to  the  forms  executed ;  and 
hence  too  we  use  the  metaphorical  expression  "a  man  of  exquisite 
mould  in  taste  and  sensibility,"  the  figure  showing  that  the  idea  of 
form  is  prominent  in  the  mind.  Coupled  as  it  often  is  with  "tiny"  it 
most  manifestly  refers  to  skilful  w^orking  out  of  the  form  in  a  small 
object  such  as  the  tiny  always  indicates. 

The  beauty  residing  in  cohr  is  next  in  thought.  When  this  ele- 
ment predominates  in  an  object  called  beautiful  we  designate  it  as 
"fair."  The  Saxon  derivation  of  the  word  leads  us  back  to  the  idea 
of  bringing  out  the  beauty  of  original  color  in  wood,  stone,  or  metal, 
by  scouring,   polishing,   or   burnishing.     The   lexicographer's   first 


159 

definition  is  "clear,  free  from  spots  and  from  a  dark  hue."  As  the 
Asiatics  are  better  critics  in  color  than  in  form,  it  is  natural  that  we 
should  find  in  our  translation  of  the  sacred  scriptures  this  nice  dis- 
crimination in  the  writings  of  the  Hebrew  king  and  Jewish  apostle. 
The  former  expresses  it  in  the  picture  of  a  maiden  in  that  land  where 
color  in  the  human  features  varies  more  comparatively  than  form ; 
speaking  of  his  beloved  "as  the  fairest  of  women,"  though  bronzed 
by  the  sun,  because  of  her  "  dove's  eyes,"  her  "  hair "  black  as  the 
"mountain  goat,"  her  teeth  white  as  "newly  shorn  sheep,"  her  "lips 
like  a  thread  of  scarlet,"  and  her  "temples"  like  "a  slice  of  pome- 
granate" within  her  locks.^  That  it  is  to  color  we  specially  make 
reference  in  the  word  "fair"  is  perhaps  more  convincingly  illustrated 
in  the  metaphoric  usage  of  the  word;  as  in  the  expression  "fair 
weather ;"  the  image  before  the  mind  being  of  course  not  a  form  but 
a  color  assumed  by  the  sky,  as  is  seen  in  Christ's  oriental  allusion, 
"  Ye  say,  It  will  be  fair  weather,  for  the  sky  is  red."  ^ 

Associated  with  color  is  beauty  derived  from  lustre;  an  external 
aspect  thrown  upon  an  object  rather  than  a  quality  imparted  to  it 
by  its  perfect  reflection  of  pure  white  light ;  while  color  proper  is  a 
similar  but  partial  reflection  of  decomposed  light.  The  word  "6ri^ 
liant"  is  used  to  express  this  element;  a  word  naturally  originating 
among  the  French  people,  whose  sky,  so  associated  with  and  yet 
such  a  contrast  to  that  of  England,  gives  occasion  for  the  designa- 
tion. The  beauty  of  the  diamond  is  found  exclusively  in  its  lustre; 
for  its  form  has  little  near  at  hand,  and  nothing  at  the  distance 
where  its  beauty  appears,  to  commend  it;  a  beauty  whose  charac- 
teristic is  embodied  in  the  name  of  "brilliant,"  which  nations  have 
agreed  in  giving  it.  This  characteristic  is  specially  marked  in  the 
word  which  any  traveler  going  from  London  to  Paris  naturally  em- 
ploys in  contrasting  the  two ;  when  the  foggy,  smoky,  dingy  city  on 
the  Thames  is  called  "sombre,"  and  the  clear-shining,  polished  and 
glistening  walls  of  the  city  on  the  Seine  are  declared  to  be  "bril- 
liant." Burke,  under  the  head  of  "light,"  alludes  to  this  element 
of  beauty ;  as  do  also  other  critics. 

Beauty  of  motion,  the  separate  and  enthusiastic  study  of  so  many 
critics,  ancient  and  modern,  is  the  foundation  of  that  peculiar  aim 
of  the  Greek  artist,  "grace."  Limited  within  the  field  of  beauty 
proper,  the  earliest  Greek  sculptor  sought  to  make  the  single  object 
which  he  presented  to  view  appear  a  living  moving  being.     The 


»  See  Song  of  Solomon,  i.  5,  6,  8,  15;  iv.  1—7.  '  Matt.  xvi.  2. 


160  ART   CRITICISM. 

rudest  Greek  architect  constructed  the  first  temples  of  just  those 
dimensions  as  to  length,  breadth  and  height  which  could  be  taken 
in  at  one  view ;  while  he  gave  to  the  easy  ascent  of  the  surrounding 
steps,  and  the  yet  gentler  slope  of  the  low  roof  such  an  inspiring 
aspect  that  the  beholder  felt  himself  drawn  by  an  irresistible  charm 
to  the  delight  of  tripping,  sprite-like,  up  the  inviting  platform.  The 
bard  of  the  earliest  Greek  lyric  gave  to  all  future  followers  a  measure 
now  tripping  and  now  stately  in  movement  which  made  feet  and 
hands  join  the  histrione  as  he  himself  moved,  and  sought  to  move 
others  to  his  strain ;  and  the  word  that  -can  alone  adequately  express 
this  elementary  idea  entering  into  all  Greek  art  is  the  word  grace. 
Plato  alludes  to  it  in  picturing  Cupid  as  the  "most  graceful"  of 
beings  because  he  is  "  flexible  and  capable  of  twining  about  every 
object"  to  Avhicli  he  attaches  himself  Virgil  illustrates  it,  when  he 
represents  iEneas  as  recognizing  his  mother  Venus  simply  by  the 
graceful  bend  of  her  neck  as  she  turned  away  from  him.^  Burke, 
defining  "grace,"  says,  "it  is  an  idea  belonging  to  posture  and  mo- 
tion ;"  "  it  requires  a  small  inflection  of  the  body ;"  and  it  demands 
that  "there  be  no  appearance  of  difficulty"  in  the  posture  as  indi- 
cating motion.  Keid  more  fully  remarks,  "  There  is  no  grace  with- 
out motion ;  some  genteel  or  pleasing  motion  either  of  the  whole 
body,  or  of  some  limb,  or  at  least  of  some  feature.  Hence,  in  the 
face,  grace  appears  on  those  features  that  are  movable,  and  change 
with  the  varying  emotions  and  sentiments  of  the  mind;  such  as  the 
eyes  and  eyebrows,  the  mouth  and  parts  adjacent." 

The  beauty  that  has  its  seat  in  attributes  of  the  soul,  moral  loveli- 
ness, brought  out  in  expression,  is  perhaps  more  often  popularly 
expressed  by  the  word  "pretty,"  than  by  any  other  designation. 
Allied  to  a  Welsh  word  meaning  appropriate,  its  ordinary  use 
seems  to  accord  with  this  origin.  An  intelligent  and  personally 
amiable  man  or  woman  who  should  be  heard  to  say  of  a  lady,  "  She 
is  a  pretty  woman,"  would  be  at  once  understood  as  uttering  a  judg- 
ment called  forth  not  by  a  momentary  impression  derived  from  any 
of  the  qualities  heretofore  mentioned ;  but  from  a  conviction  formed 
after  an  acquaintance  more  or  less  extended,  founded  upon  the  ob- 
served mental  and  moral  traits  belonging  to  the  person  spoken  of, 
and  confirmed  in  speaking  of  it  to  others  by  reference  to  the  expres- 
sion upon  features,  otherwise  not  specially  marked,  which  those  inter- 
nal qualities  had  produced.     Thus  some  writer  says,  "The  pretty 


•  Virg.  jEneid,  I.  405. 


ELEMENTS   OF   THE   GRAND,    AND   ITS   CLASSES.  161 

gentleman  is  the  most  complaisant  creature  in  the  world."  So  too 
we  speak  of  a  pretty  dress  as  one  becoming  the  wearer;  and  of  a 
pretty  story  or  song  as  one  appropriate  to  the  age  of  those  to  whom 
it  is  addressed.  The  element  indicated  by  the  word  "  pretty  "  belongs 
to  the  field  of  beauty  proper,  as  an  attribute  feasily  taken  in  by  a 
glance  of  the  eye  or  a  single  effort  of  the  mind. 

Sect.  3.  The  Grand  ;  beauty  united  to  massiveness  :  and  the  associated 

IDEAS,  the  noble,  THE  ELEGANT,  THE  SUPERB,  THE  MAGNIFICENT,  THE 
SUBLIME,  THE  MAJESTIC ;  IN  WHICH  THE  ELEMENTS  OF  SUBSTANCE,  FORM, 
COLOR,  LUSTRE,  MOTION  AND  MORAL  DIGNITY  ARE  SEVERALLY  PREDOMI- 
NANT. 

Objects  pleasing  to  the  eye,  which  can  be  taken  in  at  a  glance,  are 
called  beautiful.  There  are,  however,  things  and  scenes  too  massive 
and  vast  to  be  apprehended  without  extended  survey,  which  give  us 
most  exalted  delight.  The  word  "sublime"  has  been  used  often  to 
designate  the  general" impression  made  on  us  by  large  objects  that 
please ;  but,  as  we  shall  see,  the  sublime  is  a  special  impression  to  be 
classed  under  a  more  general  one.  As  the  beautiful  is  the  general 
designation  for  the  pleasing  effects  of  smaller  objects,  so  "the  grand" 
is  the  appropriate  designation  of  the  general  impression  of  pleasure 
produced  by  larger  objects. 

The  field  of  the  beautiful  proper  was  the  special  culture  of  the 
Greeks;  the  wider  domain  of  the  grand  is  marked  everywhere  by 
the  track  of  its  Roman  lords.  Asiatic  taste,  of  which  the  Egyptian 
was  the  perfected  ancient  type,  gloried  in  mere  massiveness  without 
the  exterior  adornment  of  beauty  in  detail.  The  Koman  was  proud 
to  attain  the  spreading  breadth  and  towering  height  sought  by  the 
Egyptian;  while  the  comprehensiveness  as  well  as  the  refinement  of 
his  nature  made  him  add  the  finished  ornament  of  the  Greek;  thus 
achieving  by  the  union  an  efiect  to  express  which  he  originated  the 
word  "grand."  We  shall  be  led  to  observe,  that  each  of  the  words 
commonly  employed  to  denote  special  elements  belonging  to  this 
general  idea  are  Roman  in  their  origin. 

The  grand,  as  it  appears  in  substance,  is  properly  designated  by 
the  word  "  noble."  The  Romans  used  the  word  in  early  times  to  desig- 
nate the  just  renown  of  a  man  who  becomes  noted  for  great  quali- 
ties ;  though  at  the  era  when  Pliny  wrote,  it  had  already  assumed 
the  degenerate  signification,  now  common  in  Europe,  designating  a 
man  who,  by  birth,  rather  than  by  personal  worth,  held  rank  above 
ordinary  men.  Its  primitive,  as  well  as  more  modern  signification, 
14  *  V 


162  ART   CRITICI8M. 

is  suggestive  of  the  idea  that  in  the  blood,  in  native  characteristics 
of  body  and  of  mind,  there  is  in  the  person  called  noble  a  more 
refined  and  excellent  nature  than  belongs  to  the  composition  of  com- 
mon people.  So  fixed  is  this  idea  as  the  meaning  of  this  word,  that 
men  of  science  have  chosen  it  to  designate  the  elements  in  nature 
which  in  their  essence  are  most  precious;  and  they  class  mercury, 
silver,  gold,  and  platinum,  as  the  ''noble  metals."  When  an  edifice, 
or  a  monumental  shaft  is  spoken  of  as  noble,  we  have  instinctively 
suggested  the  conception  of  a  vast  object  formed  of  superior  mate- 
rial. So,  if  a  horse  be  mentioned  as  a  noble  animal,  we  expect  to 
find  one  superior  in  size  and  especially  sound  in  limbs. 

The  grand,  when  especially  striking  on  account  of  its  formy  is 
properly  designated  by  the  Latin  word  "  elegant."  The  Komans  first 
employed  it  to  designate  the  grandeur  of  form  that  characterized 
their  men ;  next  to  express  the  adorned  vastness  that  appeared  in 
their  edifices,  so  fundamentally  different  in  form  from  those  of  the 
Greeks ;  and  finally,  in  metaphor,  they  spoke  Of  the  "  elegant  arts." 
The  word  when  properly  used  in  modern  times,  relates  to  the  union 
of  native  capacity  and  of  culture  in  a  superior  body  or  mind ;  an 
elegant  mansion  being  one  in  which  the  beholder  dwells  with  delight 
on  the  mingled  ampleness  and  finish  of  the  residence;  and  an 
elegant  scholar,  one  who  having  a  mind  duly  developed  in  all  its 
faculties,  has  cultured  each  by  proportionate  study  in  the  varied  fields 
of  learning. 

The  grand,  as  it  appears  in  color,  is  naturally  expressed  by  the 
term  "superb."  In  the  early  Eoman  times,  as  applied  to  their  kings, 
it  was  a  word  of  worthy  signification,  relating  to  splendor  in  personal 
achievements;  though  in  the  times  of  the  republic  it  denoted 
unworthy  ostentation.  It  was  the  natural  designation  of  the  richly 
colored  robe  of  state,  worn  by  the  early  kings ;  and  thus  using  it, 
Virgil  speaks  of  the  "superb  purple"  and  "superb  tapestry  curtains."^ 
In  modern  language  the  statement  that  a  general  was  superbly 
dressed  would  draw  direct  attention  both  to  the  gorgeous  colors  with 
which  he  was  decorated,  and  to  the  breadth  of  their  display.  A 
man  of  superb  imagination  is  one  in  whose  imagery  gorgeous  coloring 
sets  off  boldness  of  conception. 

The  grand,  when  lit  up  with  the  attraction  of  lustre,  is  best  desig- 
nated by  the  word  "  magnificent."  It  was  easy  among  the  Romans 
to  attach  to  this,  as  to  the  former  word,  an  unworthy  signification, 


Virg.  ^neid,  I.  639,  697. 


THE  SUBLIME   UNITING   GEANDEUR   AND   MOTION.         163 

when  royalty  became  obnoxious ;  and  yet  the  idea  of  natural  excel- 
lence was  always  retained  in  Latin  usage  of  the  term.  Thus  the 
historian,  Nepos,  characterizes  as  "magnificent,"  a  man  fond  of  bril- 
liant display,  who  nevertheless  possesses  true  grandeur  of  character. 
No  one  can  listen  to  a  French  cicerone  in  Paris  as  lie  uses  the  words 
"brilliant"  and  "magnificent,"  without  realizing  their  native  dis- 
tinction as  applied  to  art.  While  the  city,  viewed  in  detail,  is  called 
"brilliant,"  the  vast  pile  of  the  "Hopital  des  Invalides,"  with  its 
gilded  and  glistening  dome,  cannot  be  called  anything  else  than 
"  magnificent."  Constantinople,  on  the  other  hand,  with  its  numerous 
massive  domes  radiant  with  white  paint  in  the  morning  sunbeams,  is 
magnificent  when  seen  as  a  whole  from  the  Bosphorus ;  but  it  is  far 
from  brilliant  when  viewed  near  and  in  detail  from  the  street. 

The  grand,  when  the  impression  of  motion  predominates  in  it, 
takes  properly  the  designation  of  the  "sublime."  Though  the 
Greeks  had  the  idea,  and  in  poetry  often  appealed  to  it,  their  word 
to  express  the  sublime  was  an  inadequate  one,  and  in  the  plastic  arts 
the  sentiment  was  seldom  called  forth  by  their  artists.  Awakened 
as  it  is  by  less  of  studied  finish  than  is  demanded  for  any  of  the 
other  efifects  enumerated  under  the  grand,  and  native  and  congenial 
to  the  oriental  caste  of  mind,  it  is  an  impression  specially  favorite 
with  the  Asiatics,  and  an  effect  specially  sought  by  their  artists. 
Nothing  could  more  strikingly  illustrate  this  idea  than  the  efforts  of 
Hebrew  poets  and  sculptors  to  give  form  to  their  conceptions  of  a 
living  moving  Deity,  unseen,  yet  everywhere  present;  a  spirit  like 
the  clouds  floating  above  the  earth,  and  like  the  clouds  ever  moving 
and  brooding  as  on  restless  wings.  The  Roman  idea  of  their  ow^n 
word  sublime,  both  in  its  literal  and  metaphorical  signification,  is 
seen  in  Virgil's  allusion  to  the  "  pole"  about  which  the  heavens  turn 
as  "sublime"  above  our  heads;  and  the  relation  of  "the  sublime"  to 
"the  gracefiil,"  both  implying  motion,  is  beautifully  indicated  when 
the  same  poet,  after  representing  Venus  as  known  to  ^neas  by  the 
grace  of  her  movement  as  she  glided  along  the  earth,  designates  her 
as  "  sublime"^  when  bounding  upward  she  ascended  into  the  heavens. 
The  modern  employ  of  the  word  is  better  illustrated  by  the  prac- 
tical usage  of  imaginative  authors  than  by  the  theoretic  state- 
ment of  critics.  Burke,  Cousin,  and  other  writers  virtually  recog- 
nize this  characteristic  of  the  sublime;  making  this  emotion  to 
spring  from  objects  and  ideas  arousing  wonder  and  awe  because 


'  Virg.  JEneid,  I.  405,  415. 


1G4  ART   CRITICLSM. 

uncomprehended,  and  indefinite  or  infinite.  Poets  restrict  their  use 
of  the  word  to  personal  beings,  or  to  personified  objects  and  scenes 
in  which  there  is  the  movement  as  of  a  self-acting  agent.  Mont 
Blanc,  as  pictured  by  Coleridge,  lifting  its  "bald  awful  front,"  and 
"piercing  the  deep  black"  vault  of  heaven,  the  "cross  of  Christ,"  as 
sung  by  Bowring,  "towering"  with  "all  the  light  of  sacred  story 
gathered  round  its  head,"  are  declared  to  be  "sublime,'^  because  of 
the  life  and  movement  attributed  to  them.  The  jet  of  burning  lava 
hurled  from  the  crater  of  Vesuvius  in  an  eruption  is  sublime ;  the 
fall  and  roll  of  the  melted  mass  down  the  mountain  side,  is  rather 
grand  or  magnificent ;  for  it  is  not  the  glaring  light  or  vastness,  or 
any  other  feature  of  the  object  except  the  elastic  force  of  the 
upward  motion  that  constitutes  the  sublime  proper. 

When  the  grand  is  accompanied  by  moral  dignity  the  term  "ma- 
jestic" is  properly  used  to  express  its  impression.  The  Romans 
seem  to  have  coined  this  word  in  their  own  tongue ;  though  it  was 
found  in  the  Hebrew.  The  Latin  poets  and  orators  spoke  of  the 
majesty  of  their  gods  and  of  their  state.  In  Christian  Theology  "the 
majesty"  of  God  is  grouped  with  His  "beauty  and  glory;"  these  three 
being  the  sesthetic  impressions  made  on  man  by  His  relation  to  His 
physical,  intellectual,  and  moral  creations.  The  proper  discrimina- 
tion of  the  subdivisions  of  the  grand  as  well  as  of  the  beautiful  will 
be  found  to  give  precision  in  thought  and  expression  in  the  criticism 
of  art. 

Sect.  4.  The  Picturesque;  beauty  in  separate  parts  so  grouped  as 

TO   SECURE   grandeur   IN   THE    COMBINED  WHOLE. 

The  particular  impression  designated  by  the  word  "picturesque" 
would  hardly  claim  separate  consideration  but  for  its  association 
with  the  modern  advance  of  landscape  painting  and  landscape  gar- 
dening. In  its  nature  it  is  distinct  from  the  classes  of  impressions 
just  considered.  It  has  relations  to  the  beautiful ;  but  is  not  like  the 
grand,  a  modification  of  it  originating  in  the  addition  of  a  new  ele- 
ment to  the  beautiful.  It  is  rather  a  complex  impression,  coming 
from  several  objects,  distinct  in  themselves  and  in  their  order  of 
beauty ;  yet  so  grouped  into  a  whole  as  to  produce  a  pleasing  impres- 
sion. 

The  word  picturesque  is  properly  French ;  for,  although  found  also 
in  the  Italian,  the  language  of  art,  it  has  probably  been  introduced 
into  this  as  into  the  English  tongue  through  French  influence.  "  The 
word  relates  to  that  artificial  grouping  of  objects  which  makes  them 


PICTUEESQUE  IN  LANDSCAPE  PAINTING  AND  GAEDENING.    165 

seem  not  natural  but  parts  of  a  picture.  A  picturesque  costume  is 
properly  one  which  whether  antique  or  modern,  foreign  or  domestic, 
is  so  adjusted,  that  every  one  who  beholds  it  says,  "that  is  not  natu- 
ral;" it  is  "too  studied,"  it  is  "too  artificial;"  it  is  a  dress  "for  a 
picture."  As  most  people  don  a  more  than  ordinarily  precise  dress, 
and  assume  an  air  for  effect,  when  a  picture  of  their  persons  is  to  be 
taken,  there  was  a  natural  cause  in  which  the  style  called  picturesque 
originated.  Alison,  finding  a  parallel  between  poetry  and  plastic  art, 
gives  the  picturesque  a  prominent  place  amongst  "associations" 
which  conspire  to  produce  the  emotion  of  the  beautiful  and  the  sub- 
lim'e.  Quoting  the  poets  from  Homer  to  Goldsmith  who  furnish 
"grouping  eminently  picturesque,"  he  says;  "In  these  and  a  thou- 
sand other  instances  that  might  be  produced,  I  believe  every  man  of 
sensibility  w^ill  be  conscious  of  a  variety  of  great  or  pleasing  images 
passing  with  rapidity  in  h!s  imagination,  beyond  what  the  scene  or 
description  immediately  before  him  can,  of  itself,  excite."  "It  is 
indeed  in  a  powerless  state  of  revery,  when  we  are  carried  on  by  our 
conceptions,  not  guiding  them,  that  the  deepest  emotions  of  beauty 
and  sublimity  are  felt."  Thus  though  the  picturesque  is  from  its 
nature  artificial,  it  takes  under  the  inspiration  of  true  genius  the 
highest  form  conceived  in  Plato's  ideal  of  the  beautiful. 

It  was  at  the  rise  in  comparatively  modern  times  of  landscape 
painting  proper,  that  the  style  designated  picturesque  came  into 
notice.  The  ancient  painters  in  their  historic  pieces  did  not  work  up 
the  details  of  far-reaching  back-ground ;  they  did  not  paint  landscape 
proper.  When  it  was  attempted,  and  began  to  be  successfully  ex- 
ecuted, though  nature  was  substantially  the  artist's  standard,  the 
landscape  could  not  be  truly,  like  a  human  being  sitting  for  a  por- 
trait, an  unchanging  ever  present  model  to  be  copied.  Sunlight  and 
shade  alternate;  trees  wave  and  animals  move  from  their  first  ob- 
served positions ;  and  even  foliage  and  flowers  change  their  forms  and 
hues  with  every  rolling  hour.  It  was  natural  and  necessary,  there- 
fore, that  the  landscape  painter  should  select  some  one  definite  posi- 
tion of  each  object,  and  some  chosen  grouping  of  the  whole;  and 
these  chosen  attitudes  and  preferred  combinations,  necessarily  arti- 
ficial to  a  certain  extent,  gave  an  ideal  instead  of  a  real  character  to 
the  scene  depicted,  which  took  the  name  of  picturesque. 

In  the  same  connection  a  style  of  landscape  gardening  arose,  in 
which  walks  and  trees  were  neither  arranged  in  stiff",  mathematically 
exact  lines,  nor  yet  left  to  the  fortuitous  grouping  of  nature;  and, 
this  artificial  and  yet  artistic  intrusion  into  nature's  order,  just  far 


166  ART   CRITICISM. 

enough  to  add  the  charm  of  art  to  that  of  nature,  was  designated 
picturesque.  Whether  applied  to  personal  adornment,  to  a  painting, 
or  to  a  landscape,  the  term  picturesque  relates  mainly  to  the  grouping 
of  beauties 

Sect.  5.  The  Novel;  beauty  of  a  lower  order,  awakening  emotions 
of  surprise  by  newness  of  form,  color  or  relation. 

Lord  Kames  opens  his  chapter  on  "Novelty"  with  this  remark; 
"  Of  all  the  circumstances  that  raise  emotions,  not  excepting  beauty 
nor  even  greatness,  novelty  has  the  most  powerful  influence."  The 
impression  of  the  novel  is  entirely  distinct  both  from  the  beautiful 
and  the  grand;  it  is  the  lowest  in  dignity  of  all  the  impressions 
made  by  art,  and  yet,  like  the  emotion  of  wonder  to  which  it  ap- 
peals, it  is  the  strongest  of  human  impulses  awakening  surprise ;  it  is 
a  leading  element  in  the  picturesque ;  while  for  the  same  reason  it 
enters  into  complex  impressions  of  the  grotesque,  the  tragic  and  the 
comic.  It  is  therefore  properly  considered  next  to  the  impressions 
involving  the  idea  of  the  beautiful,  and  before  the  more  complex 
impressions  of  which  it  forms  a  part. 

The  universality  and  strength  of  this  impression  are  seen  in  every 
age  and  land,  and  among  every  class  of  people.  Any  unusual  sight 
or  sound  in  the  street,  a  procession  parading  with  banners  or  headed 
by  martial  music,  however  unmeaning  or  absurd  be  the  object,  any 
scene  that  is  in  the  slightest  degree  "novel,"  draws  all  classes  and 
ages  to  the  window ;  for  curiosity  moves  the  gray-haired  sire  as  much 
as  the  child,  and  the  philosopher  as  powerfully  as  the  peasant.  It 
was  recorded  of  the  ancient  Hebrews  that  they  continually  asked 
after  new  luxuries,  new  pleasures  and  even  new  gods.^  The  Greeks, 
as  intimated  by  Plato,  were  even  in  their  best  days  fond  "  of  novel 
things,"  and  of  "novel  deities;"  while  Luke  the  Christian  physician, 
attests  that  in  the  age  of  Nero  of  Rome  "  the  Athenians  and  foreign- 
ers" resident  in  their  city,  "spent  their  time  in  nothing  else  than  to 
tell  or  hear  some  new  thing."  ^'  Cicero  in  his  moral  writings  laments 
that  the  practical  Roman  people  were  drawn  away  by  "new  things" 
from  the  old  and  substantial.  Jesus  spoke  of  the  controlling  power 
of  novelty  over  men  generally,  when,  alluding  to  the  curiosity  awa- 
kened in  a  crowd  by  the  sound  of  the  simplest  pipe,  or  reed,  used  as 
a  musical  instrument,  he  asked  the  people  that  flocked  to  hear  John's 


'  Deut.  xxxii.  17 ;  Judg.  v.  8 ;  Eccl.  i.  10 ;  Cant.  vii.  13 ;  Psal.  iv.  6. 
*  Acts  xvii.  21. 


THE   NOVEL   AND   GROTESQUE   AND   THEIR   RELATION.       167 

preaching,  "What  went  ye  out  into  the  wilderness  to  see?     A  reed 
shaken  with  the  wind?"^ 

While  novelty  is  the  most  powerful  of  excitements  to  human  sen- 
sibility it  is  nevertheless  the  lowest  in  dignity  and  the  most  transitory 
in  influence.  To  this  Xenophon  in  his  "Memoirs  of  Socrates"  refers 
when  in  the  opening  paragraph  of  his  defence  he  replies  to  the  charge 
that  Socrates  had  corrupted  the  youth,  enticing  them  by  "  novelties  " 
from  "faith  in  the  gods;"  a  charge  worthy  of  condemnation  in 
the  mere  demagogue,  who  temporarily  may  give  himself  an  undue 
public  importance  by  his  skill  in  an  ever-shifting  appeal  to  the 
strongest  yet  least  worthy  impulse  of  his  hearers.  Yet  Burke  makes 
"novelty"  the  subject  of  his  opening  section  in  his  treatise  on  the 
"  Sublime  and  the  Beautiful ;"  and  that  for  these  reasons,  "  The  first 
and  simplest  emotion  which  we  discover  in  the  human  mind  is 
curiosity."  "Some  degree  of  novelty  must  be  one  of  the  materials 
in  every  instrument  that  works  on  the  mind ;  and  curiosity  blends 
itself  more  or  less  with  all  our  passions."  Reid  too  gives  this  topic  a 
similar  prominence  in  place,  though  not  in  importance. 

Sect.  6.  The  Grotesque  ;  beauty  in  distorted  forms  and  incongruous 
relations,  giving  rise  to  impressions  of  novelty,  horror,  or  ludi- 
crousness. 

The  word  grotesque  is  derived  from  the  French  word  grotte ;  its 
idea  is  oriental  rather  than  Grecian ;  and  as  developed  in  Europe  it 
belongs  to  the  spirit  of  the  Middle  Ages  rather  than  to  the  era  of 
classic  taste.  It  is  embodied  in  sculpture  made  to  be  seen  dimly  in 
a  grotto;  either  inanimate  things  such  as  jagged  rocks  and  shapeless 
stumps,  or  animate  creatures  such  as  bats  clinging  to  the  ceiling,  owls 
perched  in  jutting  ledges,  and  toads  squat  in  dark  corners,  all  indis- 
tinct and  deformed,  either  hideous  or  ludicrous  in  appearance,  as 
seen  through  the  deep  shade.  The  term  is  applied  properly  to  ob- 
jects at  rest,  not  in  action;  and  to  individuals  rather  than  in  groups. 

It  is  a  sentiment  peculiarly  Asiatic  and  very  slightly  tinging 
classic  art  which  expresses  itself  in  the  grotesque.  In  Chinese  art, 
it  is  seen  in  excess;  their  sculpture,  painting,  architectural  decora- 
tion and  ornamental  gardening,  all  bearing  abundant  witness  of  its 
sway.  The  Egyptians  but  rarely  resorted  to  the  grotesque;  their 
god  Typhon  being  the  only  marked  specimen.  This  is  the  more 
remarkable  since  the  perfect  repose  characterizing  their  style  of  art 


Matt.  xi.  7. 


168  ART   CRITICISM. 

was  adapted  to  the  grotesque  while  their  love  of  the  comic  invited  to 
it.  The  Greeks  seemed  to  have  had  no  sentiment  in  keeping  with  the 
grotesque;  the  universal  spirit  of  animation  and  action  pervading 
their  art,  and  their  love  of  transparence,  forbidding  it;  while  too, 
their  high-toned  aspiring  after  the  heroic  was  inconsistent  with  any- 
thing grovelling.  To  the  Romans  it  was  more  congenial.  This  is 
witnessed  abundantly  in  specimens  of  the  age  of  Roman  luxury  and 
licentiousness  which  originated  the  decorations  of  baths  and  private 
sleeping-rooms  now  unburied  at  Pompeii.  It  is  also  approximated  in 
the  earlier  decoration  of  grottoes  and  dark  bath  vaults,  with  images  of 
forest  and  sea  deities,  usually  colossal,  often  hideous,  always  inspiring 
something  like  awe  when  seen  in  deep  shade,  though  not  -in  the 
modern  sense  strictly  grotesque.  In  the  Middle  Ages,  throughout 
central  and  western  Europe,  the  whole  spirit  of  the  people  as  well  as 
of  the  rulers  and  the  artists,  seemed  in  keeping  with  this  lower  order 
of  art ;  as  is  witnessed  in  the  old  Cathedrals  of  Paris  and  other  French 
and  German  cities,  perfectly  overloaded  with  every  species  of  gro- 
tesque and  hideous  figures  sculptured  in  high  relief.  In  the  grotto 
proper  the  occasional  introduction  of  the  grotesque  is  in  accordance 
with  the  demands  of  true  art,  as  it  is  also  in  grotto-like  architectural 
works  such  as  arbors,  summer-houses,  green-houses,  and  even  rural 
mansions ;  but  at  the  portal  of  a  sanctuary  for  religious  worship  no 
propriety  of  art  can  justify  the  introduction  of  toads,  lizards,  and 
other  hideous  devices. 

Sect.  7.  The  Tragic  ;  beauty  and  its  kindred  ideas,  accompanied  by 

HUMAN   passion  OR  ACTION  AWAKENING  SORROWFUL,    EMOTIONS. 

One  leading  division  of  the  emotions  consists  of  the  opposites,  joy 
and  sorrow.  When  the  latter  of  these  is  associated  with  the  emotion 
of  beauty,  of  grandeur,  or  any  of  their  kindred  impressions,  and  this 
compound  sentiment  expresses  itself  through  human  passion  or  action, 
the  combined  effect  is  called  tragic. 

The  words  tragic,  and  tragedy,  are  found  at  an  early  period  in  the 
Greek  language;  Herodotus,  the  historian,  using  them  in  the  signifi- 
cation common  to  all  subsequent  ages.  The  question  whether  these 
terms  were  derived  from  the  word  meaning  a  "goat,"  or  from  an 
obsolete  word  meaning  "sad,"  is  as  unimportant  as  it  is  difficult  of 
determination.  Plato  used  the  words  tragic  and  comic  much  as  they 
are  employed  in  modern  times;  calling  Homer  a  "tragic  poet," 
because  he  is  highly  dramatic  in  the  mournful  passages  of  his 
poems.     Aristotle  analyzes  the  principles  of  tragedy  as  one  depart- 


THE   TRAGIC   AND   COMIC   AS   CONTRASTS.  169 

merit  of  dramatic  composition.  The  Romans  introduced  the  more 
modern  designation  for  tragedy  of  the  high-heeled  boot,  or  buskin, 
which  tragic  actors  wore  to  increase  their  stature. 

It  is  in  the  tragic  of  the  acted  drama  that  the  connection  between 
expression  in  the  histrionic  art,  and  in  the  arts  of  sculpture  and 
painting,  becomes  most  apparent.  In  early  Grecian  dramatic  per- 
formances, as  in  modern  Chinese  theatricals,  pantomime,  or  sign 
language,  played  an  important  part.  As  the  living  actor  assumed 
attitudes  and  looks  expressive  of  grief  and  anguish  that  spoke  with- 
out uttered  language,  so  the  same  attitudes  and  expressions  cut  in 
marble  or  pictured  on  the  tablet  gave  to  dead  stone  and  wood  an 
impressive  voice.  The  Laocoon  and  Niobe  in  Grecian  sculpture, 
and  the  Iphigenia  in  Grecian  painting,  silent,  yet  eloquent  in  their 
"voiceless  woe,"  are  monuments  of  the  power  which  art  possesses  to 
appeal  to  our  impression  of  the  tragic. 

Sect.  8.  The  Comic  ;  beauty  in  distorted  forms  and  incongruous  rela- 
tions, ACCOMPANIED  BY  HUMAN  PASSION  OR  ACTION,  AWAKENING  MIRTH- 
FUL EMOTIONS. 

The  Comic,  properly  the  opposite  of  the  Tragic,  suggests  the  idea 
of  smallness  and  meanness,  rather  than  grandeur;  linking  with  this 
the  emotion  opposite  to  that  of  sorrow.  Ancient  and  modern  authors 
have  carefully  analyzed  the  principles  which  in  their  combination 
produce  the  Comic.  Mirthfulness  is  a  generic  word  expressive  of  the 
nature  in  us  susceptible  of  being  moved  by  anything  ludicrous ;  the 
ludicroubs  is  the  object  fitted  to  act  upon  this  nature;  while  humor  is 
the  active  power  of  producing  mirth.  Humor  produces  its  impres- 
sion by  acts  as  well  as  words ;  wit  always  by  sentiment  expressed  in 
language.  Burlesque  is  the  presenting  in  a  ludicrous  light  of  objects 
calculated  to  excite  mirth ;  the  risible  is  a  similar  presentation  lead- 
ing beyond  mirth  to  open  laughter ;  and  the  ridiculous  is  a  similar 
presentation  awakening  shame  or  contempt  as  well  as  mirth.  Wit 
accomplishes  its  aim  by  a  mere  play  upon  words,  as  puns  and  riddles ; 
by  the  ludicrous  presentation  of  some  common  idea  or  opinion 
awakening  mirth  in  burlesque ;  by  showing  up  in  a  ridiculous  light 
some  common  habit  or  custom  in  satire ;  and  by  holding  up  to  derision 
and  popular  indignation  some  individual  opinion  in  irony,  or  some  per- 
sonal characteristic  in  sarcasm.  The  comic  is  the  combination  of  the 
ludicrous  addressing  the  eye,  and  of  wit  addressing  the  ear ;  and  it 
is  the  expression  of  human  passion  and  action  implying  the  utter- 
ance of  sentiment  accompanied  by  gestures  and  attitudes.     The  droll 

1.3  W 


170  ART   CRITICISM. 

is  the  semblance  of  the  comic ;  as  in  the  imitation  of  human  passions 
and  actions  by  a  monkey  that  has  neither  reason  nor  sensibility. 

The  oldest  of  poets  are  among  the  richest  contributors  to  the  trea- 
sures of  the  comic  in  literature.  No  more  chastened  and  playiul 
irony,  trying  as  his  circumstances  were,  can  be  found,  than  in  Job's 
replies  to  his  "comforters;"  and  no  more  effective  and  withering 
satire,  sacred  though  the  theme  is,  can  be  imagined  than  Isaiah's 
pictures  of  the  absurdity  of  idol-worship.*  The  Battle  of  the  Frogs 
and  Mice,  shows  that  Homer  was  a  master  in  the  field  of  the  comic ; 
as  the  Iliad  proves  him  to  have  been  in  the  field  of  the  tragic. 
Aristophanes,  the  great  writer  and  stage  manager  of  comedy,  brought 
down  Avhat  Homer  had  exalted,  by  introducing  a  low  scurrility  into 
his  wit,  and  employing  satire  to  assail  the  champion  of  virtue  as  well 
as  the  pander  to  vice.  Among  the  Greek  philosophers  Aristotle 
admirably  analyzed  the  subject  of  comedy,  both  as  to  its  nature  and 
its  effect;  saying  "Comedy  is  a  sportive  imitation  of  common  foibles; 
not,  however,  directed  against  every  vice,  but  a  laughable  exhibition 
of  that  which  is  base;"  for,  as  he  has  elsewhere  said,  "vice  is  not 
to  be  met  by  reproach,  but  by  ridicule."  Among  Roman  critics 
Cicero  described  the  different  classes  of  wit,  and  showed  their  proper 
use  by  the  orator ;  Quinctilian  distinguished  between  the  risible  and 
the  derisive ;  and  Horace  made  this  nice  discrimination :  "  In  matters 
of  moment  ridicule  cuts  with  far  more  power  and  efiect  than 
severity,"  It  marks  Shakespeare  as  the  great  dramatist  of  modern 
times  that  he  comprehended  fully  the  spirit  and  the  mission  of  both 
tragedy  and  comedy,  and  could  as  a  master  execute  what  as  a  genius 
he  conceived. 

Aristotle's  definition  of  the  ridiculous,  aids  the  mind  in  passing 
from  the  comic  as  addressing  the  ear  in  poetry  and  song,  to  the 
comic  in  forms  addressing  the  eye  in  sculpture  and  painting.  He 
says:  "The  ridiculous  represents  any  frailty  or  disgrace  not  causing 
pain  or  danger ;  as,  for  example,  a  countenance  ugly  or  disfigured, 
but  not  occasioning  pain,  is  ridiculous."  As  the  comic  actor  on  the 
stage,  by  assuming  such  an  expression  of  countenance,  or  by  putting 
on,  as  was  oftenest  done,  a  comic  mask,  accomplished  more  than  by 
his  words  the  effect  he  desired,  so  the  artist  could  embody  comic 
expression  in  marble  and  on  canvas.  As  there  were  artists  to 
carve  and  paint  Achilles  and  Agamemnon,  so  there  were  true  masters 
in   art  who  "recreated   themselves,"  as   Pliny  says,  "with   comic 


Job  xii.  2 ;  Isaiah  xliv.  9-17. 


THE   MYSTERY   OF   ART   DISPELLED.  171 

subjects  amid  tragedy;"  as  Homer  relieved  painfully  pleasing  sym- 
pathy for  Achilles  and  Briseis  with  the  ludicrous  appearance  of  the 
shallow-pated  Thersites.  As  we  shall  see  the  comic  in  art  is  a  golden 
thread  gossamer-like  in  breadth  in  the  classic  Grecian  age,  a  silver 
band  of  broader  dimensions  begirting  the  astute  Roman  era,  a  glitter 
of  universally  pervading  brass  in  Mediaeval  times,  while  it  has  often 
been  the  very  warp  of  the  web  in  the  painting  and  sculpture,  as 
well  as  in  the  literature  of  Germany,  the  Netherlands,  and  the 
British  Isles.  The  comic  should  doubtless  be  second  to  :he  tragic 
in  art,  as  in  letters. 


CHAPTER    VII. 

THE  INFLUENCE  OF  NATURAL  CHARACTERISTICS  AND  OF  DEGREES 
OF  CULTURE  IN  MODIFYING  THE  IMPRESSIONS  PRODUCED  BY 
ART. 

The  idea,  common  to  mankind,  that  superior  knowledge  and  skill 
in  any  department  are  above  ordinary  apprehension,  and  therefore 
beyond  general  attainment,  seems  to  cling  to  the  human  mind  when 
art  is  regarded ;  though  increasing  general  intelligence  has  long  since 
exploded  this  vulgar  impression  as  to  science.  From  time  immemo- 
rial the  superior  race  of  India  have  been  a  caste  bound  not  simply 
by  the  ties  of  race,  but  by  the  bonds  of  oaths  none  dare  violate,  never 
to  divulge  the  secret  principles  of  science  on  which  their  arts  are 
practised;  and  as  their  science  seems  to  the  people  supernatural,  so 
their  arts  seem  magical.  Pythagoras,  not  sufficiently  realizing  the 
distinction  of  races,  having  learned  the  science  of  this  caste  in  Egypt, 
thought  to  introduce  into  Greece  a  similar  caste,  holding  their  esoteric 
doctrines  as  a  mystical  science  and  as  a  magic  art.  But  he  mistook 
entirely  the  spirit  of  the  Greek  people,  the  finest  European  stock  of 
the  North  and  West,  so  different  from  the  Asiatic  of  the  South  and 
East.  Among  the  Greeks  the  veil  of  pretentious  mystery  was  torn 
off  from  all  science  and  art;  the  common  people  demanded  to  know 
the  secrets  of  both;  and  both  alike  they  discussed,  criticized  and 
practised,  regarding  art  no  less  than  science  the  common  heritage  of 
man,  just  like  the  air  they  breathed,  and  the  water  they  drank.  A 
principle  was  thus  developed  most  important  to  be  observed  in  the 
progress  of  every  age  or  nation. 


172  ART   CRITICISM. 

Another  equally  important  principle,  the  necessary  counterpart  of 
that  just  mentioned,  was  clearly  recognized  by  the  Greeks  as  leaders 
in  true  art.  While  among  the  thousands  of  intelligent  and  cultured 
youth  in  a  nation  all  may  be  able  to  criticize  art,  and  hundreds  if 
devoted  to  the  pursuit  might  succeed  as  artists,  yet  differing  tastes 
and  the  varied  and  numerous  wants  of  man  in  society  call  for  only 
a  limited  class  to  make  art  the  special  business  of  life.  Socrates 
taught  that  every  man  of  the  common  people  should  think  for  him- 
self, and  learn  for  himself  the  true  principles  of  religion,  of  morals, 
of  political  science,  of  letters*and  of  art;  but  he  by  no  means  taught 
that  every  man  should  or  could  be  a  Phidias  in  sculpture,  a  Polyg- 
notus  in  painting,  a  Pericles  in  statesmanship,  a  Plato  in  philosophy, 
or  a  Themistocles  in  generalship.  There  are  inborn  natural  charac- 
teristics of  national  and  individual  mental  capacity,  and  there  are 
degrees  of  general  and  special  culture,  to  be  remarked  in  the  history 
of  art  among  men;  without  the  observing  of  which  it  is  vain  to 
attempt  a  consideration  of  the  varied  tastes  that  have  prevailed,  and 
the  wonderfully  different  success  in  execution  that  has  marked  the 
people  and  the  artists  of  different  lands  and  ages. 

Sect.  1.  The  influence  of  national  character  and  social  customs  on 

THE   sensible   IMPRESSIONS   PRODUCED   BY   ArT, 

Though  man's  Creator  "made  of  one  blood  all  nations  to  dwell  on 
the  face  of  the  earth,"  he  has  allowed  them  under  the  influence  of 
differing  race  and  culture  to  become  separated  into  "  Greek  and  Jew, 
barbarian  and  Scythian,  bond  and  free."  Different  races  and  types 
of  mankind  are  in  color,  capacity  and  culture  as  distinct  in  all  their 
attainments  and  in  their  appreciation  of  science  and  art,  as  if  they 
never  sprang  from  the  same  pair.  As  there  is  a  difference  in  indi- 
vidual mental  development  which  makes  it  impossible  that  in  the 
same  family  one  brother  should  share  the  power  and  reach  the  posi- 
tion and  influence  of  another,  as  there  is  a  distinction  in  the  mental 
cast  of  the  sexes  showing  the  Creator's  general  appointment  as  to 
their  different  though  equally  important  fields  of  mental  employ,  and 
as  there  is  a  progress  of  development  in  every  mind  from  childhood 
which  may  be  checked  and  fixed  permanently  at  any  successive 
stage,  so  there  is  a  similar  originally  constituted  distinction  in  mental 
cast  and  capacity  in  races  of  mankind.  In  art,  palpable  to  the  eye 
as  its  productions  are,  this  distinction  is  perhaps  more  marked  than 
in  any  other  department  of  human  attainment.  One  family  of  man- 
kind have  never  passed  the  infancy  of  human  development,  and  their 


THE  RACES  OF  MAN  AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THEIR  ARTS.      173 

art  is  that  of  a  child ;  another  has  never  shown  anything  above  me- 
diocre talent  in  any  department,  and  at  that  standard  their  produc- 
tions for  ages  have  been  stereotyped ;  and  yet  another  has  soared  at 
once  to  the  very  heights  of  human  attainment.  In  this  latter  supe- 
rior race  the  climax  of  national  advancement  having  been  reached, 
progress  yet  beyond  that  advancement  has  been  made  in  other  scions 
of  the  same  stock  fed  by  the  accumulated  debris  of  their  predecessors 
in  culture.  The  occasional  exceptions  to  this  law,  usually  capable, 
as  in  the  progress  of  art  among  the  Egyptians,  of  being  traced  to  their 
source,  only  show  how  universally  dominant,  in  the  person  of  rulers 
or  sages  of  a  foreign  caste,  the  descendants  of  the  Caucasian  family 
have  been  in  the  whole  history  of  science,  philosophy  and  art. 

The  history  of  science  and  philosophy,  illustrated  by  the  monu- 
ments of  art  palpable  to  the  eye,  confirms  the  traditions  and  recorded 
history  of  the  elder  ages  as  to  the  three  great  families  of  mankind. 
The  record  of  Moses  represents,  that  soon  after  the  Deluge  the  same 
Divine  Being  who  created  man  suddenly  wrought  changes  in  the 
language,  consequently  in  the  mental  and  physical  caste,  of  the  mul- 
tiplying race,  designed  to  separate  and  scatter  them  on  the  earth. 
Ham's  family,  the  third  in  ranl^,  first  developed,  occupied  the  old 
garden  home  of  mankind,  one  of  the  rivers  of  Eden  flowing  about 
their  Caucasian  abode  between  the  Black  and  the  Caspian  Sea ;  while 
Nineveh  on  the  Tigris,  Sidon,  Tyre  and  Gaza  on  the  Mediterranean, 
Selah  or  Petra  in  Arabia,  and  Memphis  in  Egypt  were  built  by 
them.  This  race  became  masters  and  teachers  in  science  and  art; 
Joseph  and  Moses  learning  their  wisdom  in  their  schools,  and  marry- 
ing into  their  superior  families ;  and  Pythagoras  and  Plato  resorting 
to  their  Colleges.  Ancient  Asiatic  tradition  accords  with  this  record ; 
maintaining  that  the  red  is  the  central  as  well  as  original  man,  lord 
of  Asia,  the  old  seat  of  the  first  man ;  that  the  black  or  degenerate 
family  gradually  moved  southward  into  Africa ;  while  the  white  or 
improved  race  spread  northward  and  westward.  Ancient  History 
adds  its  testimony ;  Herodotus  describing  at  his  visit  the  Colchians 
on  the  East  of  the  Black  Sea  as  of  African  stock,  having  curly  hair 
and  dark  skins ;  While  in  Africa  itself  the  widest  differences  existed 
between  the  Egyptians  and  the  Central  Ethiopians.  The  palpable 
witness  of  the  sculpture  and  painting  of  ancient  Egypt  confirms  this 
view;  the  perfectly  life-like  portraits  executed  not  more  than  five  or 
six  centuries  after  the  Flood,  proving  that  the  three  races  were  in  all 
their  features  as  distinct  in  that  early  day  as  now.  The  modern 
science  of  language  throws  interesting  light  on  the  same  conclusion ; 

15* 


174  ART   CRITICISM. 

the  two  leading  families,  the  Shemitic  and  Indo-European,  in  their 
structure  and  range  of  words  expressive  of  ideas,  showing  that  the 
one  was  made  for  a  stereotyped  people  stopping  in  the  region  of  par- 
tial thought,  while  the  other  never  could  have  been  made  for  any 
but  a  people  of  complete  culture  and  ever  advancing  philosophy. 
Above  all,  and  comprehending  all,  the  ethnological  view  of  Guyot 
illustrates  and  confirms  this  view  of  the  division  of  the  human  family. 
The  first  developed  family,  that  of  Ham,  physical  in  its  tendency, 
imitative  in  intellectual  cast,  attained  an  early  but  limited  advance- 
ment, soon  degenerated  and  was  thrown  into  the  shade  by  the  other 
later  developed  races.  The  second  family,  that  of  Shem,  imagina- 
tive in  turn  of  mind,  with  the  pride  of  inventive  genius  and  of  poetic 
temperament,  boastful  of  superior  ancestry  and  clinging  to  its  estab- 
lished customs,  became  crystallized  into  a  beautiful  yet  fixed  and 
lifeless  method  in  art.  The  third  family,  that  of  Japhet,  gifted  with 
both  physical  energy  and  intellectual  vivacity  began  a  slow  but  con- 
stantly advancing  progress,  which  reached  the  heights  of  Grecian  art 
only  to  aspire  after  greater  excellence  in  succeeding  branches  of  the 
same  family. 

In  this  higher  race,  called  the  "  Arian"  by  Herodotus,  originating 
in  the  region  of  the  Caucasian  mountains,  the  original  home  of  man 
in  his  perfecl^ion,  and  the  nursery  of  the  noblest  specimens  of  the 
human  family,  the  Brahmins  of  India  seem  to  have  been  the  first 
developed.  Clement,  of  Alexandria,  a  Christian  Greek,  eminent  as 
a  scholar  about  A.  D.  150,  wrote,  "Philosophy  first  flourished  among 
the  barbarians,  afterwards  among  the  Greeks.  Among  those  in 
India  are  two  classes ;  the  Brachmans  and  Samanseans ;  the  latter  of 
whom  are  ascetics."  Porphyry,  about  A.  D.,  250,  says:  "The 
political  power  in  India  is  in  the  control  of  a  certain  race  of  wise 
men  whom  the  Greeks  call  gymnosophists ;  of  which  there  are  two 
sects,  the  Brahmans  and  Samanseans."  The  modern  Brahmins  of 
India  are  a  cast  distinct  in  physical  and  intellectual  features  from 
the  common  people ;  subtle  in  logic,  and  skilled  in  mysterious  arts ; 
having  among  them  nude  ascetic  devotees  corresponding  to  the 
gymnosophists,  or  naked  philosophers,  of  ancient  mention,  men 
who  are  looked  up  to  by  the  Indians  proper  as  superhuman  in 
origin.  Their  language,  the  Sanscrit,  is  the  oldest  and  most  elaborate 
of  the  Indo-Germanic  tongues,  surpassing  even  the  Greek  in  com- 
pleteness of  structure.  In  it  were  written,  at  a  date  far  back  of  any 
Grecian  records  extant,  the  Vedas,  or  Vidjas;  the  word  "Vidja," 
meaning  science,  serving  as  an  index  to  their  original  character  as 


PROOF   OF   ^rtlE   INFLUENCE   OF   THE   SUPERIOR   RACE.     175 

mere  philosophic  treatises.  When  by  the  common  people  these  came 
to  be  regarded  as  sacred  authority,  and  a  system  of  rationalistic 
pantheism  was  drawn  out  from  them,  the  counterpart  of  that  of 
modern  days,  philosophers  of  the  same  race  appeared,  Kapila, 
Kanada,  Gotama,  and  others,  who  showed  the  power  of  the  later 
Grecian  Plato  and  Aristotle,  both  in  metaphysical  analysis,  and  in 
the  inductive  sciences.  This  race,  there  is  reason  to  believe,  exerted 
a  controlling  influence  in  the  earliest  periods  of  history  in  the  schools 
of  Assyria,  Egypt,  and  other  lands  which  became  the  earliest 
nurseries  of  art. 

The  comprehensive  writers  of  the  early  age  of  the  Roman  em- 
perors, Strabo,  Pliny,  and  the  Christian  Clement,  speak  of  the  Magi 
of  Persia,  the  Chaldseans  of  Assyria,  and  the  Brachmans  of  India, 
as  of  the  same  stock,  and  associated  as  the  teachers  and  intellectual 
leaders  in  all  the  ancient  nations  of  renown.  Moses,  writing  1000 
years  before  Pythagoras,  and  Daniel  living  about  the  age  of  this 
early  Greek,  the  one  intimate  with  the  wise  men  of  Egypt,  the  other 
with  the  Chaldseans  in  Babylon,  give  the  same  picture  of  their  science 
and  their  art ;  these  Hebrews  themselves  being  members  and  even 
heads  of  their  colleges.^  Most  of  all  the  fundamental  principle  of 
all  genuine  philosophy,  the  belief  in  one  great  spiritual  Author  and 
Ruler  of  all  things,  was  common  to  the  Brahmin,  the  Chaldsean,  and 
Persian  sages ;  as  is  seen  plainly  by  the  teaching  of  the  Vedas  and 
the  Zendevesta,  and  by  the  allusions  of  Moses,  Daniel  and  Ezra  to 
the  belief  of  Balaam,  Nebuchadnezzar,  and  Cyrus ;  while  also  Moses 
intimates  that  Pharaoh  of  Egypt  was  familiar  with  the  same  doc- 
trine.^ Plato  calls  the  Egyj^tian  Thoth  a  "barbarian  philosopher." 
Pythagoras,  Plato  and  Democritus  are  said  by  Clement  to  have 
studied  under  the  Brahmans,  the  Magi,  and  the  Chaldseans,  in 
Assyria  and  Egypt ;  and  he  adds,  "  Thales,  though  a  Phoenician  by 
nation,  is  said  to  have  met  with  the  prophets  of  the  Egyptians ;  as 
also  Pythagoras  studied  the  mystic  philosophy  of  the  Egyptians, 
Chaldseans,  and  Magi."  Strabo  mentions  Brahmans  of  India,  even 
as  far  west  as  Spain.  Pliny  mentions  the  Brahmans  of  India,  the 
wise  men  of  Egypt,  and  the  Magi  of  Persia,  as  a  common  class,  and 
teachers  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans.  All  these  testimonies  agree  in 
indicating  that  in  Egypt  the  influence  of  this  superior  race  was  a 


«  Gen.  xli.  8;  Exod.  vii.  11;  Dan.  i.  20;  ii.  27. 

«Num.  xxiii.  3,  12,  15;  Dan.  iv.  2,  34;  Ezra,  i.  2,  3;  and  Gen.  xli.  38; 
Exod.  iii.  14;  v.  2. 


176 


ART  CRITICISM. 


guide  and  impulse  in  the  art  which  so  early  dawned  in  tluit  land  of 
Ham. 

The  fact  that  foreigners  from  the  earliest  time  were  ruling  spirits 
in  Egypt  is  everywhere  apparent  in  history.  Herodotus,  as  well  as 
Moses/  mentions  the  castes  of  Egypt,  as  marked  as  those  of  India; 
consisting  of  the  same  classes  and  manifestly  originating  in  the  same 
distinction  of  race.  The  builder  of  the  first  great  Pyramid,  Hero- 
dotus states,  was  hated  as  a  tyrant  by  his  people.  When  Joseph 
was  in  Egypt,  a  foreign  shepherd  race  had  held  the  throne  and  had 
been  driven  out  by  a  rising  of  the  people.^  Joseph  and  Moses,  of 
Hebrew  extraction,  were  exalted  to  power.  Herodotus  speaks  of 
the  foreigners  brought  into  Egypt  at  an  early  day,  by  Sesostris;  and 
even  of  the  Greeks  as  at  his  day,  having  great  influence  in  one 
section  near  the  sea.  The  earliest  and  most  abiding  foreign  influence 
seems  to  have  come  from  India.  At  a  very  early  day  commerce 
extended  to  that  land;  and  Solomon,  of  Israel,  whose  wisdom  is 
brought  into  comparison  with  that  of  Egypt's  wise  men,  but  followed 
in  the  wake  of  a  former  trafiic  on  the  Red  Sea,  between  India  and 
Egypt.^  The  influence  of  this  intercourse  on  art  in  Egypt  is  most 
apparent  to  careful  students.  The  fact  that  the  names  of  articles  of 
luxury,  beauty,  and  amusement  imported  by  Solomon,  such  as 
"Sandal  wood,  peacocks,  and  apes,"*  are  Sanscrit,  has  often  been 
observed.  It  is  yet  more  interesting  to  note  that  the  names  desig- 
nating works  of  art  introduced  by  Moses  into  his  Hebrew  narratives, 
names  learned  by  him  of  the  Egyptians,  such  as  "  current  money," 
"graven  images,"  "coat  of  many  colors,"  "girdle,"  "purple,"  "dyed 
goats'  hair,"  "altar  horns,"  "topaz,"^  are  from  that  same  language 
of  this  early  cultured  Japhetic  race.  A  peculiar  force  is  realized  in 
this  suggestion,  when  at  this  day  Brahmins  from  India,  using  the 
Sanscrit  in  their  written  incantations,  are  found  to  be  at  Cairo  in  the 
capital  of  Egypt  the  ruling  spirits  among  people  believing  in  super- 
natural agencies ;  while  the  very  name  by  which  these  people  call  a 
learned  foreigner  "hakim,"  the  same  word  used  in  the  Hebrew  by 
Moses  for  wise  men,  indicates  by  the  testimony  of  undying  Oriental 
tradition  that  they  were  learned  foreigners  who  receiyed  that  same 
designation  in  ancient  times. 


'  Gen.  xliii.  32;  xlvi.  34;  xlvii.  22;  Herodot.  B.  II. 

«  Gen.  xli.  12,  43;  xliii.  32;  xlvi.  34;  Exod.  ii.  6,  10. 

8  1  Kings  iv.  30;  ix.  16,  26.  *  1  Kings  x.  12,  22. 

*  Gen.  xxiii.  16;  xxxi.  19;  xxxvii.  3;  Exod.  xxv.  4;  xxvii.2;  xxviii.  4, 17. 


THE   PEOGRESS   OF   CIVILIZATION   AS   ADVANCING    ART.     177 

In  every  land  as  we  make  our  survey  we  shall  trace  the  rude 
originals  of  a  native  art.  That  early  uncultured  native  art,  where 
barbarian  and  African  rudeness  has  been  unbroken  by  the  interven- 
tion of  a  higher  race  has  been  permanently  dwarfed  and  remained 
in  perpetual  infancy.  Wherever  the  proud  and  hoary  Shemitic 
family  has  been  undisturbed  in  its  changeless  ages  of  history,  there 
stereotyped  mediocrity  has  reigned.  Where,  however,  as  in  Egypt, 
art  has  originated  among  a  family  whose  popular  spiritual  notions 
were  as  low  as  the  African's  in  fetish  worship  of  reptiles,  and  as  fixed 
as  the  Asiatics  in  blindness  to  the  harmonies  of  nature  in  form  and 
color,  we  shall  find  the  rudest  of  all  conceptions  in  art  stimulated  to 
their  first  step  in  progress  by  Indian  resident  artists,  prompted  to  a 
higher  advance  by  Persian  intervention,  refined  to  the  farthest 
possible  improvement  of  which  its  heavy  massiveness  was  susceptible 
by  the  grace  of  succeeding  Grecian  genius,  and  finally  ennobled  into 
true  grandeur  by  the  all-absorbing  and  modifying  spirit  of  the 
imperial  Koman.  Everywhere,  in  fact,  where  Ham  has  toiled  alone 
we  shall  find  art  in  its  infancy;  where  Shem  has  dreamed  secluded 
in  petty  tribes,  or  massed  in  colossal  nations,  art  has  advanced  to 
youth's  period  of  half  matured  imagination;  but  wherever  Japhet 
has  both  dreamed  and  toiled,  whether  domiciled  alone  in  his  native 
hills  and  plains,  or  "  dwelling  in  the  tents  of  Shem,"  or  employing 
"Ham  as  his  servant,"  there  art  has  been  marked  with  that  progress 
which  claimed  for  it  a  place  in  the  analysis  of  history. 

Sect.  2.  The  oENEBAii  influence  of  advancing  civilization  on  critical 

APPRECIATION  OF  ART. 

The  first  marks  of  a  nation's,  as  of  an  individual's  progress,  are 
not  seen  in  the  field  of  the  true,  or  of  the  beautiful  proper ;  but  in 
that  of  the  good.  Science  and  art  are  not  pursued  at  first  in  and  for 
themselves ;  for  nations  in  their  origin,  need  rather  new  means  of 
attaining  material  ends.  The  general  term  Civilization  includes  that 
combination  of  results  realized  among  a  people  who,  in  their  rela- 
tion to  things,  and  to  each  other,  show  a  skillful  adaptation  of  means 
to  an  end.  While  the  Asiatic's  dress,  for  generations  the  same  in 
fabric,  texture,  cut,  and  hue,  is  an  index  of  his  stereotyped  unchange- 
ableness  in  material,  intellectual  and  moral  development,  ^^ progress" 
has  ever  been  the  European's  watchword. 

The  material  advancement  of  a  people  soon  creates  a  taste  for  art 
proper;  which  demand  foreign  or  native  skill  will  seek  to  supply. 
That  skill,  once  introduced,  becomes  an  educating  power,  stimulating 

X 


178  ART  CRITICISM. 

the  zest  and  gradually  refining  and  instructing  the  critical  judgment 
of  a  i^eople  in  their  innate  love  of  beauty  and  its  creations.  In 
Egypt,  no  less  than  four  marked  stages  of  progress  are  observable  ; 
that  of  the  early  plain  unadorned  native  fondness  for  massiveness ; 
that  of  the  age  when  probably  through  Brahminic  influence  the  rude 
gorgeous  coloring  peculiar  to  that  land  prevailed ;  that  of  Grecian 
lightness  and  of  expressiveness  given  to  sculptured  forms ;  and  of  that 
of  Roman  elegance  apparent  in  their  architecture.  The  same  effect 
of  progress  in  civilization  on  critical  appreciation  of  art  thus 
traced  in  the  East  is  traceable  also  in  the  advance  of  art  among 
European  nations.  Even  the  matchless  art  of  Greece,  culminating 
in  Rome,  had  the  same  rude  beginning ;  and  it  advanced  by  stages 
of  progress  to  its  climax  of  perfection.  The  evidence  of  this  can 
be  traced  by  the  careful  explorer  as  he  passes  over  the  field  of  its 
existing  monuments;  the  single  collections  of  Italy  are  well  nigh 
giving  a  practical  exhibition  of  it;  and  even  the  London  Museum 
might  with  skill  present  its  microcosm.  It  is  yet  more  palpable  in 
the  progress  of  the  Saxon  and  German  nations ;  all  of  whose  steps 
in  the  progress  of  art  are  close  down  to  our  own  era.  Tacitus  says 
of  the  Germans  of  his  day,  "  There  are  found  among  them  silver 
vases,  given  as  presents  to  their  ambassadors  and  princes,  held  in  the 
same  low  esteem  as  those  which  are  wrought  of  clay."  Again,  of 
the  walls  of  their  houses  he  writes,  "  Certain  places  they  more  care- 
fully smear  with  an  earth  so  pure  and  glistening,  that  it  imitated  a 
painting  and  the  lineaments  of  colors."  And  this  is  the  compara- 
tively modern  history  of  art  in  a  land  that  now  boasts  its  Thorwald- 
sen  in  sculpture,  and  its  Albert  Durer,  Vandyke,  and  Rubens,  in 
painting.  A  similar  progress  may  be  expected  in  the  history  of  art 
in  every  nation  where  it  has  attained  to  climactic  perfection. 

While  such  is  the  progress  of  art  in  a  single  nation  ^so  like  to  its 
development  in  the  childhood,  youth  and  manhood  of  the  individual 
artist,  a  higher  order  of  advancement  than  even  this  among  mankind 
as  a  race  may  be  confidently  looked  for  and  aimed  at  by  artists  and 
patrons  of  art.  As  the  individual  man  grows  in  general  intelligence 
and  learning  through  childhood,  youth,  manhood  and  old  age  even, 
and  then  leaves  to  his  children  his  intellectual  as  well  as  his  material 
accumulations  to  prove  a  heritage  with  which  they  can  begin  in 
advance  of  his  own  early  starting  point ;  and  as  one  generation  of 
artists  acting  as  the  instructors  of  the  next  enable  the  youth  of  the 
succeeding  age  to  start  with  the  perfected  material,  if  not  the  per- 
fected practice  of  their  predecessors,  so  as  nations  come  to  their 


FORMS   OF   GOVERNMENT  STATED   BY   ARISTOTLE.          179 

climax  and  die,  they  leave  treasures  of  material,  the  collected  pro- 
ducts of  the  chisel  and  brush  as  well  as  the  written  treatises  of  their 
predecessors,  which  enable  a  succeeding  nation  to  take  up  the  work 
where  it  had  been  left  by  other  minds  and  hands.  It  cannot  be 
therefore  that  there  should  not  be  progress  in  art  corresponding  to 
the  progress  of  that  civilization  whose  history  has  been  traced  by 
such  minds  as  that  of  Guizot. 

Sect.  3.  The  special  influence  of  forms  of  political  organization 
ON  the  patronage  of  Art. 

The  men  who  devote  themselves  to  the  practice  of  art  must  have 
the  necessities,  and  be  controlled  by  the  motives  of  other  men.  They 
cannot  give  their  time  to  employ  which  does  not  furnish  them  a  live- 
lihood ;  nor  will  men  of  rare  ability  enter  a  profession  which  does 
not  secure  to  them  a  just  esteem,  and  put  them  in  a  fitting  rank 
among  their  fellow-men.  The  patronage  of  the  artist  must  be  more 
than  private  employ  in  order  to  accomplish  the  ends  of  his  art.  A 
work  of  art  in  painting,  sculpture,  or  architecture,  is  like  a  lecture, 
a  sermon,  an  enacted  drama,  an  oratorio  or  an  opera ;  it  cannot  be 
afforded  either  by,  or  for  an  individual ;  since  its  cost  is  too  great  for 
a  private  purse,  and  its  mission  too  wide  to  allow  of  its  being  mono- 
polized by  a  single  devotee.  Art  must  have  the  public,  united  in 
some  associated  capacity,  as  its  patron,  in  order  to  give  to  it  that  mate- 
rial and  moral  support  which  its  success  demands.  Voluntary  asso- 
ciations, clubs  and  societies  of  amateurs,  may  in  a  measure,  but  only 
to  a  limited  extent,  meet  even  the  positive  necessity  of  the  artist ; 
while,  moreover,  the  limited  circle  of  admirers  can  never  give  him 
that  peculiar  stimulus,  the  favor  of  the  people,  which  the  artist  like 
the  poet  and  the  orator  craves.  It  is  only  society  in  its  civil  organi- 
zation that  can  supply  the  patronage  requisite  for  art. 

There  can  be  no  question  that  the  form  which  the  civil  govern- 
ment of  any  country  may  take  will  have  an  important  bearing  on 
the  character  and  the  efficiency  of  the  patronage  which  will  be  ex- 
tended to  men  devoted  to  different  departments  of  liberal  culture. 
Aristotle,  with  a  sufficiently  comprehensive  analysis,  divided  in  his 
"  Politics "  the  forms  which  human  governments  may  take  into  these 
four ;  Monarchy  or  the  rule  of  one  man ;  Oligarchy  or  the  rule  of 
the  few  over  the  many ;  Democracy  or  the  rule  of  the  whole  body  of 
the  people;  and  Aristocracy,  combining  and  perfecting  the  other 
three,  in  the  rule  of  the  best  men.  The  absolute  Monarchy  of  ancient 
times  is  no  longer  known  in  any  portion  of  the  world  where  art  has 


180  ART   CRITICISM. 

attained  a  high  standard  of  advancement.  Oligarchy  or  the  rule  of 
the  few  as  military  chiefs,  or  as  landed  proprietors,  over  the  many, 
the  system  of  old  Sparta  and  of  the  feudal  lords  of  Christian  Europe 
in  the  Middle  Ages,  has  now  its  relics  in  the  nobility  of  England,  as 
well  as  in  the  small  sovereignties  of  Germany  and  Italy.  Democracy 
proper,  in  which  the  people  meet  as  a  body  both  to  make  and  to  ad- 
judicate law,  a  system  which  subjects  not  only  the  individual  but  any 
minority  however  intelligent  to  the  perfectly  arbitrary  will  of  a  mob 
misled  by  demagogues  and  excited  by  passion,  democracy  has  had 
such  examples  of  fearful  moment  in  Athens  and  France  that  it  can- 
not soon  find  advocates  for  an  additional  trial.  What  Aristotle 
meant  by  aristocracy  is  the  substantial  element  of  all  modern  consti- 
tutional and  representative  governments,  whether  monarch ial  or 
republican  in  form.  It  is  not  the  recognition  of  a  hereditary  class 
of  nobles,  popularly  called  aristocracy,  who  by  right  of  birth  are 
regarded  as  entitled  to  make,  adjudicate  and  execute  civil  law^;  but 
it  is  the  occupation  of  the  offices  of  trust  legislative,  judicial  and 
executive,  by  men  selected  as  the  best  for  their  positions.  The  ideal 
of  Aristotle,  though  too  pure  to  be  fully  realized  is  approximated  by 
several  of  the  limited  monarchies  of  Europe,  and  still  more  by  the 
American  Union. 

The  question,  "What  form  of  government  is  most  favorable  to  the 
patronage  of  art,"  is  reduced  thus  practically  to  this,  "  Is  a  republi- 
can government  of  elective  and  representative  office-holders,  or  a 
monarchical  government  with  hereditary  rulers,  the  one  most  favor- 
able to  the  suggested  end  ?" 

There  can  be  no  question  that  a  government  which  fosters  the  free 
action  of  the  intellect  of  the  people,  affi^rding  to  genius,  however 
obscure  its  origin,  an  open  field  for  the  indulgence  of  its  aspirations, 
must  be  favorable  to  the  development  of  a  capacity  for  art.  In  a 
despotic  government  some  of  the  fields  to  which  genius  prompts,  as 
that  of  popular  oratory,  is  greatly  restricted.  On  the  other  hand,  it 
may  be  that  the  stable  and  liberal  patronage  which  art  demands  for 
its  highest  success  will  be  best  secui'ed  under  governments  where 
offices  are  life-long  positions  and  the  public  treasure  more  under  the 
control  of  men  of  leisure  and  of  culture.  In  Greece  the  popular 
character  of  the  government  of  Athens  seemed  to  call  forth  among 
its  own  citizens  and  to  attract  from  the  most  distant  provinces  the 
rarest  gifts  and  culture  devoted  to  art ;  it  culminated  under  Alex- 
ander the  first  monarch  of  all  Greece,  whose  ambition  if  not  his 
taste  led  him  to  become  the  liberal  patron  of  art;  but  its  spirit 


PATRONAGE   OF   ART   IN   REPUBLICS   AND   MONARCHIES.    181 

declined  rapidly  under  the  successors  of  Alexander,  who,  with  less 
nobleness  of  nature  than  the  first  monarch,  were  no  less  ambitious  to 
make  art  subservient  to  their  personal  fame.  In  Sicyon,  during  the 
same  ages,  however,  art  flourished  in  rivalry  with  democratic  Athens 
though  under  the  despotic  sway  of  a  series  of  so-called  "  tyrants ;" 
while  at  a  somewhat  later  period,  Rhodes,  governed  ordinarily  by  an 
oligarchy,  became  the  leader  of  all  the  Greek  cities  in  art.  In 
Rome  it  was  during  the  days  of  the  Republic  that  science,  art  and 
letters  had  their  spring ;  they  attained  their  acme  of  advance  under 
the  first  emperor;  and  then  steadily  declined,  mainly  because  the 
imperial  ambition  prostituted  genius  to  low  and  selfish  ends.  In 
modern  Italy  the  revival  and  noble  advance  of  art  began  under  the 
mild  aristocratic  rule  of  Tuscany,  took  wing  during  the  brief  reign 
of  republican  institutions,  and  went  steadily  on  to  its  acme  under 
despotic  civil  and  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction.  In  Germany,  the  Neth- 
erlands, England  and  America,  art  has  arisen  and  tends  steadily 
onward  and  upward  in  its  advance  and  rise  under  very  varied  forms 
of  government.  The  history  of  all  ages  and  nations  shows  at  least 
this ;  that  the  liberty  of  popular  institutions  has  been  the  early  nur- 
sery of  genius  in  art;  that  the  mingled  stability  and  scope  for  indi- 
vidual fame  characteristic  of  governments  properly  styled  aristo- 
cratic has  given  the  assurance  of  support  which  has  brought  to  per- 
fection the  germ  stimulated  by  freedom;  while  absolute  despotism 
has  blighted  and  withered  every  bud  of  promise  in  the  field  of  the 
fine  arts. 

Sect.  4.  Special,  influence  of  Intellectual  progress  in  Science  and 
Literature  on  the  style  of  Art. 

The  term  style,  from  the  Greek  word  meaning  a  column,  some- 
times supposed  to  be  the  same  as  the  stilus,  or  reed-pen,  of  the 
Latins,  designated  among  the  Greeks  the  order  of  arranging  the 
columns  of  a  portico  so  as  to  secure  beauty  and  harmony ;  while  the 
Latin  word  relates  to  an  order  in  the  words  and  sentences  of  a 
written  composition  which  accomplishes  the  same  end.  In  the  lan- 
guages of  modern  Europe,  in  the  countries  where  art  is  most  cultured 
as  Italy,  Germany,  France  and  England,  the  word  style  is  employed 
in  a  general  sense,  covering  both  the  Greek  and  Roman  axoplications, 
and  also  having  an  application  to  all  the  arts.  In  painting,  sculp- 
ture and  architecture,  as  well  as  in  literature,  we  speak  of  the  style  of 
an  age,  of  a  country,  or  of  a  school  to  designate  both  design  and 
execution  ;  both  the  character  and  form  of  the  conceptions  embodied 
16 


182  ART   CRITICISM. 

in  art  and  the  methods  of  execution  employed  by  artists.  Thus 
understood,  style  in  art  must  necessarily  have  a  special  connection 
with  the  progress  of  a  people  in  a  purely  intellectual  point  of  view. 

The  progress  of  the  human  mind  in  what  is  properly  called  intel- 
lectual development,  relates  specially  to  its  increased  knowledge  of 
things  material  and  immaterial ;  including  an  enlarged  acquaintance 
with  the  laws  of  physical  agents  and  of  metaphysical  analysis,  an 
improved  practical  skill  in  using  things  known  and  in  reaching  and 
turning  to  profit  things  before  unknown  or  unavailable;  which 
increased  knowledge  is  attained  through  science  in  its  varied 
branches,  through  philosophy  in  its  several  departments,  and  through 
logic  as  a  power  to  wield  the  acquisitions  thus  gathered  from  varied 
sources.  No  one  can  take  even  a  casual  survey  of  the  advance  of 
any  one  nation  in  these  respects  and  not  observe  how  immediate  its 
bearing  on  the  progress  of  art. 

In  Egypt,  hoary  mother  of  science  as  she  is  justly  called,  the 
indications  of  intimate  and  extended  knowledge  of  science,  as  well 
as  of  letters,  is  found  by  the  reliable  testimony  of  historic  records 
on  her  monuments  to  have  existed  2000  years  at  least  before  the 
Christian  era ;  the  head  of  the  great  College  of  On  having  given  his 
daughter  to  the  Hebrew  prime  minister^  during  the  life  of  the 
patriarch  Jacob ;  Moses,  the  Hebrew  lawgiver,  before  Israel  was  a 
nation,  having  "learned  all  the  wisdom  of  the  Egyptians"^  at  that 
same  centre;  while  1000  years  later  than  Moses,  Pythagoras  and 
Plato  studied  in  the  same  schools.  During  all  this  period  Indian 
philosophy,  as  developed  in  the  Vedas  and  metaphysical  systems 
founded  on.  them,  either  through  Indian  teachers,  or  from  a  commu- 
nity of  views  existing  between  Egyptian,  Chaldsean^  and  Indian  "wise 
men,"  prevailed  over  native  African  fetish  notions  and  gave  a  noble 
massiveness,  though  not  a  chastened  purity  to  Egyptian  conceptions 
in  art.  A  striking  illustration  of  this  is  found  in  the  common  ideas 
of  the  Divine  Being  entertained  by  Egyptian  kings  and  Assyrian 
prophets ;  in  their  common  desert  shrines  for  worship ;  and  in  the 
common  knowledge  of  the  metaphysical  distinction  between  the 
limited  Deities  of  separate  nations,  and  the  universally  recognized 
God  over  all,  the  "to  on"  of  the  Greeks,  for  whose  incomprehensible 
nature,  indicated  by  the  names  "  Jehovah,  Jove,"  the  Hebrew,  San- 
scrit, Greek,  and  Latin,  have  kindred  words.*     When   afterwards 


'  Gen.  xli.  45.  "  Acts  vii.  22.  '  Dan.  ii.  48. 

*  See  XX.  11 ;  xli.  16,  32;  Exod.  iii.  14,  18;  iv.  22;  v.  2,  8;  viii.  8,  19. 


SCIENCE  AND  LITERATURE  AS  INFLUENCING  STYLE  IN  ART.    183 

Greek  influence  brought  in  a  leaven  of  Grecian  culture,  and  still 
later  Roman  power  coupled  with  the  aim  at  elegance  introduced  yet 
another  modifying  cause,  a  two-fold  principle  of  human  development 
was  revealed.  As  the  schools  of  Alexandria  proved  that  foreign 
teachers  could  only  polish  the  exterior,  but  could  not  transform  the 
substantial  material  of  the  Egyptian  intellect  as  developed  in  Science 
and  Philosophy,  so  Grecian  and  Roman  artists  must  build  and  carve 
from  Egyptian  material  and  after  Egyptian  ideas,  while  the  grace 
of  true  life  in  sculpture,  and  the  charm  of  more  harmonious  coloring 
in  architectural  decoration,  might  meet  the  assent  of  native  artists, 
and  modify,  but  not  control  popular  taste.  The  intellectual  im- 
provement of  the  people  brought  about  by  the  intellectual  advance- 
ment of  the  artists  was  the  measure  of  the  improvement  to  be 
expected  in  art. 

The  history  of  the  progress  of  art  in  one  country  is  its  correspond- 
ing history  in  other  countries.  As  we  shall  see,  the  successive  devel- 
opments of  Greek  intellect,  first  in  the  epic,  then  in  the  drama,  then 
in  philosophy,  then  in  oratory,  and  finally  in  political  science,  show 
that  progress  in  mental  and  moral  philosophy  is  accompanied  by  a 
corresponding  cast  given  to  conception  and  execution  in  art.  In  the 
history  of  Rome  we  shall  observe,  that  the  age  called  the  Augustan, 
when  philosophy,  and  oratory,  and  poetry,  both  lyric  and  epic  all 
culminated,  was  the  climactic  era  of  Roman  art.  In  the  revival  of 
art  in  modern  Italy  we  shall  remark  that  intellect,  generally  and 
thoroughly  awakened,  turned,  as  by  a  natural  common  impulse,  to 
every  department  of  science  and  philosophy;  Galileo  penetrating 
the  secret  law  of  the  organization  of  the  solar  system;  Columbus 
resolving  the  problem  of  the  earth's  actual  structure ;  Dante  soaring 
to  the  very  height  and  fathoming  to  the  very  depth  of  the  profound 
abyss  of  imaginative  poetry;  Savonarola  carrying  to  the  very 
extreme  the  doctrine  of  freedom  of  religious  thought;  the  Medici 
with  their  literary  coadjutors  nightly  reading  Plato's  philosophy;  all 
of  these  masters  in  diflerent  departments  of  intellectual  progress, 
creating  by  their  united  influence  an  atmosphere  throughout  North- 
ern Italy,  without  whose  invigorating  influence  the  artists  of  their 
age,  Giotto  and  Bruneschelli,  succeeded  by  Lionardo,  Raphael,  and 
M.  Angelo,  could  not  have  grown  to  their  maturity  in  art.  The 
history  of  art  in  Germany,  France,  England,  and  America,  equally 
confirms  this  vital  truth ;  that  the  important  element  essential  to  a 
nation's  progress  in  true  art  is  the  advancement  of  the  intellectual 
development  of  a  people  in  science  and  philosophy. 


184  ART   CRITICISM. 


Sect.  5.  The  special  influence  of  Moral  Eefinement  on  the  accesso- 
ries OF  Art. 

While  the  character  of  art  as  to  its  style,  including  the  elements 
which  make  up  life  and  expression,  depends  on  intellectual  culture, 
the  accessories  of  art,  such  foj-  instance  as  the  dress  of  the  human 
figure,  will  be  determined  mainly  by  moral  considerations.  When 
the  original  parents  of  the  human  family  had  become  morally 
debased,  the  first  indication  outwardly  of  the  inward  moral  change 
that  had  been  wrought  in  them  was  their  assuming  a  dress.  In  that 
first  robing  of  the  human  form,  suggestions  of  beauty  and  utility 
guided  them  as  to  material  and  form ;  prompting  them  first  to  the 
tasteful  interweaving  of  delicate  fig  leaves  as  a  simple  veil  for  their 
nakedness,  and  then  to  the  close,  thick  wrapping  of  animal  furs  as  a 
protection  from  cold.^  The  question,  however,  whether  any  covering 
at  all  should  be  placed  over  their  persons,  and  if  so,  what  portions 
should  be  covered,  was  suggested  and  decided  on  moral  grounds. 
Writers  on  art  have  generally  agreed  in  confining  their  notices  of 
the  ethical  bearings  of  art,  so  far  as  questions  of  pure  morality  as 
contrasted  with  immorality  are  concerned,  to  the  discussion  of  the 
propriety  of  nude  representations  of  the  human  figure.  The  influ- 
ence that  works  of  art  may  have  on  individual  and  social  virtue, 
and  the  influence  they  may  have  in  culturing  patriotic  and  charitable 
sentiment,  belong  to  another  subject  of  consideration. 

So  far  as  nudity  of  figure  in  living  beings  is  concerned,  there  is  no 
question  that  climate  has  more  to  do  with  establishing  custom  than 
any  preconceived  notions  of  morality.  In  every  civilized  and  Chris- 
tian community  there  is  in  the  dress  of  summer  a 'far-  greater  expo- 
sure of  the  person  than  in  that  of  winter;  and  even  in  winter  a 
similar  disrobing  of  the  person  seems  appropriate  when  in  the  heated 
halls  where  fashion  is  gathered  at  an  evening  reception,  artificial 
heat  turns  winter  into  summer  as  artificial  light  turns  night  into 
day.  Irrespective  entirely  of  religion  or  race  warm  climates  justify 
entire  nudity  under  circumstances  calling  for  it;  the  traveler  seeing 
alike  in  Southern  Italy,  in  Western  Asia,  and  in  northern  Africa 
groups  of  females  bathing  in  open  view  of  passers  by,  without  any 
more  thought  of  impropriety  than  has  the  native  Congo  female  in 
appearing  entirely  destitute  at  all  times  of  raiment.  It  is  less,  then, 
a  question  of  moral  propriety  than  some  might  suppose  that  deter- 


Gen.  iii.  7,  21. 


MORAL  PROPRIETY  OF  THE  NUDE  IN  ART.       185 

mines  the  covering  or  exposing  of  the  human  figure  in  the  living 
person. 

In  its  application  to  art  this  question  becomes  however,  more 
manifestly  one  of  moral  propriety,  yet  actually  controlled  by  another 
principle.  Among  all  the  works  of  the  Creator  no  form  is  so  exqui- 
site, no  color  so  delicate,  and  no  entise  figure  such  a  model  of  beauty, 
as  that  found  in  the  human  frame,  both  male  and  female ;  and  that 
alike  in  childhood,  youth  and  maturity.  It  cannot  be  conceived 
that  the  Creator  designed  this  form  should  be  forever  hidden  from 
the  eye  made  to  admire  beauty  or  that  to  copy  its  perfect  outline 
can  be  opposed  to  His  will.  Hence  everywhere  that  dress  is  most 
admired  for  its  intrinsic  beauty  which  most  brings  out  and  least 
hides  the  contour  of  the  entire  form.  It  is  this  that  makes  the  close 
locked  Roman  and  mediaeval  armor,  the  tight  drawn  bodice  and 
narrow  chemise  of  the  oriental  maiden,  as  well  as  the  thin  robe  of 
the  early  Grecian  and  Roman  matron,  seem  the  perfection  of  dress; 
since  they  serve  but  as  a  transparent  veil,  setting  forth  the  beauty 
of  the  figure.  It  was  this  principle  that  very  early  prompted  the 
Greek  artists  to  so  general  a  study  and  representation  of  the  nude  in 
art  as  to  call  forth  Cicero's  remark,  "  Grseca  res  est  nihil  velare ;" 
the  Grecian  style  is  to  drape  no  figure. 

The  deep  conviction  of  the  most  spiritual  of  poets,  philosophers 
and  artists,  men  of  the  highest  tone  of  private  virtue  and  of  the 
devoutest  sentiment,  seem  to  have  agreed  that  true  and  deep-seated 
morality  is  nurtured,  instead  of  being  vitiated,  by  ideals  of  the  male 
and  female  form  presenting  the  entire  human  figure  in  its  nobleness 
and  loveliness.  Thus  Milton  picturing  Adam  and  Eve  seen  by 
angels  and  by  Satan  in  their  native  beauty  of  form  breaks  forth  in 
censure  of  that  spirit  which  would  hide  from  the  study  of  art  this 
only  perfect  model ;  exclaiming 

"  Dishonest  shame 
Of  Nature's  works,  honor  dishonorable. 
Sin-bred,  how  have  ye  troubled  all  mankind, 
With  shows  instead,  mei^e  shows  of  seeming  pure." 

The  profound  metaphysician  and  pure  moralist  Cousin  says,  "It 
is  the  property  of  beauty  not  to  irritate  and  inflame  desire,  but  to 
purify  and  ennoble  it.  The  more  beautiful  a  woman  is,  the  more,  at 
the  sight  of  this  noble  creature,  is  desire  tempered  by  an  exquisite 
and  delicate  sentiment ;  and  is  sometimes  even  displayed  by  a  disin- 
terested worship.  If  the  Venus  of  the  Capitol,  or  the  St.  Cecilia, 
16*  Y 


186  ART   CRITICISM. 

excite  in  you  sensual  desires  you  are  not  made  to  feel  the  beautiful." 
Thus  it  is,  yet  again,  that  the  most  admired  of  all  works  of  American 
sculpture,  in  the  country  where  notions  differing  from  those  prevalent 
in  Europe  have  been  supposed  to  prevail  on  the  question  at  issue,  is 
the  Greek  slave  of  the  modest,  sensitively  chaste  and  humbly  devout 
Powers. 

It  is  worthy  of  constant  notice  that  questions  of  truth,  beauty  and 
goodness  always  go  hand  in  hand.  To  know  the  truth  for  the  sake 
of  utility  the  human  frame  must  be  studied,  with  drawings  of  the 
nude  figure  and  indeed  from  actual  subjects ;  a  study  acknowledged 
to  be,  not  only  for  the  trained  physician,  but  also  for  the  educated 
youth  of  both  sexes,  both  legitimate  and  productive  of  the  highest 
sentiment  of  reverence  for  this  wondrous  work  of  the  Creator  and  of 
sacred  obligation  to  be  true  to  the  trust  imposed  by  its  committal  to 
our  care.  As  the  study  of  this  master-piece  for  truth's  sake  has 
proved  thus  favorable  to  morality,  so  has  the  same  study  for  beauty's 
sake  proved.  The  purest  and  truest  idea  and  practice  of  conjugal 
fidelity  prevails  among  the  rudest  African  tribes  where  apparel  for 
either  sex  is  unknown;  while,  too,  since  extremes  always  meet,  the 
highest  tone  of  morality  always  prevails  where  under  the  influence 
of  cultured  taste  in  art  young  men  and  young  women  can  together 
admire  such  works  as  the  Venus  de  Medici  and  the  Apollo  Belvi- 
dere,  the  Greek  Slave  of  Powers  and  the  Washington  of  Greenough. 
Yet  more,  while  the  ancient  Greeks,  according  to  Plato's  statement, 
embodied  their  ideas  of  the  primitive  human  being  in  one  form  that 
combined  the  perfections  of  both  sexes,  mingling  transcendent  purity 
with  matchless  beauty  in  the  andrlgune  or  man-woman,  the  Christian 
in  deciding  the  same  question  which  early  Greek  artists  thus  settled, 
is  guided  by  a  higher  philosophy  as  well  as  by  a  Divine  Revelation. 
He  worships,  in  Nature  and  in  Revelation,  God  the  Father  who  made 
man  and  woman  both  in  their  original  state  and  in  their  restoration 
by  His  redemption,  to  possess  that  purity  of  heart  which  subordinates 
the  fleshly  nature  to  the  love  of  true  beauty;  as  Chrysostom,  the 
eloquent  Greek  orator  of  early  Christian  times  urged  in  commending 
Christianity  to  his  artistic  countrymen.^  Yet  more,  the  Christian 
adores  that  Redeemer  who  in  perfection  of  form  and  character  was 
so  completely  the  representative  of  universal  humanity  that  no 
thought  of  his  sex  ever  arises  to  the  mind  of  His  adorers;  while 


'  Chrysostom  Homily  on  2  Cor.  iii.  18. 


ART  UNDER  THE  OLD  AND  NEW  TESTAMENT  TEACHING.     187 

nevertheless  he  is  "fairer  than  the  sons  of  men,"  and  "the  one  alto- 
gether lovely."  ^ 

Sect.  6.  The  special  influence  op  Keligious  Culture  on  the  subjects 

OF  Art. 

The  chosen  subjects  of  art,  both  in  the  earlier  and  later  stages  of 
its  advance,  have  been  controlled  by  the  spirit  of  religion.  Pliny's 
statement  that  "the  first  statues  made  were  images  of  the  gods"  is 
true  of  other  arts  than  sculpture.  Among  rude  African,  Asiatic, 
and  American  tribes,  where  sculpture,  architecture,  knd  other  arts 
never  have  passed  beyond  their  infancy,  all  art  is  exhausted  on 
images  and  shrines  for  deities ;  and  in  the  progress  of  art  in  Western 
Asia,  till  it  culminated  in  Greece,  the  highest>efforts  in  every  depart- 
ment were  consecrated  to  religion.  It  is  only  under  Christianity 
that  the  fact  becomes  a  theme  for  special  consideration,  that  Reli- 
gious Culture  determines  the  subjects  of  art. 

The  Old  Testament  taught  that  there  is  one  God,  whom  no  man 
hath  seen  or  can  se6;  and  it  forbade  that  man  make  any  graven 
image  or  likeness  of  anything  in  Heaven  or  earth  to  which  in  reli- 
gious reverence  he  should  bow  down,  and  which  in  religious  devotion 
he  should  serve.^  Yet  the  whole  ceremonial  service  of  the  people 
living  under  the  Old  Testament  was  by  Divine  appointment  made 
impressive  through  images  wrought  by  the  art  of  man  addressing 
the  eye;  and  even  Deity  himself  made  His  presence  known  in  the 
pillar  of  cloud  and  fire,  and  especially  by  the  light  of  the  Shekinah 
on  the  mercy  seat,  which  like  the  flame  in  the  bush  seen  by  Moses, 
fed  upon  nothing  and  yet  was  never  dimmed.^  The  religion  of  the 
New  Testament  taught  that  God  is  a  spirit,  and  that  they  who 
worship  Him,  should  worship  Him  in  spirit  and  in  truth.  Yet  this 
purest  of  all  spiritual  systems  has  its  two  ordinances  of  baptism  and 
the  supper,  meant  to  impress  the  eye ;  as  well  as  its  reading,  singing 
and  prayer  in  gathered  assemblies  which  speak  through  the  ear  to 
the  mind  and  heart.  Most  of  all  it  tells  us  that  no  man  can 
approach  unto  God,  except  through  the  Mediator,  the  man  Christ 
Jesus  ;*  the  human  form  seen  by  the  eye  or  conceived  by  the  imagi- 
nation aiding  our  approach  and  our  address  to  Him. 

It  seems  but  a  step  in  the  same  direction,  a  legitimate  and  neces- 
sary conclusion  from  a  connected  series  of  facts  revealed  in  the  New 

'  Psal.  xlv.  2 ;  Cant.  v.  16.  "^  Exod.  xx.  4,  5. 

=»  Exod.  xiii.  21;  xxv.  22;  xxxiii.  9;  Psal.  xcix.  6,  7. 
*  John  i.  18;  xiv.  6;  1  Tim.  ii.  5. 


188  ART  CRITICISM. 

Testament  and  established  in  experience,  when  it  is  inferred  that  art 
is  necessarily  associated  with  spiritual  Christianity;  and,  indeed, 
when  it  is  conceived  that  true  art  is  designed  to  have  its  highest 
development  and  climax  of  perfection  in  the  advance  and  triumph 
of  the  truth  and  grace  which  in  their  fulness  belong  to  the  pure 
religion  of  Jesus  Christ.  The  fact  that  by  their  art-culture  the 
Greeks  were  prepared  for  a  religion  of  such  matchless  harmony  and 
beauty  as  the  Christian  system  is  conclusive  on  this  point.  It  would 
be  a  contradiction  to  conclude  that  if  art-culture  had  power  to  attract 
the  Greeks  to  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus,  when  the  Jews  with  the  Old 
Testament  prophecies  were  not  thus  attracted,  that  art  was  opposed 
to  the  spirit  of  the  religion  of  Christ.  Paul's  expression  is  more 
than  a  figure  of  speech  when  he  alludes  to  the  harmony  of  the  pipe 
and  harp  in  the  orchestra,  as  the  type  of  that  harmony  which  should 
exist  in  the  Christian  Church;  and  when  he  again  pictures  the  artist 
before  a  mirror  chiseling  the  hard  stone  by  slow  and  painful  labor 
into  the  image  of  his  model,  making  this  the  type  of  the  self-mould- 
ing which  the  Christian  must  perseveringly  follow  in  order  to  attain 
the  likeness  of  Christ,  his  example.^  The  perfection  of  Art  is 
really  to  be  an  aid  to  man  in  attaining  the  perfection  of  his  moral 
nature. 

It  is  especially  to  be  observed  in  forming  a  judgment  as  to  the 
place  which  plastic  art  should  occupy  under  the  Christian  religion 
that  all  other  forms  of  art  than  the  plastic  have  their  most  legitimate 
and  necessary  employ,  and  their  very  highest  development  in  con- 
nection with  Christian  worship.  Music  was  never  so  hallowed  as 
when  Jesus  sang  a  hymn^  with  his  disciples  just  before  the  trying 
crisis  of  his  crucifixion;  it  was  never  so  grand  as  in  the  pealing 
chorus  of  a  thousand  Christian  voices  shouting  their  enthusiastic 
hymns  of  praise  to  their  Redeemer ;  and  it  was  never  so  sublime  as 
in  the  sacred  oratorios  of  Handel  and  Mozart.  Poetry,  too,  never 
reached  such  a  lofty  strain  as  in  the  drama  of  Job,  in  the  lyrics  of 
David,  and  in  the  epic  of  Isaiah  and  Habakkuk ;  and  if  the  true 
genius  of  ancient  Poesy  lingers  yet  on  earth,  it  is  in  the  souls  of  such 
men  as  Dante  and  Tasso,  of  Goethe  and  Schiller,  of  Milton  and 
Moore,  when,  stirred  by  the  fervor  of  Christian  devotion,  they  have 
poured  forth  those  Christian  melodies  which  will  outlive  even 
Homer's  Muse.  Most  of  all,  the  histrionic  art,  yet  more  akin  to  the 
plastic  arts,  never  has  had  such  masters  as  in  the  department  of 


1  Cor.  xiv.  7 :  2  Cor.  iii.  18.  "  Mark  xiv.  26. 


CLASSES   OF   ART   PROMOTED   BY   CHRISTIANITY.  189 

sacred  eloquence;  Loiiginus/  the  great  Greek  rhetorician,  as  we 
have  seen,  placing  "Paul  the  Tarsian"  before  even  .^schines  and 
Demosthenes  as  excelling  in  "unstudied"  oratory;  while  the  long 
line  of  pulpit  orators  from  Chrysostom,  the  "golden-mouthed,"  have 
ever  most  fiilly  brought  out  the  power  of  histrionic  genius. 

There  are  three  classes  of  subjects  upon  which  art  naturally  seeks 
to  exert  its  power;  and  the  question  whether  the  highest  perfection 
in  art  is  not  to  be  reached  where  Christianity  holds  sway  will  depend 
on  the  demand  for  its  culture  made  by  a  Christian  people  in  the 
three  departments  which  the  Arts  of  Design  seek  to  supply.  The 
common  utensils  of  life,  not  to  say  the  costlier  and  artificial  adorn- 
ments of  human  aspiration,  will  call  forth  art  as  a  natural  and  spon- 
taneous gift  from  either  the  savage  or  civilized  man ;  and  certainly 
amid  Christian  civilization  the  culture  of  art  in  this  department  has 
always  witnessed  a  quickened,  never  a  deadened  growth.  Even 
among  the  adherents  of  that  view  of  the  Christian  system  which  sets 
aside  the  two  Church  ordinances  as  too  carnal  for  a  spiritual  religion, 
it  is  only  unartistic  and  tawdry  ornament  in  dress,  furniture  and 
equipage  that  is  rejected.  In  fact  the  most  striking  characteristic  of 
this  class  of  Christian  believers  is  a  true,  a  cultured,  a  specially 
chastened  art-taste;  which  is  the  more  apparent  as  inseparable  from 
human  nature  when  thus  witnessed  in  its  simplicity  and  purity  in 
this  sect  most  opposed  to  forms  and  adornments. 

In  its  second  department  the  Arts  of  Design  seek  to  preserve  and 
perpetuate  the  features  of  those  whom  we  would  keep  in  memory 
when  absent.  The  same  spirit  which  draws  men  or  women  to  the 
toilet-table  and  mirror  for  the  adornment  of  their  own  persons 
that  they  may  be  acceptable  to  present  friends,  prompts  in  man  or 
woman  the  wish  to  preserve  that  same  form  in  a  likeness  for  distant 
and  even  unborn  kindred  to  look  upon.  Hence  even  the  uncultured 
Indian  hands  down  his  memory  in  some  rude  relic  of  his  own  use  on 
earth,  or  in  some  rough  carving  made  by  his  own  hand,  which  shall 
bring  his  person  or  character  to  remembrance  when  he  is  gone.  In 
advancing  society,  the  outline  profile,  the  crayon  sketch,  the  portrait 
or  the  bust,  the  funeral  pile  and  monumental  shaft,  are  man*s 
instinctively  sought  draft  upon  art  to  minister  to  a  universal  human 
desire.  The  effect  of  Christianity  is  not  to  restrict  but  to  give  the 
fullest  possible  exercise  to  this  ambition.     There  are  no  such  aspi- 


'  Book  I.  Chap.  iii.  Sect.  6. 


190  ART   CRITICISM. 

rants  for  relics,  for  family  portraits,  and  for  adorned  burial-grounds 
as  a  Christian  people. 

In  its  third  department  under  Christian  civilization,  the  aid  of  art 
is  instinctively  sought  as  a  helper  in  the  accompaniments  essential  to 
Christian  worship.  In  the  rudest  age  and  among  the  most  scrupu- 
lous opposers  of  forms  and  rituals  there  will  be  seen  a  demand,  which 
no  community  can  resist,  that  the  house  for  Christian  worship  keep 
pace  with,  if  it  do  not  outstrip  in  symmetry  and  elegance  the  private 
mansions  that  surround  it.  The  singing  of  sacred  hymns  by  an  irre- 
sistible influence  takes  on  more  and  more  of  artistic  culture ;  and  it 
adds  an  orchestra,  at  first  simple,  but  growingly  elaborate.  The 
furniture  and  adornments  of  the  pulpit,  the  choir,  the  altar  and  the 
communion-table,  assume  a  constantly  increasing  costliness  of  finish. 
And  indeed  the  observing  student  that  has  visited  the  mosques  of 
Oriental  Mohammedism,  the  synagogues  of  ancient  Judaism,  and 
even  the  temples  of  the  most  formal  and  sensual  heathenism,  returns 
to  observe  the  fact  everywhere  pressing  itself  on  his  notice  in  Chris- 
tian lands,  that  plastic  art  never  has  been  called  forth  in  such  pro- 
fusion of  subjects  and  in  such  chastened  beauty  and  sublimity  of 
conception  and  execution  as  in  the  accompaniments  of  Christian  wor- 
ship ;  the  most  truly  spiritual  religious  service  known  on  earth. 

The  most  difiicult  and  the  deeper  question  for  the  Art  critic  and 
Christian  philosopher  to  discuss  and  to  settle  together  is  the  propriety 
of  representations  in  sculpture  and  painting  of  the  man  Christ  Jesus ; 
the  Being  on  whom  the  Christian's  faith  and  hope  rest,  and  to  whom 
his  devotion  and  service  are  due.  That  the  persons  of  apostles  and 
martyrs  should  be  subjects  for  art  representation  seems  as  natural 
and  legitimate  as  that  the  likenesses  of  ancestry  should  be  sought 
and  prized ;  and  doubtless  the  influence  for  good  which  the  memory 
of  a  spiritual  father  and  example  exerts  is  more  mighty  than  that  of 
many  a  parent  in  the  flesh.  The  fact  that  no  Grecian  limner,  sculp- 
tor or  painter  of  Christ's  age,  and  no  inspired  historian  of  his  life 
though  familiar  with  his  person,  has  left  in  marble  or  on  canvass  his 
form  or  features,  or  has  even  given  the  least  hint  by  which  a  single 
lineament  of  either  can  be  traced,  is  most  instructive  in  many  respects ; 
but  they  manifestly  err  who  take  it  as  an  indication  that  no  ideal  of 
his  person  may  be  legitimately  conceived  and  executed  with  the 
pencil,  the  chisel,  or  the  brush.  It  was  not  designed  that  Jesus 
should  be  the  representative  of  one  family,  nation,  age,  sex,  class, 
condition,  or  type  of  mankind;  that  he  should  be  recognized  as 
Asiatic  or  European,  as  Jew  or  Greek,  Roman  or  Scythian,  as  a  man 


EARLY   CHRISTIAN   VIEW   OF   LIKENESSES   OF   CHRIST      191 

of  ancient  or  modern  times,  as  of  civic  or  rustic  aspect,  as  of  reflective 
or  practical  mental  cast,  as  of  mild  or  stern  disposition,  or  as  of  san- 
guine or  retiring  temperament.  In  fact  through  females  in  the  line 
of  his  descent,  such  as  Kahab,  Kuth,  Bathsheba,  and  European 
wives  of  Jewish  princes  after  the  Babylonish  captivity,  the  blood  of 
all  the  races,  Shem,  Ham  and  Japhet,  mingled  in  his  veins.^  He 
was  made  indeed  "in  all  points  like  as  we,"  i.  e.  as  the  race  "are;" 
an  embodiinent  of  universal  humanity ;  and  however  varied  therefore 
the  ideal  which  men  may  form  of  him,  each  is  right  if  so  be  an  intelli- 
gent and  devout  spirit  guide  the  conception.  Moreover,  every  Chris- 
tian does  and  must,  especially  in  prayer,  form  in  conception  his  or 
her  ow^n  image  of  the  man  -  Christ  Jesus  who  is  approached ;  and 
there  can  be  no  legitimate  objection  suggested  to  the  artist's  choosing 
as  a  study  for  the  chisel  or  brush  his  own  ideal  of  that  Being  he 
adores.  On  the  other  hand,  the  highest  attainments  in  pure  adora- 
tion and  in  true  devotion,  have  been  reached  by  those  in  wdiom  the 
sentiment  of  veneration  and  consecration  has  embodied  itself  in  a 
creation  of  art. 

The  view  here  presented  seems  to  have  been  substantially  that 
taken  by  men  of  the  most  intelligent  mind  and  evangelical  spirit  in 
the  earliest  days  of  the  history  of  Christianity ;  and  a  well-balanced 
understanding  and  devout  heart  must  now,  as  in  every  age,  accord 
with  its  decision.  Thus  Augustine,  living  in  the  fourth  century,  and 
a  man  whose  religious  experience  next  after  that  of  Paul  the 
Apostle  is  the  most  instructive  in  history,  thus  writes  :^  "  What  was 
his  personal  appearance  we  are  entirely  ignorant.  For  the  features 
of  the  Lord's  fleshly  nature  are  varied  and  sculptured  according  to 
the  innumerable  diversity  of  individual  conceptions;  which  never- 
theless were  one,  whatever  they  were."  This  statement  intimates 
what  will  be  fully  confirmed,^  that  very  varied  representations  of 
Jesus'  personal  form  and  features  had  been  conceived  and  executed 
by  artists  in  the  early  days  of  Augustine ;  and  that  their  creation 
was  rather  commended  than  censured  by  the  evangelical  spirit  of 
that  age. 

The  main  characteristic  distinguishing  modern  from  ancient  art, 
as  w^e  shall  farther  observe,*  is  the  radical  change  in  subjects  intro- 
duced by  the  Christian  Kevelation.  In  the  secular  and  social 
demands  of  human  life  in  society,  the  forms  of  art  are  everywhere 


'  See  Matthew's  Genealogy,  Chap.  Ist.     =*  Augustine  de  Trinitate,  VIII.  4. 
3  See  Book  III.,  Chap.  4,  Sect.  2.  *  See  Book  III.,  Chap.  4,  Sect.  1. 


192  ART   CRITICISM. 

the  same  in  nature ;  but  in  all  the  Arts  of  Design  proper,  it  is  the 
spirit  of  religion  that  gives  themes,  and  thus  forms,  for  execution. 
It  should  be  specially  remembered,  that  true  art  always  tends  to 
spiritual  conceptions ;  a  fact  as  manifest  in  the  best  days  of  Greece, 
as  it  is  in  modem  Christian  times.  As  Jarves  has  well  remarked, 
"  The  works  of  Kaphael,  as  those  of  Phidias,  never  have  been  wor- 
shipped ...  It  is  ugly  and  hideous  associations  that  have  always 
led  to  error  and  idolatry." 

Sect.  7.  Special  means  of  impeoving  popular  taste,  and  of  developing 

AND  sustaining  GENIUS  IN  ArT. 

In  order  that  advancement  be  made  in  Art,  means  must  be  used 
directly  to  secure  this  end,  such  as  all  experience  shows  are  required 
in  the  advancement  of  any  Science  or  mechanical  trade.  These 
means  must  have  two  objects  in  view,  one  relating  to  the  people, 
another  to  artists ;  the  first  awakening  a  popular  taste  for  art ;  the 
second  calling  out  and  nurturing  genius  for  art,  and  especially  pro- 
viding for  the  encouragement  and  support  of  artists,  that  they  may 
devote  themselves  to  the  pursuit  for  which  they  are  specially  fitted, 
and  may  thus  feed  the  popular  taste. 

The  first  of  these  ends  may  be  sought  through  Collections,  Lec- 
tures, and  Libraries.  The  Remesium  of  ancient  Thebes  in  Egypt, 
the  Acropolis  of  Athens  and  of  Corinth,  the  Agora  of  Rhodes  and 
of  Sicyon  in  Greece  and  the  Museum  of  Alexandria,  were  pre-emi- 
nently treasure-houses  of  sculpture  and  painting ;  the  Romans,  like 
the  English,  were. pre-eminently  devoted  to  the  collection  of  works  of 
art ;  while  the  galleries  of  almost  every  nation  of  modern  Europe 
show  by  their  attractive  influence  on  the  popular  mind  that  the 
gallery  is  the  indispensable  first  means  for  awakening  a  taste  for  art. 
Lectures  are  not  specially  an  American  institution;  for  Socrates, 
Plato,  Cicero,  and  even  Hypatia,  lectured  publicly  on  art  as  well  as 
on  philosophy ;  and  the  resort  of  the  Medici  in  their  eflTort  to  revive 
art,  of  the  French  of  modern  times,  whose  experience  is  illustrated 
in  M.  Cousin  who  recommends  popular  lectures  to  give  a  spring  to 
a  higher  taste  even  among  the  silk  weavers  of  Lyons,  the  world's 
history,  in  fact,  shows  that  the  Lecture  is  not  only  specially  adapted 
to  a  new  country  little  provided  with  books,  but  also  necessary  for 
every  people  w^hose  time  during  the  day  must  be  occupied  in  pursuits 
essential  to  secure  a  livelihood.  Last  of  all,  Libraries,  which  shall 
at  least  give  to  men  of  leisure,  to  instructors  and  to  public  lecturers 
the  sources  of  information   are   requisite;    as   the   history  of  the 


MEANS   OF   PROMOTING   ART   AND   ITS   PATRONAGE.        193 

Libraries  of  Pergamos,  of  Alexandria,  and  of  many  a  modern  city 
show. 

The  second  end  has  received,  and  may  yet  receive  aid  from 
several  sources;  some  of  them  originating  in  Society  as  an  entire 
body,  and  others  in  the  associations  of  artists  themselves.  The  ele- 
mentary teaching  of  art  in  common  schools  was  in  Greece  the 
leading  means  of  developing  in  early  life  the  nascent  genius  which 
was  common  to  all,  but  which  was  eminent  in  very  few  youth.  Next 
special  schools  for  artists  are  of  great  avail :  for,  though  Art,  like 
any  learned  profession,  as  Law,  Medicine,  or  Theology,  may  be 
learned  under  a  single  practitioner,  it  is  acquired  at  a  greater  waste  of 
time  and  of  energy;  as  the  lives  of  the  great  painters  of  ancient 
Greece,  as  well  as  of  modern  Europe,  will  be  found  strikingly  to 
intimate.  Public  patronage,  finally,  on  the  part  of  organized  Society 
is  essential  to  the  artist ;  for  it  is  only  works  of  lesser  merit,  such  as 
portraits,  that  are  ordinarily  demanded  by  private  patrons ;  while  all 
great  works  requiring  breadth  of  conception  and  finish  of  execution, 
require  an  outlay  which  only  the  public  purse  can  meet.  The 
saddest  pages  in  the  history  of  art  are  the  records  fearfully  numerous 
of  young  artists  of  fairest  promise,  dwarfed  by  compelled  devotion 
to  unworthy  themes,  or  lost  to  art  by  necessary  diversion  to  other 
pursuits. 

The  artists  owe  themselves  a  duty  in  their  professional  associations. 
Every  college  student  knows  the  power  of  literary  association  to  give 
impulse,  nerve,  and  culture  in  the  use  of  the  pen  and  voice ;  and  the 
English  clubs  of  Johnson's  day  show  the  power  of  mutual  attrition 
and  stimulation  in  creating  a  galaxy  of  great  men.  Men  devoted  to 
science  unite  to  publish  and  bring  to  popular  notice  their  discoveries ; 
and  artists  need  have  no  greater  modesty  in  heralding  their  triumphs. 
Inventors  combine  in  demanding  special  legislation  by  which  to 
secure  to  themselves  the  emolument  accruing  from  their  own  skill ; 
and  artists,  who,  like  Van  Eyck,  reach  by  years  of  careful  experiment 
new  methods  of  employing  material,  are  no  less  entitled  to  a  patent 
for  their  inventions.  The  association  of  artists  gathered  about  the 
Medici  attained  a  philosophic  comprehension  in  design,  and  a  power 
in  execution,  which  have  been  the  wonder  of  the  world ;  an  example 
still  instructive. 

Sect.  8.  The  Nature  of  Art-Study  and  the  Place  it  should  take 
IN  A  course  of  Liberal  Education. 

Education  in  Art  is  needed  for  two  classes  of  youth ;  those  of  select 
17  Z 


194 


ART   CRITICISM. 


genius  who  are  to  be  artists,  and  the  general  student  who  ought  to 
be  an  art-critic.  Some,  like  Giotto  and  West,  are  born  to  an  intui- 
tive power  of  conception  and  a  suggestive  skill  in  execution,  which 
enables  them  without  study  to  draw,  mould,  or  color  with  surprising 
skill.  Others  as  Socrates,  Winckelmann,  and  Kames  are  gifted  with 
critical  judgment  and  logical  power  of  thought  and  expression  which 
makes  them  surpass  the  artist  in  conception  and  suggestion  so  as  to 
be  his  instructors  in  design  and  his  critics  in  execution ;  but  who  fail 
in  every  effort  to  put  their  own  theories  into  practice.  The  studies 
requisite  for  these  two  classes  are  in  theory,  in  elementary  principle, 
the  same ;  as  the  study  of  anatomy  for  youth  designed  for  the  legal, 
clerical  and  medical  professions  is  the  same.  The  consideration  of 
these  elementary  principles  of  Art  belongs  to  the  field  of  Art  Criti- 
cism; the  after  study  of  the  Professional  School  fills  volumes  of 
detail  and  years  of  practice. 

The  three  main  sources  of  elementary  Art  Education  are  studies 
of  nature,  of  works  of  art,  and  of  text  books ;  a  careful  notice  of 
which  gives  clearness  and  order  in  considering  the  principles  most 
important  to  the  artist  and  art-critic.  The  study  of  Nature  embraces 
three  departments ;  first,  material  creations,  inorganic  as  rocks,  clouds 
and  mountains,  and  organic  as  plants  and  animal  forms;  second, 
spiritual  beings  and  their  attributes,  embracing  man  in  all  his  variety 
of  character  and  action ;  and  third,  since  both  the  previous  classes 
are  but  effects,  the  study  of  causes  prior  and  superior  to  all  finite 
material  and  spiritual  existence,  embracing  especially  the  contem- 
plation of  the  great  First  Cause,  the  Divine  Author  of  all.  The 
study  of  works  of  art,  again,  involves  not  only  the  employ  of  the  eye 
on  preserved  works  of  antiquity  and  on  present  collections,  but  the 
reconstruction  before  the  mind's  eye  of  what  history  describes  in 
words ;  in  which  study  the  art-critic  may  search  only  for  principles, 
while  the  artist  must  scan  and  guess  that  he  may  attain  methods  of 
execution.  The  study  of  Text  Books,  yet  again,  embraces  the  wise 
selection  of  books  and  the  successful  order  of  topics  examined. 

The  study  of  nature  is  the  study  of  the  true;  the  examination  of 
things  and  phenomena  as  they  are,  that  the  artist  may  copy  them 
and  the  critic  judge  of  his  accuracy.  The  transition  from  Egyptian 
to  Grecian  sculpture  seemed  an  inspiration,  because  when  Dsedalus 
the  early  Greek  sculptor  wished  to  make  a  Hercules  or  a  hero,  he 
stripped  a  brawny  peasant  to  his  skin,  and  trained  him  to  the  bend 
of  limb,  the  strain  of  muscle  and  the  position  of  features  which  mark 
action  and  passion.     Painting  seemed  in  the  revival,  of  art  in  Italy 


TRUTH   TO   NATURE   IN   THINGS   AND   IN   MAN.  195 

to  be  angel  touches  because  Giotto  as  a  shepherd-boy  loved  to  draw 
his  own  sheep,  because  Lionardo  would  thread  a  crowd  for  weeks  to 
select  a  face  of  miserly  sordidness  that  might  give  him  a  Judas,  and 
because  Raphael  drew  his  sweetest  Mary  with  the  babe  Jesus  on  the 
head  of  a  wine  cask  as  he  gazed  on  the  unstudied  attitude  and  un- 
conscious expression  of  maternity  seen  in  a  simple  peasant  woman 
nursing  her  child.  The  truly  admirable  feature  of  Ruskin's  popular 
works  on  art,  urging  constantly  the  importance  of  viewing  objects  as 
they  are,  not  in  an  artificial  light  and  with  a  spirit  of  affected  enthu- 
siasm, is  embodied  in  this  paragraph.^  "The  chief  aim  and  bent  of 
my  system  is  to  obtain,  first,  a  perfectly  patient,  and  to  the  utmost 
of  the  pupil's  power,  a  delicate  method  of  work ;  such  as  may  ensure 
his  seeing  truly.  For  I  am  nearly  convinced  that  when  once  we  see 
keenly  enough  there  is  very  little  difficulty  in  drawing  what  we  see ; 
but  even  supposing  this  difficulty  to  be  still  great,  I  believe  that  the 
sight  is  a  more  important  thing  than  the  drawing;  and  I  would 
rather  teach  drawing  that  my  pupils  may  learn  to  love  Nature  than 
to  teach  the  looking  at  Nature  that  they  may  learn  to  draw.  It  is 
surely,  also,  a  more  important  thing  for  young  people  and  unpro- 
fessional students  to  know  how  to  appreciate  the  art  of  others  than 
to  gain  much  power  in  art  themselves." 

Moreover,  what  we  call  human  nature  is  a  study  equally  important 
in  art  as  in  any  one  of  what  are  called  the  learned  professions.  The 
people,  mankind  at  large,  have  their  intuitions  that  are  right,  and 
their  prejudices  which  may  be  wrong;  and  the  artist,  as  truly  as  the 
lawyer,  the  physician,  and  the  clergyman,  will  fail  of  satisfying  his 
masters  and  patrons,  the  public,  who  does  not  study  to  harmonize 
with  popular  convictions,  and  to  correct  by  guiding,  rather  than 
opposing  them,  popular  prejudices.  Because  Apelles  paid  just 
respect  to  the  people's  judgment  by  placing  his  finished  pictures  in  the 
window  of  his  studio  and  listening  to  and  following  out  their  correct 
criticisms,  after  he  had  put  in  the  extra  stitch  in  the  sandal  which 
the  cobbler's  experience  suggested,  he  could  make  bold,  when  the 
cobbler  criticized  the  anatomy  of  the  ankle,  to  reply  before  an  ex- 
acting Athenian  populace,  "  Let  the  cobbler  stick  to  his  last."  When 
the  mulish  obstinacy  of  the  Egyptian  race  compelled  their  own 
artists  to  cramp  all  promptings  of  improvement  on  the  orthodox 
pattern  of  their  statues  and  temples,  it  was  the  true  spirit  of  Art 
which  prompted  Grecian  artists  under  the  Ptolemies  to  rear  and 


'  Kuskin's  "  Elements  of  Drawing. 


196  ART   CRITICISM. 

adorn  a  purely  Egyptian  temple  at  PhilsG,  with  nevertheless  such  a 
charm  of  grace  thrown  over  it  that  to  this  day  the  rude  Nubians 
call  it  " Es-soor-el-Arias  elrWogood,'  the  palace  of  beautiful  aspect. 
The  artist  who  arrays  himself  against  popular  opinions  is  as  truly 
opposing  nature  as  he  who  should  set  at  defiance  the  laws  of  gravity. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  true  master  on  life's  stormy  ocean,  controls 
the  inconstant  and  obstinate  sea  by  humoring  the  gale ;  while  at  the 
same  time  he  firmly  breasts  the  billows  and  pursues  his  own  chosen 
path.  This  study  of  human  nature,  a  worthy  regard  to  the  real  inter- 
ests of  men,  which  cannot  be  secured  by  one  out  of  sympathy  with  his 
fellow-men,  the  special  lack  perhaps  of  artists  as  a  class,  is  nothing 
else  than  the  effort  to  attain  the  good;  which  is  in  its  genuine,  and  its 
highest  sense  too,  the  adaptation  of  men  and  of  things  to  each  other. 

The  study  of  Nature,  again,  is  the  study  of  its  AutJior.  The 
artist  who  thinks  to  copy  nature  without  any  knowledge  of  its 
Creator  is  at  the  disadvantage  of  one  who  should  attempt  to  copy  a 
picture  of  Kaphael  without  first  studying  the  man.  Socrates  and 
Plato  were  laying  the  foundation  on  which  the  whole  superstructure 
of  Grecian  art  rested  when  they  constantly  drew  the  contemplation 
of  their  pupils  above  the  works  of  man  and  of  God,  up  to  that  great 
Author  of  all  that  is  true,  beautiful,  good  and  right.  The  wondrous 
power  of  the  great  masters  of  Italy  in  their  own  and  subsequent 
ages  has  been  the  religious  spirit  that  pervades  their  works.  Human 
nature  always  has  demanded,  and,  because  man  was  made  to  adore 
and  serve  his  Maker,  it  always  will  demand  that  the  artist,  as  truly 
as  other  public  men,  respect  their  religious  opinions.  Moreover,  as 
Cicero  said,  "  that  no  man  can  be  a  successful  orator  unless  he  is  a 
good  man,"  so  with  truth  it  may  be  added  "that  no  artist  can  be  great 
who  is  not  a  religious  man;"  having  an  aim  in  his  study  and  toil 
higher  even  than  the  true,  the  beautiful,  and  the  good;  making, 
indeed,  personal  righteousness  the  attainment  loftiest  in  his  thought, 
and  most  absorbing  in  his  efforts. 

The  history  of  the  several  arts  will  abundantly  illustrate  how  the 
study  of  the  works  of  art  produced  by  other  nations  gave  the  first 
spring  successively  to  Grecian,  Roman,  Italian,  German,  French, 
and  English  art.  The  discovery  of  a  gold  mine  has  had  little  present, 
and  no  permanent  interest  to  be  compared  with  that  of  the  exhum- 
ing of  a  buried  statue.  It  is  in  the  relics  of  Grecian  and  Roman 
Sculpture  and  Architecture,  that  the  antiquarian  reconstructs  in 
fragments  the  art  of  the  past;  while  the  genuine  artist,  from  the 
same,  builds  a  purer  and  nobler  structure  in  his  own  age.     The  study 


THE   PLACE   FOR   AET   CRITICISM    IN    EDUCATION.  197 

of  Grecian  Painting,  peerless  in  excellence,  can  only  be  learned, 
however,  from  books ;  for  its  relics  have  mouldered  and  faded  till 
but  a  shadow  remains.  The  student  of  art,  however,  may  thread 
even  this  more  difficult  gallery  of  antiquity,  and  restore  many  of  its 
treasures.  The  maxim  that  "history  is  philosophy  teaching  by 
example,"  is  nowhere  truer  than  in  the  field  of  Art. 

As  to  the  place  which  should  be  assigned  in  a  course  of  liberal 
education  to  the  study  of  Art,  Lord  Kames  has  offered  a  suggestion, 
which,  with  some  modification,  may  be  of  value  as  a  guide.  He 
thinks  the  science  of  Criticism,  in  which  he  includes  the  study  of 
Art,  should  form  a  "middle  link"  between  the  "years  spent  in 
acquiring  languages,"  and  those  devoted  to  "profound  philoso- 
phy;" and  that  for  two  reasons.  First,  its  subject  as  relating  to 
"invention,"  is  intermediate  between  language  which  taxes  the 
memory,  and  "abstract  science,"  which  calls  into  play  the  reasoning 
faculties.  Again,  its  study  is  a  disguised  and  fascinating  introduction 
to  the  study  of  science  proper;  for  those  "who  apply  to  the  arts" 
are  unconsciously  "led  on  step  by  step;"  the  principles  of  science 
opening  gradually  upon  the  pupil's  mind.  This  doubtless  is  true  of 
the  study  of  Criticism  as  applicable  to  Literature,  which .  includes 
Ehetoric ;  to  which  Department  of  Criticism  most  of  Lord  Kames' 
book  is  devoted.  It  is  doubtless  true,  also,  of  the  practical  acquisi- 
tion of  skill  in  art-execution;  whether  it  be  in  drawing,  moulding, 
or  coloring;  the  pupil  should  be  set  to  the  practice  before  he  is 
master  of  the,  theory.  When,  however,  the  design  of  the  study, 
like  that  of  the  Mathematics,  Physics,  Mechanics,  etc.,  taught  in 
schools  and  colleges,  is  not  to  make  a  practitioner  in  any  of  these 
departments,  but  to  furnish  a  general  survey  of  the  entire  field  of 
human  attainment  in  art,  then  doubtless  the  study  of  Art  Criticism 
must  come  later  into  a  course  of  liberal  study.  It  cannot  well  pre- 
cede the  study  of  Chemistry,  of  Optics,  of  Descriptive  Geometry, 
and  of  the  other  branches  of  a  Mathematical  and  Scientific  course; 
for  it  will  be  found  to  demand  to  a  certain  extent  a  previous  know- 
ledge of  them  all.  Nor  can  it  well  precede,  though  it  may  accom- 
pany the  study  of  Mental,  Moral,  and  Political  Philosophy;  since 
some  of  the  hinging  principles  which  have  determined  the  progress 
and  perfection  of  each  of  the  arts  have  turned  upon  some  fundamental 
question  of  taste,  of  ethics,  of  national  character,  or  even  of  civil 
polity.  The  study  can  probably  be  most  successfully  pursued  during 
the  closing  year  of  the  course  usually  fixed  for  higher  seminaries  of 
learning. 

17* 


BOOK   II. 

DRAWING;    THE   REPRESENTING   OF   FORMS   ON   A   PLANE 
SURFACE. 

Drawing  is  the  first  of  the  plastic  arts  to  be  acquired ;  as  experi- 
ence and  history  alike  indicate.  The  first  amusement  of  the  child 
in  developing  taste  is  drawing;  and  white  walls  and  bits  of  paper 
are  covered  with  juvenile  first  lessons.  The  tombs  of  Egypt,  which 
date  back  before  Abraham's  day,  are  covered  with  drawing,  sculp- 
ture, and  painting ;  the  artist's  first  work,  being  figures  drawn  in  out- 
line. The  Book  of  Job,  the  earliest  written  record,  alludes  to  draw- 
ings, or  inscriptions  "graven  with  a  pen  of  iron  and  lead  in  the  rock."^ 

It  is  a  just  view  taken  by  Peale,  the  intelligent  American  artist, 
in  his  book  called  "  Graphics,"  that  writing  with  the  pen,  or  style,  is 
but  a  branch  of  drawing.  It  is  a  striking  proof  of  the  natural  love 
of  art,  that  the  child  prefers  to  try  his  originating  skill  in  the  pas- 
time of  drawing  according  to  his  own  fancy  before  he  will  consent  to 
confine  himself  to  the  slavish  toil  of  copying  letters  of  fixed  shape 
and  size.  The  love  of  conceiving  and  executing  new  forms  of  beauty 
constitutes  the  Art-spirit  in  our  nature;  and  the  first  attempt  at 
making  letters,  as  also  any  new  efibrt  to  make  them  of  more  beauti- 
ful form,  is  truly  an  art  exercise. 

In  the  practical  execution  of  any  single  work  in  Drawing  the 
order  of  the  theoretical  study  of  the  Art  is  hinted.  The  master  first 
traces  the  outline  of  a  principal  figure;  he  next  adds  a  background 
of  subordinate  figures,  or  of  landscape ;  if  called  for  by  the  times,  or 
by  true  taste,  his  sketch  is  multiplied  in  engraved  copies ;  or  the  quick 
and  cheap  penciling  and  graving  of  the  sun's  rays  takes  the  place  of 
the  hand,  though  not  of  the  mind  of  the  artist ;  while  the  climactic 
attainment  of  the  artist  in  all  this  work  is  the  power  of  Design. 
Plane  and  Perspective  Drawing,  Engraving,  Photographing  and 
Design,  are,  therefore,  the  leading  studies  in  this  department  of  Art. 


'  Job  xix.  24. 
198 


EXECUTION  OF  STRAIGHT  AND  CURVED  LINES  IN  DRAWING.    199 


CHAPTER    I. 

PLANE  drawing;   THE  REPRESENTING   OF    FORMS  AS  LOCATED  IN  A 

SINGLE  PLANE. 

Plane  drawing  is  the  representing  by  lines  of  the  form  of  an 
object,  as  its  outline  would  appear  falling  upon  a  white  wall  or  a 
fixed  plane  surface  behind  the  object.  It  is  sometimes  called  "Geo- 
metrical Drawing,"  because  the  figures  are  drawn  as  in  Geometry  in 
their  real  proportions ;  and  not  in  the  apparent  proportions  of  the 
difierent  parts  of  the  same  object,  or  of  several  objects,  when  viewed 
at  different  distances  from  the  eye.  As  distinguished  from  drawing 
in  perspective,  plane  drawing  is  the  representing  one  instead  of  many 
objects;  and  it  is  the  delineation  of  that  one  object  as  if  all  its  parts 
lay  in  one  plane  at  the  same  distance  from  the  eye,  and  not  in 
different  planes  one  back  of  the  other,  as  the  parts  of  the  object  are 
back  of  each  other. 

Sect.  1.  Lines  as  the  Elements  of  Drawing. 

The  elements  of  drawing  are  lines  either  straight  or  curved. 
Every  drawing  or  engraving,  however  elaborate,  is  composed  of  lines, 
straight  or  curved,  longer  or  shorter,  united  in  various  combinations. 
The  outline  in  all  drawing  is  in  straight  or  curved  lines;  and  the 
shading  however  executed  is  made  up  of  combinations  of  straight 
lines  or  dots. 

The  first  lessons  in  drawing  are  in  straight  lines.  Three  attain- 
ments are  here  requisite  for  the  pupil ;  first  the  practice  essential  to 
the  making  of  a  straight  line,  no  ordinary  test  of  skill,  as  experience 
will  show;  second,  the  combining  of  straight  lines  in  parallels  and 
in  angles,  acute,  right  or  obtuse;  third,  the  combining  of  these 
parallels  and  angles  into  figures  of  more  or  less  sides  until  the  most 
elaborate  checkered  or  tesselated  work  is  attained.  The  shadino;  of 
an  unvaried  surface,  as  the  clear  sky  or  a  level  country,  is  in  parallel 
lines;  while  the  varied  configuration  of  clouds,  mountains,  and 
broken  country  is  executed  chiefly  in  acute  or  obtuse  angles.  The 
best  writers  on  Art-Instruction  recommend  the  drawing  of  geome- 
trical figures,  in  lines  vertical  and  horizontal,  triangles,  squares  and 
other  regular  polygons,  in  all  conceivable  attitudes  and  of  all  dimen- 
sions, without  any  mechanical  aids,  until  the  slightest  deviation  in 
each  figure  from  its  correct  shape  and  proportions  can  be  detected. 


200  ART  CRITICISM. 

No  amount  of  time  spent  in  this  attainment  can  be  misemployed ;  as 
Lionardo  da  Vinci  hints  in  his  maxim,  "  Kemember  to  acquire  accu- 
racy before  attempting  quickness."  The  most  elaborate  and  life-like 
pictures  in  Mosaic  at  Pompeii  and  Rome  are  formed  entirely  of  a 
combination  of  minute  squares,  by  whose  skilful  union  all  the  varied 
outline  of  the  most  finished  painting  is  accurately  copied. 

The  second  lessons  in  drawing  are  in  curves.  First,  all  the  regu- 
lar curves  in  the  conic  sections,  as  circles,  ellipses,  parabolas  and 
hyperbolas,  should  be  copied  till  by  a  single  sweep  of  the  pencil  any 
one  of  them  can  be  accurately  delineated ;  then  every  form  of  irre- 
gtilar  or  broken  curves  may  be  attempted.  Finally,  the  combination 
of  these  different  curves  in  every  variety  of  form  and  figure  which 
fancy  may  conceive  should  be  executed  with  the  pencil.  The  design 
of  these  preliminary  lessons  is  to  enable  the  pupil,  first,  to  master  all 
the  combinations  of  lines  possible ;  second,  to  comprehend  the  modi- 
fications to  which  the  outline  of  an  object  is  subjected  by  being 
viewed  at  every  variety  of  angle,  and  at  different  distances  from  the 
observer.  It  is  in  the  nice  discrimination  of  changes  wrought  ,by 
minute  variations  of  position  that  "character"  for  truth  and  beauty 
in  drawing  consists ;  as  a  careful  inspection  of  engravings  after  works 
of  the  best  Masters  strikingly  illustrates. 

The  next  lessons  are  naturally  the  tracing  of  the  figures  of  natural 
objects;  in  whose  outline  both  straight  and  curved  lines  are  united; 
such  as,  first,  ordinary  utensils,  cups,  mechanics'  tools,  etc.;  then 
houses,  fences,  and  other  larger  objects  having  regularly  shaped 
figures.  After  these,  as  the  best  teachers  suggest,  the  features  of  the 
human  countenance  and  the  parts  of  the  human  form  are  the  most 
instructive  study ;  first,  the  separate  features  and  parts  of  the  body, 
as  the  nose,  the  eye,  the  hand,  the  foot ;  then  their  combination  in 
heads  and  entire  human  figures,  at  first  nude,  and  afterwards  clothed 
in  varied  costume  and  drapery.  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  makes  the 
copying  of  the  human  figure  in  its  varied  parts  and  postures,  the  first 
and  great  study  essential  to  success  in  the  highest  works  of  art ;  and 
he  regards  the  secret  of  the  grace  and  beauty  seen  in  the  finished 
works  of  the  ancients  their  "attentive  and  well  compared  study  of 
the  human  form."  In  drawing  the  human  features  and  figure,  mo- 
dels in  nature  and  plaster  casts  made  from  nature,  as  hands,  feet, 
busts,  and  complete  statues,  may  be  used ;  these  being  as  essential  to 
the  artist   as   to   the   student   of  Anatomy.     Leslie^   criticizes   the 


'  Hand  Book  for  Young  Painters,  Sect.  8. 


DRAWING  OF  HUMAN,  ANIMAL  AND  VEGETABLE  FORMS.    201 

requirement  of  the  Royal  Academy  at  London  that  pupils  draw  for 
some  time  from  antiques  before  attempting  to  copy  the  human  form 
in  nature ;  and  he  cites  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds'  suggestion  that  students 
begin  very  early  to  draw  from  life. 

After  the  human  figure  those  of  animals,  quadrupeds,  birds,  fishes, 
and  insects  may  be  drawn ;  as  the  study  of  Comparative  Anatomy 
properly  follows  that  of  Human  Anatomy;  flowers,  fruits,  single 
shrubs  and  trees,  being  made  the  last  essays  in  single  objects.  The 
executing  of  groups,  as  clumps  of  shrubs  and  trees  and  ranges  of 
buildings,  herds  of  cattle  and  front  ground  views  of  single  trees  with 
foliage  worked  up,  and  finally  all  the  varied  and  extended  combina- 
tions and  complications  of  the  landscape,  will  be  the  crowning  effort 
of  the  pencil. 

The  special  difficulty  of  drawing  vegetable  forms,  making  it  a 
final  study,  arises  from  the  fact  that  the  more  complicated  interior 
in  man  and  in  animals  is  hidden  as  in  a  case;  while  in  the  plant 
world  the  whole  complicated  internal  structure  is  laid  open  to  the 
eye,  and  must  with  its  convolutions  be  copied  by  the  pencil.  It  is 
in  the  delineation  of  these  complicated  organic  structures,  found  in 
the  landscape  and  not  in  human  or  animal  forms,  that  Ruskin  sup- 
poses the  moderns  have  excelled  the  ancients.  These  two  facts  are, 
however,  to  be  remembered.  The  very  exposure  to  the  eye  of  the 
fixed  forms  and  open  workmanship  of  the  vegetable,  creation  makes 
it  but  a  work  of  secondary  skill  to  copy  a  flower;  while  the  study  of 
the  ever-changing  and  hidden  swell  and  play  of  the  human  muscles 
is  a  work  of  the  deepest  study  and  most  difficult  execution  in  art. 
This  again  indicates  that  the  ancients,  who  so  highly  excelled  in  the 
greater  work,  might  have  proved  in  the  easier  field  still  more  in 
advance  of  the  moderns  had  they  turned  their  attention  to  landscape 
drawing. 

Sect.  2.  Proportion  in  the  Outline  or  Plane  Drawings. 

Next  to  the  executing  of  lines  of  a  definite  contour  comes  the 
study  of  just  proportions  in  the  different  parts  of  figures.  Here  the 
work  is  two-fold ;  first,  the  preserving  of  the  respective  size  of  each 
part  in  a  figure  drawn  in  its  natural  dimensions ;  second,  the  securing 
of  the  proper  enlargement  or  diminution  in  drawings  made  upon  an 
increased  or  reduced  scale.  To  assist  in  first  essays  at  executing 
proportion,  artificial  aids  may  be  for  a  time  employed.  The  old 
masters  recommended  laying  off*  the  parts,  as  in  plotting,  by  the 
dividers.     Dr.  Bell,  the  eminent  writer  on  Anatomy  in  its  relation 

2  A 


202  ART   CRITICISM. 

to  Art,  recommends  the  drawing  of  a  net  work  of  parallel  lines  over 
an  engraving  to  be  copied,  or  holding  such  a  net  work  of  threads 
between  the  eye  and  the  object  in  nature  to  be  copied.  As  the  astro- 
nomical observer  meas.ures  the  transit  of  a  star  by  the  net  work  of 
spider's  web  in  the  field  of  his  instrument,  as  the  map  drawer  locates 
different  sections  of  country  by  the  parallels  within  which  they  lie, 
and  as  the  embroiderer  has  a  net  work  pattern  to  follow,  so  the  pro- 
portions of  any  object  are  most  rapidly  and  distinctly  learned  by 
observing  the  squares  in  such  a  net  work  in  which  the  different  parts 
naturally  fall.  It  is  interesting  to  observe  this  common  law  of 
human  suggestion  in  the  early  specimens  of  art  found  in  Egypt,  as 
in  the  small  ruined  temple  of  Ombos  near  Syene ;  where  it  is  seen 
that  the  Egyptian  artists  in  order  to  secure  the  proportions  of  their 
figures  first  traced  a  net  work  of  fine  lines  over  the  field  of  their 
work.  Some  teachers  suggest,  again,  the  use  of  a  graduated  measur- 
ing ruler;  by  placing  which  between  the  eye  and  the  object  whose 
proportions  he  would  study,  and  by  observing  the  space  on  the  gra- 
duated edge  covered  by  the  entire  form,  and  by  each  of  its  parts  at 
distances  greater  or  less  from  the  eye,  the  pupil  learns  a  principle  of 
proportion  which  may  aid  him  in  the  use  of  his  eye.  It  is  to  be  dis- 
tinctly remembered,  however,  that  this  or  any  other  artificial  resort 
is  to  be  laid  aside  when  the  pupil  begins  to  draw ;  the  eye  must  be 
trained  to  be  its  own  measurer ;  and  artificial  aids  should  never  be 
employed  except  in  mechanical  copying  in  the  useful  arts. 

In  studying  proportion  various  subjects  for  the  pencil  may  be  se- 
lected ;  but  the  human  figure  is  the  handiwork  of  the  Creator  most  stri- 
kingly illustrating  the  extent  to  which  he  has  carried  the  law  of  inter- 
measurement  in  the  forms  of  beauty  given  us  as  models.  The  details 
of  this  study  belong  to  the  subject  of  Sculpture  rather  than  of  Draw- 
ing; but  the  important  remark  of  Lionardo  da  Vinci  requires  pre- 
sent notice.  "In  proportion  the  length  of  figures  is  to  be  regarded 
more  than  their  breadth ;  for  the  proportionate  lengths  of  the  different 
parts  of  the  human  frame  differ  very  slightly."  This  is  owing  to  the 
fact  that  the  breadth  of  the  human  figure  is  made,  at  different  periods 
of  life,  to  vary  greatly  in  its  proportions  on  account  of  the  fluctuating 
accumulation  or  depletion  of  the  overlying  muscles  and  cellular 
tissues ;  while  the  stature  is  fixed  to  the  unvarying  standard  of  the 
bony  frame-work. 

As  most  drawings  are  upon  a  scale  far  smaller  than  the  actual 
size  of  the  object  represented,  a  second  study  in  proportion  relates  to 
the  scale  of  diminution  requisite  in  plane  drawings  made  for  diflTerent 


PROPORTION   AND   SHADING   IN   DRAWING.  203 

purposes,  and  of  objects  of  varied  sizes.  The  fixed  scale  usually 
adopted  in  mechanical  drawings  will  be  noticed  in  another  section ; 
and  the  laws  of  graduated  proportions  in  their  higher  applications 
will  be  considered  in  the  Book  on  Sculpture.  The  study,  of  natural 
objects  will  soon  give  a  practical  knowledge  of  the  proportionate  size 
of  their  parts;  and  the  artist's  hand  will  quickly  possess  an  almost 
magical  skill  in  preserving  the  scale  of  proportions  he  has  adopted, 
whether  the  subject  be  a  mountain  compressed  into  a  miniature 
sketch,  or  the  leg  of  an  insect  magnified  by  the  microscope.  The 
altitude  of  the  object  in  nature,  as  Lionardo  intimates,  should  first 
be  regarded ;  then  its  main  proportions  should  be  fixed  in  the  mind's 
eye ;  and  after  these  are  executed  the  finish  of  details  may  commence. 
The  characteristic  features,  as  well  as  the  beauties  of  every  object 
consist  in  its  main  proportions  and  the  distribution  of  its  masses ;  not 
in  its  mere  accessories  and  ornaments. 

Sect.  3.  Elementary  Shading  ;  the  representing  of  the  third  dimen- 
sion IN  Plane  Drawing. 

In  all  drawings  the  outline  is  first  to  be  sketched.  Shading  is 
then  added  that  the  drawing  may  not  seem  to  be  a  mere  flat  surface  ; 
but  a  form  projecting  from  the  plane  on  which  it  is  executed.  The 
mere  outline  gives  no  idea  of  the  rotundity  of  a  figure.  In  nature 
it  is  the  manner  in  which  the  light  strikes  an  object  that  produces 
upon  us  the  impression  that  the  form  observed  is  a  solid  body.  As 
rays  of  light  proceed  in  parallel  lines  the  parts  of  an  object  on  which 
those  rays  fall,  whether  coming  directly  from  the  sun  or  indirectly 
by  reflection  from  another  object,  will  be  lit  up;  while  the  parts  on 
which  the  rays  do  not  directly  strike  will  be  darker  because  they 
fall  within  the  shade  cast  by  solid  projections.  The  imitation  of  this 
law  of  nature  in  drawing  gives  the  pencilled  outline  the  aspect  of 
the  real  object.  It  is  the  province  of  Descriptive  Geometry  to  give 
the  mathematical  laws  of  representing  by  a  drawing  on  a  sheet  of 
paper  having  only  two  dimensions,  length  and  breadth,  the  figure  of 
an  object  which  has  three  dimensions,  length,  breadth  and  thickness ; 
for  the  portions  of  an  object  that  will  be  shaded  in  nature,  and  the 
proportions  of  the  drawing  that  must  therefore  be  shaded  in  a  picture 
is  a  matter  to  which  the  invariable  law  of  mathematical  calculation 
may  be  applied.  It  is,  however,  the  habit  of  observation  which  gives 
the  artist  the  practical  science  that  enters  into  this  art. 

The  methods  of  shading,  or  the  combinations  of  lines  by  which 
shades  are  represented  has  differed  in  different  eras,  and  in  the  prac- 


204 


ART   CRITICISM. 


tice  of  diiFerent  masters.  Some  ancient  engravers  covered  the  shaded 
parts  with  a  regular  net  work  of  straight  lines  crossing  each  other  at 
angles  of  about  eighty  degrees ;  thus  giving  a  diamond  or  lozenge- 
shaped  reticulation  to  the  appearance  of  their  work.  '  The  method 
called  "hatching,"  or  hacking,  from  the  French  hacher,  to  hack  or 
notch,  was  favorite  with  English  artists  of  a  century  ago.  This 
style  of  shading  is  accomplished  by  lines  jutting  in  from  the  outline 
at  acute  angles  like  the  chippings  of  a  hatchet  upon  the  edge  of  a 
board ;  a  method  appropriate  for  map  shading,  and  that  required  in 
giving  the  slopes  of  mountains  in  topographical  drawings.  Ruskin 
refers  to  the  fact,  that  Raphael  and  Lionardo  da  Vinci  shaded  with 
short  straight  lines ;  and  he  regards  it  the  mark  of  a  great  master 
when  rounded  surfaces  are  shaded  with  straight  lines.  The  old 
German  masters  varied  much  in  their  style  of  shading;  employing 
lines  straight  or  curved,  dots,  or  rubbings  of  lines  of  India  iijk,  red 
crayon,  or  black  lead  lines,  as  seemed  best  to  suit  their  end ;  varying 
their  method  in  works  of  different  character;  while,  too,  the  same 
artist  had  different  styles  for  the  same  work  at  different  periods  of 
life.  The  great  aim  sought  in  their  methods  seems  to  have  been  to 
secure  a  resemblance  to  Nature  by  as  few  lines  as  possible;  the 
simplest  method  being  esteemed  the  best. 

Sect.  4.  Chiaroscuro  ;  the  gradation  of  light  and  shade. 

In  shading  it  is  important  to  notice  that  in  nature  no  shadow  is 
completely  dark;  but  the  amount  of  light  thrown  upon  different 
objects  and  parts  of  objects  is  at  any  moment  so  varied  that  only  a 
practiced  hand  can  copy  the  gradations  of  shade,  which  every  eye 
practically  observes  in  nature,  though  their  cause  is  not  conceived. 
Rays  of  light  coming  in  direct  lines  from  the  sun  strike  objects  pre- 
senting faces  either  perpendicular  or  oblique  to  the  illuminating 
beams ;  and  these  rays  are  reflected  with  more  or  less  completeness, 
according  to  the  character  of  the  surface,  and  in  directions  corre- 
sponding to  the  inclination  on  which  they  fall.  Thus  objects  in 
nature,  illuminated  by  direct  and  reflected  rays  of  the  sun,  have 
shades  proportioned  to  the  amount  of  light  thus  received.  This 
effect  is  illustrated  to  the  eye  when  two  lamps  in  the  same  room  cast 
each  its  own  separate  shadow  of  any  form  upon  the  white  wall ;  a 
half  shade  being  cast  where  the  light  of  one  only  of  the  two  lamps 
is  cut  off  by  the  object  causing  the  shadow.  In  the  sunlight  the 
number  of  counter  lights  from  reflection  is  without  number,  and  the 
gradations  are  correspondingly  numerous. 


CHIAROSCURO   AND   BINOCULAR  SHADING.  205 

The  Italian  word  chiaroscuro,  a  compound  of  the  words  "clear" 
and  "obscure,"  is  used  to  designate  this  variation  of  shade  in  nature, 
as  also  its  representation  by  the  pencil.  The  successful  execution  of 
chiaroscuro  has  always  characterized  the  climactic  era  of  advance- 
ment in  the  nations  that  have  attained  to  the  true  idea  of  art. 
Lionardo  da  Vinci,  who,  in  the  revival  of  art  in  Italy,  first  taught 
the  principles  of  chiaroscuro  and  of  its  execution,  has  the  following 
among  his  numerous  suggestions :  "  If  you  wish  to  make  good  and 
useful  studies,  use  great  deliberation  in  your  drawings.  Observe 
well  among  the  lights,  which,  and  how  many  hold  the  first  rank  in 
point  of  brightness ;  and  so  among  the  shadow^s  which  are  darker 
than  others.  Observe,  also,  in  what  manner  they  blend  together ; 
compare  the  quantity  and  quality  of  one  with  the  other ;  and  observe 
to  what  part  they  are  directed.  Be  careful  also  of  your  outlines,  or 
divisions  of  the  members.  Remark  well  what  quantity  of  parts  arc 
to  be  on  one  side,  and  what  on  the  other;  and  then  where  they  are 
more  or  less  apparent,  broad  or  slender.  Lastly,  take  care  that  the 
shadows  and  lights  be  united,  or  lost  in  each  other;  without  any 
hard  strokes  or  lines.  As  smoke  loses  itself  in  the  air,  so  are  your 
lights  and  shadows  to  pass  from  one  to  the  other  without  any  appa- 
rent separation."  Ruskin  enlarges  on  the  care  necessary  for  success- 
ful execution  of  the  light  touches  which  indicate  the  shading  of 
water  and  cloud;  the  former  requiring  delicate  curves  among  the 
parallels  to  indicate  shadows  and  ripples ;  while  to  attain  skill  in  the 
latter,  he  recommends  his  pupil  to  draw  a  bunch  of  cotton  placed  in 
the  rays  of  the  sun. 

Sect.   5.    Binocular  vision;    and  its  influence  in  giving  apparent 
reality  to  the  projection  represented  by  shadows. 

It  was  observed  even  as  early  as  the  days  of  Lionardo,  that  the 
two  views  of  a  near  object  afibrded  by  binocular  vision,  or  the  sight 
of  our  two  eyes  looking  upon  the  same  object  at  the  same  instant, 
but  at  different  angles,  greatly  aids  the  impression  of  rotundity;  a 
fact,  which  has  in  later  days  been  specially  illustrated  in  the  Stereo- 
scope. The  projection,  or  throwing  forward  of  the  portion  of  the 
figure  nearest  the  eye,  becomes  the  more  apparent  when  the  object 
viewed  is  so  near  the  two  eyes  that  both  are  turned  at  an  angle 
inward  upon  the  object,  one  eye  looking  upon  it  on  one  side,  and  the 
other  eye  on  the  other  side ;  the  two  eyes  taking  in  the  entire  circuit 
of  its  rotundity.  If,  for  instance,  the  cover  of  a  book,  red  upon  one 
side,  and  white  on  the  other,  be  held  with  its  back  or  thin  edge 

18 


206  ART   CRITICISM. 

directly  before  and  between  the  eyes,  by  closing  first  one  and  then 
the  other  eye,  each  of  the  two  sides  w^ill  be  alternately  seen  alone ; 
while  with  both  eyes  open  both  sides  will  be  seen  together.  If,  again, 
a  book  be  held  at  some  distance  from  the  eyes,  and  before  a  white 
wall,  by  closing  the  left  eye,  the  portion  of  the  wall  on  which  the 
image  of  the  book  falls  will  be  seen  to  be  far  to  the  left  of  the  centre 
of  vision,  in  the  direction  of  a  line  drawn  from  the  right  or  open 
eye  to  the  wall ;  by  closing  the  right  eye,  the  image  will  fall  to  the 
right  of  that  centre  in  the  direction  of  a  line  drawn  from  the  left  or 
open  eye  to  the  wall ;  and  if  both  eyes  be  open,  it  will  be  seen  to 
fall  directly  central  at  a  point  exactly  between  the  two  extremes. 
A  striking  illustration  of  these  two  effects  combined  is  obtained  by 
holding  a  tube,  or  a  roll  of  paper,  between  the  thumb  and  first  finger 
of  the  right  hand,  and  then  looking  through  the  tube  with  the  left 
eye,  while  the  right  eye  views  the  tube  and  hand  on  the  outside. 
The  left  eye  locates  the  tube  too  far  to  the  right,  and  the  right  eye 
locates  the  hand  too  far  to  the  left ;  and  thus  the  tube  appears  to  pass 
directly  through  the  hand. 

Some  modern  writers  on  art  urge  that  the  effect  of  the  stereoscope, 
which  instrument  is  constructed  on  the  principle  here  stated,  should 
be  sought  in  a  pencil  drawing.  As  in  binocular  vision,  or  the  sight 
of  both  eyes,  both  sides  of  an  object  are  seen,  and  thus  its  rotundity 
becomes  real,  so  in  the  stereoscope  two  pictures  of  the  same  object, 
taken  the  one  at  the  angle  presented  to  one  eye,  and  the  other  at 
that  presented  to  the  other  eye,  are  seen  as  one;  because  the  two 
pictures  are  placed  before  the  two  eyes  just  at  the  point  where  in 
natural  vision  the  separate  views  of  the  object  falling  on  the  two 
eyes  were  combined  into  one  view.  It  is  suggested  that  this  effect 
of  the  stereoscope  may  be  secured  in  the  shading  of  a  drawing;  the 
impression  of  roundness  in  the  object  being  attained  by  the  careful 
study  and  copying  of  the  effect  upon  the  organs  of  vision  produced 
in  the  simplest  act  of  sight.  The  bearings  of  this  subject  are  more 
apparent  in  Perspective  than  in  Plane  drawing. 

Sect.  6.  The  Applications  of  Plane  Drawing. 

The  true  artist  will  practice  his  art  for  its  own  sake ;  yet  the  idea 
of  utility  ordinarily  controls  men.  The  most  important  applications 
of  plane  drawing  are  found  in  the  mechanical  arts  and  in  surveying. 
The  manufacturer  of  a  chair  must  first  draw  his  pattern  for  a  new 
fashion ;  and  the  machinist  must  have  the  whole  complicated  contri- 
vance which  he  is  to  execute  in  a  solid  form  first  delineated  in  a 


MECHANICAL    DRAWING   AND   MAP-DRAWING.  207 

plane  drawing.  The  builder,  as  distinguished  from  the  architect, 
must  have^  for  the  simplest  structure  a  ground-plot  plan  of  each 
story  represented  in  outline ;  in  more  tasteful  structures,  as  churches, 
he  requires  the  front  elevation ;  and  in  buildings  of  more  complicated 
interior  and  of  more  elaborate  exterior,  he  must  have  various  sec- 
tional views  presenting  the  perpendicular  face  of  the  interior  sup- 
posed to  be  cut  from  top  to  bottom,  and  also  a  separate  elevation  of 
each  entire  face  or  limited  portion  of  the  exterior  where  the  general 
style  is  varied.  An  extended  application  of  plane  drawing  is 
required  in  the  business  of  the  Patent  agency;  where  a  minute 
drawing  of  every  article  to  be  patented  is  demanded. 

The  business  of  the  surveyor,  including  that  of  the  topographical 
and  hydrographical  engineer,  calls  into  requisition  the  same  art. 
The  humblest  farmer  needs  a  plot  of  his  fields;  and  even  the 
country  maiden  seeks  a  plan  for  her  flower-beds.  This,  to  be  done 
intelligently,  requires  the  theory  derived  from  geometrical  study  and 
practice  with  the  drawing-pencil.  The  mapping  of  a  village,  or 
township,  is  a  higher  and  constantly  required  work ;  while  the  labors 
of  the  corps  of  the  topographical  and  hydrographical  bureaus  con- 
nected with  the  Land  Office  and  Coast  Survey,  is  the  broadest  appli- 
cation of  the  art.  In  the  plotting  of  a  field  a  mere  outline  is 
required ;  the  angles  being  laid  off  and  the  lines  drawn  wdth  the 
appropriate  instrument.  In  the  mapping  of  a  town,  the  outline 
including  the  great  highways,  etc.,  is  to  be  first  laid  down,  as  in  the 
plot  of  a  field ;  and  then  the  varied  delineation  of  roads,  and  water 
courses,  forests  and  open  fields,  houses  and  other  buildings  is  to  be 
artificially  represented  with  the  pencil.  In  ordinary  maps  of  this 
nature,  the  observer  is  regarded  as  looking  from  above,  like  an 
aeronaut  in  a  balloon ;  roads  are  represented  by  two  parallel  lines ; 
railroads  by  two  parallels  with  cross  lines  or  bars,  and  unfinished 
railroads  by  the  absence  of  one  of  the  side  lines;  water  courses  by 
two  lines  varying  slightly  from  parallel  according  to  the  width  of 
the  stream  with  faint  parallels  between ;  plain  land  by  dots  sprinkled 
over  the  surface;  sheets  of  water  by  faint  parallels;  forests  by 
involved  curves  representing  tree  tops  ;  rocky  lands  by  broken  dark 
lines  forming  irregular  figures ;  dwelling-houses  by  small  parallelo- 
grams ;  public  buildings  by  larger  parallelograms  with  dots  for  front 
columns,  or  a  short  spire.  In  maps  of  a  more  extended  region,  the 
parallels  of  latitude  and  the  lines  of  longitude  are  first  drawn ;  then 
the  general  outline  of  sea-coast,  of  mountains,  rivers  and  state  limits ; 
and  then  the  minuter  delineations  of  towns,  high-roads,  lakes,  etc. 


208  ART   CRITICISM. 

The  coast  is  marked  by  short  horizontal  parallels  projecting  from  it; 
and  mountains  by  a  dark-ribbed  delineation  following  the  track 
which  water  courses  flowing  from  them  would  take.  In  the  repre- 
sentation of  sections  of  railroad,  and  of  the  elevation  of  a  country 
above  the  w^ater  level,  it  is  a  horizontal  view  of  a  perpendicular  face 
which  is  given ;  similar  to  a  section  of  a  house.  Upon  a  horizontal 
line  perpendiculars,  of  the  proportionate  height  and  distance  from 
each  other  are  raised,  and  the  outline  of  the  surface  is  drawn  above 
in  broken  curves.  Ledges  of  rock  in  such  outlines  are  represented 
by  oblique  parallels,  water  channels  by  fine  horizontal  parallels,  sand 
by  fine  dots,  and  gravel  by  coarse  dots. 

The  proportion  as  to  size  between  the  object  and  the  drawing  is  in 
mechanical  drawings  from  one-fourth  to  one-eighth  of  the  natural 
object;  in  architectural  drawing  one-fourth  of  an  inch  to  a  foot;  and 
in  maps,  and  plots,  a  given  number  of  inches  to  a  rod,  a  chain  or  a 
mile.  In  the  IT.  S.  Coast  Survey,  the  proportions  in  mapping  are 
expressed  in  fixed  decimals;  varying  according  to  the  size  of  the 
Chart  from  the  proportion  of  1  to  5,000,  up  to  that  of  1  to  400,000. 
In  the  engineer  service,  the  proportion  for  plans  of  buildings  is  1  to 
120;  of  railroad  sections  1  to  600;  of  maps  of  an  extended  country 
1  to  2,640,  oi*  two  feet  to  a  mile ;  the  scale  enlarging  with  the 
extent  of  surface.  The  rule  for  shading  the  slopes  of  hills  and 
mountains  is  also  a  fixed,  though  improving  one;  being  now  for  a 
descent  of  75°,  nine  of  black  to  one  of  white,  and  thence  decreasing 
to  a  slope  of  but  2°  30  in.,  where  the  proportion  is  one  of  black  to 
ten  of  white. 

It  should  be  specially  noted  that  it  is  only  the  first  acquiring  of 
the  power  of  drawdng  in  the  mechanic  arts  that  deserves  the  name 
of  Art.  Art  is  a  living  creation,  rather  than  a  mechanical  making 
of  forms.  The  drawer  of  architectural  designs  and  of  hydrographic 
charts  is  an  artist  only  when  his  business  is  to  conceive  new  forms 
and  to  execute  designs  in  new  methods. 


CHAPTER    II 


PERSPECTIVE  drawing;  the  representing  of  forms  located 
IN  planes  more  or  less  remote. 

In  Plane  Drawing,  the  parts  of  the  single  object  delineated  are 
represented  as  all  of  the  same  dimensions ;  as  they  appear  in  nature 


METHODS   OF   ILLUSTRATING   PERSPECTIVE.  209 

when  the  eye  is  equally  distant  from  every  part.  In  Perspective 
Drawing,  the  gradually  diminished  dimensions  of  the  parts  of  an 
object  represented  as  more  distant  from  the  eye  give  the  aspect  of 
nature  to  a  retreating  outline ;  while  the  same  graduated  diminution 
in  size  of  objects  remote  from  each  other  allows  the  perfect  picture 
of  an  extended  landscape  to  be  put  upon  a  small  tablet. 

Skct.  1.  The  Nature  of  Perspective,  and  of  foreshortening. 

The  term  "perspective"  implies,  as  its  Latin-  derivation  indicates, 
a  looking  through ;  and  a  drawing  in  perspective  is  one  in  which 
there  is  added  to  a  plane  drawing  in  the  foreground  a  lengthened 
view  of  objects  in  the  background.  The  law  of  perspective  is,  that 
objects  diminish  in  size  as  their  distance  from  the  eye  is  increased. 
This  principle  is  dependent  on  the  law  of  optics,  that  the  angle  of 
vision  is  filled  by  a  small  object  near  the  eye,  and  takes  in  objects  at 
a  distance  increasing  in  size  in  proportion  to  that  distance ;  and  it  is 
also  dependent  on  the  geometrical  law,  that  in  triangles,  the  angle 
opposite  to  a  side  of  fixed  length  diminishes  in  proportion  as  the 
length  of  the  sides  containing  it  are  increased.  Drawing  in  per- 
spective is  the  representation  on  a  plane  surface  of  objects  in  nature 
at  less  or  more  remote  distances  behind  that  plane  surface. 

A  simple  method  of  illustrating  to  the  eye  perspective  in  nature 
is  to  look  at  a  landscape  through  a  net  work  of  lines  crossing  each 
other  at  equal  distances;  when  the  largest  object  in  the  distance  will 
be  seen  to  fill  a  square  no  larger  than  that  occupied  by  a  small  object 
near  the  eye.  A  simple  method  of  assuring  the  eye  of  the  geometri- 
cal law  of  diminution  is  to  look  at  any  object,  as  a  man,  across  the 
edge  of  a  graduated  ruler;  when  the  form  which  covers  ten  inches 
near  the  eye  will  be  seen  to  cover  but  five  inches  at  double  that  dis- 
tance. An  easy  method  of  accustoming  the  hand  to  trace  correctly 
the  proportions  of  objects  in  perspective  is  to  hold  a  pane  of  glass 
between  the  eye  and  the  landscape,  and  to  trace  with  the  pencil  upon 
the  glass  the  outline  of  a  row  of  trees,  or  other  similar  objects. 
Euskin,  in  his  popular  treatise  on  Perspective,  recommends  this 
method.  As  this  diminution  of  the  proportions  of  a  retreating 
object  exists  in  two  dimensions,  length  and  breadth,  or  in  both  the 
vertical  and  horizontal  axis  of  the  field  of  vision,  the  proportions  of 
an  object  diminish  as  the  square  of  the  distance  increases.  The  law 
of  heat,  light,  electricity,  and  magnetism,  is  the  same,  since  the  rays 
of  heat,  light,  electric  and  magnetic  attraction  issuing  from  a  centre 
are  diffused  in  space  enlarging  in  two  dimensions;  the  force  that  was 

18*  2  E 


210  ART   CRITICISM. 

expended  on  one  square  inch  of  surface  at  the  distance  of  one  inch 
being  expended  on  four  square  inches  at  a  distance  of  two  inches. 

Plane  and  Perspective  Drawing  are  distinct  in  the  end  they  pro- 
pose, as  well  as  in  their  method.  Plane  drawing  is  designed  to  repre- 
sent only  the  face  of  an  object,  as  a  model  of  a  machine  or  the  front 
of  a  house,  to  be  a  guide  to  a  workman.  It  is  necessary  therefore 
that  every  line  in  the  drawing  should  preserve  its  proportionate 
length.  The  eye  in  executing  the  drawing  is  supposed  to  move  and 
to  place  itself  at  the  ^ame  distance  from  each  part  of  the  figure ;  as 
the  workman  moves  his  position  in  executing  each  part  of  his  work. 
In  a  plane  drawing  therefore,  all  lines  are  parallel  in  the  model  of 
the  draftsman  which  are  parallel  in  the  object  itself,  or  in  the  work 
of  the  mechanic.  In  a  perspective  drawing  the  proportions  of  objects 
and  parts  of  objects  are  to  be  represented  as  they  appear  to  the  eye 
from  one  fixed  point  of  view.  Lines  therefore  which  in  nature  are 
parallel,  as  the  tops  and  bottoms  of  a  row  of  trees,  or  the  eaves  and 
sills  of  a  house,  the  side-walks  of  a  street,  are  made  to  converge  in 
the  drawing  towards  a  point  where  they  would  meet  each  other  in 
the  picture  as  they  apparently  meet  on  the  horizon  in  nature. 

The  execution  of  perspective  in  the  different  parts  of  a  figure 
placed  in  the  foreground,  called  "  foreshortening,"  is  the  most  diffi- 
cult work  in  the  art  of  drawing;  since  it  is  not  the  diminution  of 
size  which  is  to  be  represented  by  the  pencil,  but  it  is  the  careful 
imitation,  by  the  character  of  the  lines  employed  in  the  drawing,  of 
the  appearance  presented  to  the  eye  when  an  object  is  placed  obliquely 
to  the  line  of  vision.  This  effect  is  illustrated  by  taking  a  pencil,  a 
walking  stick,  or  any  long  and  slender  object,  and  holding  it  first 
upright,  perpendicular  before  the  eye ;  then  turning  it  slowly  at 
every  angle  through  a  quarter  of  a  circle,  or  an  arc  of  90°.  In  this 
process  first  the  entire  length  of  the  pencil  is  in  the  field  of  vision; 
then  a  gradual  diminishing  of  the  length  is  observed ;  until  finally 
the  small  circle  of  the  end  of  the  pencil,  alone  seen,  covers  and  hides 
from  view  its  entire  length.  The  representation  by  mere  lines  in  a 
drawing  of  these  varied  changes  apparent  in  nature  to  the  eye, 
requires  the  highest  skill  in  the  art  of  drawing.  In  the  human 
figure  foreshortening  is  required  in  the  limbs  when  a  portion  of  the 
leg  of  a  person  seated,  or  of  the  arm  resting  on  a  table  is  to  be  repre- 
sented obliquely,  at  an  angle  with  the  other  part  of  the  same  limb. 
It  is  also  to  be  studied  in  the  drawing  of  an  animal  lying  or  mov- 
ing with  his  limbs  and  body  advanced  towards  the  beholder ;  also  in 


PRACTICAL  METHODS   OF   EXECUTING   PERSPECTIVE.      211 

a  landscape  drawing  where  trees  or  other  objects  are  leaning  in  dif- 
ferent directions. 

Sect.  2.  The  Practical  Execution  of  Drawing  in  Perspective;  and 
Artificial  Method^  of  illustrating  its  Principle. 

The  practical  execution  of  •  perspective  in  drawing  is  usually 
acquired  by  pupils  before  they  comprehend  its  theoretical  principles 
as  taught  in  Descriptive  Geometry.  This  knowledge  can  only  be 
gained  by  a  long  training  of  the  eye  to  measure  proportional  diminu- 
tion of  forms  occasioned  by  distance ;  added  to  the  training  of  the 
hand,  as  in  plane  drawing,  to  the  delineation  of  those  forms  in  lines. 
Teachers  of  art  suggest  that  the  first  lessons  of  the  student  in  per- 
spective be  the  copying  of  the  best  engravings;  or  rather  the  study 
of  the  method  of  the  engraver  in  the  execution  of  perspective.  Pro- 
ceeding then  to  nature  the  first  attempts  should  be  made  in  delineat- 
ing the  faces  of  objects  with  regular  straight  sides,  as  a  cubic  block, 
a  house  with  its  windows,  or  a  door  standing  open  at  different  angles. 
The  drawing  of  the  top  of  a  cup  or  drinking  glass,  placed  at  different 
angles  to  the  eye,  gives  practice  in  tracing  curves  in  perspective. 
These  lessons  in  single  objects  may  be  followed  by  drawing  regular 
rows  of  trees  and  houses  and  chairs ;  then  rows  of  animals  and  men. 
As  a  last  study  portions  of  landscape  more  and  more  extended  may 
be  attempted ;  until  finally  all  that  the  eye  can  take  in  without  turn- 
ing the  head,  or  the  space  included  in  an  angle  of  from  40°  to  60°, 
may  be  brought  into  the  same  picture. 

Artificial  aids  have  been  recommended  by  the  best  artists  in  the 
first  effort  to  fix  the  measure  of  diminution  in  perspective.  Thus 
Pietro  di  Borgo,  the  earliest  modern  writer  on  the  science,  suggested 
the  tracing  of  perspective  on  glass  covered  with  a  thin  coating  of 
wax  or  varnish,  and  held  between  the  eye  and  the  landscape  which 
is  to  be  brought  into  the  perspective  view.  Albert  Durer  con- 
structed a  machine  which  could  be  adjusted  so  as  directly  to  mea- 
sure the  proportions  of  objects  in  perspective.  Other  teachers  have 
suggested  the  holding  of  a  thin  paper  on  which  the  drawing  is  to  be 
taken  again  and  again  before  the  eyes,  and  looking  at  the  line  of 
objects  across  the  edge  till  their  proportionate  height  and  breadth 
compared  with  that  of  the  drawing  paper  is  fixed.  In  times  quite 
modern  Ruskin  has  recommended  that  in  studying  the  proportions 
of  the  landscape  a  pane  of  window  glass  with  a  wooden  frame  be 
employed ;  on  which  the  eye  and  pencil,  without  leaving  any  impres- 
sion of  course,  may  trace  again  and  again  each  feature  in  its  appa- 


212  AKT  CRITICISM. 

rent  dimensions.  Yet  others  have  recommended  the  use  of  a  jointed 
ruler  opening  with  its  joint  farthest  from  the  eye,  so  that  its  sides 
sloping  to  an  angle,  shall  take  in  and  range  with  the  perspective 
lines  of  the  objects  to  be  copied;  when, by  placing  the  ruler  on  the 
drawing  paper  and  tracing  lines  along  the  inside  of  the  arms  till 
they  meet  at  the  joint  of  the  ruler  rows  of  houses,  trees  or  other 
objects  may  be  drawn  of  the  altitude  conformable  to  the  law  of  per- 
spective. The  eye,  however,  should  soon  come  to  be  its  own  mea- 
surer in  fixing  and  following  the  perspective  lines;  as  in  a  plane 
drawing,  the  eye  must  learn  to  measure  the  proportions  of  objects 
drawn  after  a  given  scale. 

In  delineating  objects  in  the  extreme  background,  the  skill  of  the 
artist  is  tested  in  giving  the  indistinct  outline  as  well  as  the  dimin- 
ished size  of  objects  but  dimly  seen.  This  principle,  quite  distinct 
from  though  associated  with  Aerial  Perspective,  Euskin  practically 
discusses,  suggesting  many  valuable  hints  as  to  the  delineation  of 
the  outline  of  trees,  clouds,  etc.,  in  the  distance.  It  is  so  natural  in 
drawing  to  present  what  would  he  seen  if  we  were  near  the  object, 
rather  than  what  is  seen  at  a  distance,  that  the  rule  requiring  a  com- 
plete study  of  nature  in  this  respect  cannot  be  too  strongly  urged. 
In  sketching  distant  groups  of  trees,  for  example,  it  is  not  the  work- 
ing up  of  details,  not  the  tracing  of  the  undistinguished  leaf,  that  is 
to  enable  the  beholder  to  discriminate  between  the  elm,  the  oak,  the 
pine;  but  it  is  the  less  studied  yet  equally  manifest  difference  in 
general  contour,  both  of  single  trees  and  of  a  group,  which  is  alone 
visible  in  the  distance,  and  which  the  genuine  artist  will  seek  to 
attain. 

Sect.  3.    The   Lines  and  Points   to  be  first  fixed  in  Perspective 

Draaving. 

In  perspective  drawing  the  horizontal  line,  or  more  properly  "the 
line  of  the  horizon,"  i§  to  be  fixed  at  the  outset;  or  that  line  toward 
which  all  the  lines  in  the  perspective  tend.  In  looking  into  the  dis- 
tance on  the  earth's  surface,  whether  over  the  land  or  sea,  there  is  a 
line  at  the  remotest  point  visible  where  the  sky  and  earth  seem  to 
meet.  This  appearance  does  not  result  as  might  be  hastily  supposed 
from  the  rotundity  of  the  earth ;  for  in  looking  through  a  straight 
passage,  like  the  Thames  tunnel,  the  floor  seems  gradually  to  rise 
and  the  ceiling  to  be  depressed  until  they  meet  in  the  remote  dis- 
tance. Thus,  too,  the  whole  heavens,  for  a  reason  to  be  considered 
under  "  Curvilinear  Perspective,"  seem  to  be  a  concave ;  the  line  of 


THE   FIXING   OF  THE   HOKIZONTAL   LINE.  213 

the  clouds  and  stars  seeming  to  be  bent  into  a  sloping  plain.  This 
line  in  nature  where  objects  above  and  below  the  eye  seem  to  meet 
was  called  by  the  Greeks  the  horizon,  from  the  Greek  verb  orizo  to 
limit.  Towards  this  line  the  outlines  of  all  intervening  objects  in  the 
landscape,  as  the  tops  and  bottoms  of  trees,  seem  to  slope  upward 
from  below  and  downward  from  above.  The  science  of  perspective 
teaches  us  to  copy  in  a  drawing  made  with  the  pencil  this  law  of 
vision.  In  making  a  sketch  from  nature  this  line  towards  which  all 
lines  lying  in  horizontal  planes  above  and  below  must  converge,  is 
first  to  be  fixed  in  its  position  on  the  drawing  paper. 

To  aid  in  fixing  this  first  line  Lionardo  da  Vinci  gave  this  rule; 
"  The  point  of  sight  must  be  taken  on  a  level  with  the  eyes  of  a  com- 
mon man,  and  be  placed  upon  the  horizon ;  which  is  the  line  formed 
by  a  flat  country  terminating  with  the  sky."  Common  men  occupy- 
ing their  natural  position,  standing  on  the  earth,  have  their  eyes 
elevated  about  five  feet  above  the  general  level ;  while  most  objects, 
as  houses,  trees,  hills,  and  mountains,  rise  far  above  that  level,  and 
of  course  above  the  artist's  eye.  In  an  ordinary  perspective  view, 
therefore,  the  horizontal  line  is  naturally  placed  near  the  bottom  of 
the  picture;  because  of  this  natural  position  of  man  as  the  beholder. 
The  bird,  however,  unlike  man,  soars  above  the  earth ;  and  there  is 
more  below  than  above  his  horizon.  In  taking  a  view  from  a  moun- 
tain top,  from  a  lofty  rock,  or  from  an  elevated  steeple,  the  artist 
occupies  the  position  of  the  bird;  and  hence  is  said  to  take  a  "birds- 
eye  view."  In  general,  the  elevation,  supposed  or  real,  of  the  artist's 
stand-point  while  taking  the  view,  determines  the  height  on  the  pic- 
ture of  the  horizontal  line;  both  the  nature  of  the  scene  copied,  and 
of  the  general  aspect  of  the  country  familiar  to  the  artist,  guiding 
him  in  this  particular.  In  views  of  the  interior  of  an  elevated  edi- 
fice, as  a  cathedral,  the  height  of  the  horizontal  line  is  about  one- 
tenth  of  the  distance  from  the  bottom  to  the  top  of  the  picture ;  in 
architectural  exterior  views  of  houses,  streets,  etc.,  one-sixth;  in 
extended  landscapes  one-third  or  fourth ;  in  domestic  scenes  one-half 
or  one-third;  and  in  historical  paintings,  where  a  limited  field  is 
brought  in,  about  three-fifths  of  the  same  distance. 

While,  however,  in  many  classes  of  scenes  for  the  pencil,  artists 
of  every  clime  and  age  would  agree  in  the  height  at  which  they 
would  fix  their  horizontal  line,  in  landscape  sketches  artists  of  dif- 
ferent lands  and  schools  have  greatly  diftered.  The  painters  of  the 
Flemish  school,  accustomed  to  the  perfectly  level  lowlands  of  Hol- 
land, with  no  raised  stand  point,  fixed  the  line  of  their  horizon  very 


214  ART   CRITICISM. 

low;  while  Swiss,  Scotch,  and  Italian  artists,  from  the  opposite 
character  of  the  surface  of  their  native  countries,  followed  as  natu- 
rally an  opposite  rule.  In  the  period  previous  to  Raphael,  the 
horizontal  line  was  often  fixed  at  the  extreme  height  of  four-fifths, 
and  even  of  nine-tenths  of  the  altitude  of  the  picture,  thus  giving  to 
their  works  the  aspect  of  birds-eye  views,  and  precluding  the  execu- 
tion of  landscape  proper.  The  design  of  this  method  was  to  furnish 
a  large  field  for  the  front  view  and  action ;  thus  leaving  little  for  the 
background  and  the  repose  of  the  picture.  The  extremes  of  this 
class  of  painting  are  those  in  which  several  separate  but  successive 
scenes  are  introduced  into  the  same  painting  which  really  are  so 
many  separate  pictures;  as  in  those  presenting  the  seven  diflferent 
incidents  of  Jesus'  progress  from  the  hall  of  judgment  to  the  place 
of  crucifixion.  In  general,  the  rule  may  be  stated ;  in  a  perspective 
drawing,  the  horizontal  line,  or  the  line  where  sky  and  earth  seem 
to  meet,  is  placed  higher  or  lower  on  the  picture  according  to  the 
height  of  the  artist's  elevation,  or  to  the  extent  of  the  field  of  action 
embraced  in  his  picture. 

After  fixing  the  horizontal  line,  the  point  on  that  line  called  "  the 
vanishing  point/'  is  to  be  fixed.  Since  objects  in  perspective  diminish 
in  two  dimensions,  as  lines  above  and  below  the  eye  seem  in  nature 
to  converge  to  a  horizontal  line  in  the  distance,  so  lines  on  either 
side  of  the  eye  seem  to  converge  from  either  hand  to  one  point  on 
that  line.  In  the  picture  made  with  the  pencil,  which  has  two 
dimensions,  height  and  breadth,  the  lines  which  copy  objects  of 
vision  must  follow  the  law  of  vision  and  converge  from  either  side 
of  the  drawing,  as  they  do  from  its  top  and  bottom.  The  point 
towards  which  the  pencil  lines  thus  converge  is  called  "the  vanishing 
point,''  because  at  that  point  in  the  plane  of  vision  all  objects  seem 
to  vanish ;  being  lost  to  view  in  the  distance.  It  is  on  the  horizontal 
line,  and  at  the  point  in  that  line  which  is  immediately  before  the 
eye  of  the  artist  when  in  position  to  take  in  the  whole  of  his  picture 
without  turning  his  head.  In  any  drawing  there  may  be  subsidiary 
vanishing  points  to  which  the  lines  of  certain  portions  of  the  picture 
converge ;  points  located  within  the  picture,  or  without  it,  on  either 
side;  but  all  lying  in  the  horizontal  line  prolonged.  The  principal 
vanishing  point  is  the  one  to  which  all  lines  parallel  to  the  line  of 
vision  tend ;  as  the  walls  of  a  hall,  the  sides  of  a  street  or  valley 
down  which  the  artist  is  looking ;  who  will  generally  select  for  his 
view  a  point  from  which  the  lines  of  objects  tending  to  one  centre 
may  be  brought  into  view.     The  principal  vanishing  point,  therefore, 


POSITION   OF   VANISHING   OF   EYE   POINTS.  215 

will  usually  be  the  centre  of  the  picture;  or,  as  the  artist  working 
with  his  right  hand  stands  a  little  nearer  the  left  than  to  the  right 
side  of  his  picture,  it  will  be  before  his  eye  at  his  main  standing 
point.  In  the  "Last  Supper"  of  Lionardo  da  Vinci,  for  example, 
the  vanishing  point  is  at  the  eye  of  Christ  in  the  very  centre  of  the 
group.  For  subsidiary  parts  of  the  picture,  as  for  the  ends  of  build- 
ings whose /roiife  tend  to  the  principal  vanishing  point,  it  is  always 
necessary  that  there  be  one  or  more  vanishing  points  additional  to  the 
principal  one ;  since  the  eye  turns  to  one  point  in  tracing  one  side  of  a 
building,  and  to  another  in  tracing  another  side  at  right  angles  with 
the  first.  Again,  in  an  extended  picture  a  change  in  the  position  of 
the  beholder  is  required;  while  even  tAVO  adjacent  objects,  on  account 
of  their  different  adjustment,  may  require  a  different  point  on  the 
horizon  to  which  their  lines  of  perspective  shall  be  made  to  tend. 
In  a  perspective  view  of  a  hall  the  centre  would  naturally  be  the 
principal  vanishing  point,  and  all  chairs,  benches,  etc.,  standing  in 
regular  adjustment,  or  in  symmetry  with  the  parts  of  the  hall,  would 
have  the  same  common  vanishing  point  for  their  front,  and  the  same 
subsidiary  vanishing  points  for  their  side  lines ;  but  if  one  article  of 
furniture  be  standing  obliquely  to  another,  it  must  have  its  own  sepa- 
rate vanishing  points.  The  same  is  true  to  a  greater  extent  in  a 
large  field  with  many  moving  figures ;  as  lines  of  soldiere,  etc. 

The  "  distance-point,"  or  "  eye-point,"  is  of  equal  importance  with 
the  "vanishing  point,"  since  the  one  is  in  a  measure  affected  by  the 
other.  As  the  vanishing  point  is  the  point  within,  or  rather  behind 
the  picture  to  which  the  lines  of  light  falling  upon  the  scene  in 
nature  all  converge,  so  the  distance-point  is  the  point  without  the 
picture,  in  front  of  it,  to  which  the  lines  of  light  coming  from  each 
part  of  the  picture  to  the  eye  of  the  beholder  also  converge.  The 
artist  constructs  his  work  with  the  design  that  it  be  viewed  from  his 
own  fixed  point  of  view  in  front  of  the  picture,  and  at  a  certain  dis- 
tance ;  which  can  be  easily  ascertained  by  the  beholder.  The  main 
vanishing  point  must  then  also  be  precisely  opposite  this  point  of 
view.  This  point  is  therefore  called  "  the  eye  point,"  in  its  relation 
to  the  principal  vanishing  point,  in  contradistinction  from  numerous 
accidental  vanishing  points,  which  in  a  varied  view  of  buildings, 
streets,  etc.,  are  scattered  along  the  horizon,  and  are  caused  by 
the  diversity  of  angles  at  which  streets  and  buildings  lead  to  the 
horizon.  Its  distance,  therefore,  in  front  of  the  picture,  must  be 
just  that  which  is  necessary  in  order  that  the  entire  surface  of  the 
picture  be  covered  by  the  eye's  field  of  view ;  or  that  point  where 


216  ART   CRITICISM. 

every  part  of  the  picture  without  the  turning  of  the  eye  will  fall 
within  the  angle  of  vision.  The  two  designations,  eye  and  distance, 
applied  to  this  point  indicate  two  distinct  facts ;  the  first  that  the 
point  is  in  the  line  of  the  eye  as  it  views  the  picture ;  the  second  that  it 
is  at  a  fixed  position  in  that  line.  The  importance  of  correct  adjust- 
ment of  this  point  is  indicated  by  Ruskin,  who  says,  to  young  artists, 
"  Fii^st  fix  the  station-point,  or  distance  at  which  you  will  stand  from 
your  picture."  As  to  the  distance  to  be  chosen,  Lionardo  da  Vinci 
gave  the  following  directions:  "Remember  that  objects  diminish  in 
size  as  distance  increases.  In  calculating  this  diminution,  stand  at 
twice  the  length  of  your  picture  from  it.  Remember  that  if  you 
vary  your  distance,  you  vary  the  rate  of  diminution.  It  must  be 
0716  point,  not  only  in  distance,  but  also  in  elevation  and  laterally. 
It  should  be  on  a  level  with  the  eye  of  a  man  of  ordinary  stature." 
Raphael's  chosen  distance  for  the  eye  of  the  beholder  was  one  and 
one  half  the  breadth  of  his  picture.  Some  subjects,  however,  require 
three  lengths  of  the  picture  as  the  distance  of  the  eye-point;  the 
larger  dimension,  whether  height  or  breadth,  being  the  one  to  regard. 
In  all  cases  it  should  be  the  point  where  the  field  of  distinct  vision 
just  takes  in  at  a  single  glance,  and  without  the  turning  of  the  eye 
the  entire  picture ;  while  at  the  same  time  the  eye  can  be  directed  to 
each  separate  part  of  the  picture  without  the  turning  of  the  head. 
The  practical  effect  of  an  error  in  this  respect  is  seen  when  in  taking 
a  daguerreotype  likeness,  one  part  of  the  person,  as  a  hand,  is 
advanced  in  front  of  the  other  parts ;  and  being  daguerreotyped  at  a 
nearer  distance  point,  is  enlarged  in  dimensions. 

The  power  of  the  artist  is  most  seen  in  the  selection  of  "  eye-points" 
w4ien  very  large  paintings  are  to  be  examined  from  different  points 
of  view.  The  highest  perfection  and  greatest  triumphs  of  the  art 
of  perspective  have  hence  been  achieved  in  the  extended  views  made 
up  of  successive  scenes  brought  into  single  fresco  paintings  on  the 
walls  and  ceilings  of  the  Churches  and  palaces  of  Europe.  By  the 
power  of  this  art  whole  interiors  are  transformed  into  an  ever-chang- 
ing variety  and  succession  of  magnificent  halls  and  corridors  with 
windows  and  porticoes  opening  on  boundless  landscapes ;  while  low 
ceilings  and  artificial  cupolas  seem  as  by  the  power  of  enchantment 
to  open  up  to  the  very  heavens,  where  fairy  spirits  float  in  ether  far 
beyond  the  clouds.  But  all  such  paintings  have  a  certain  point  from 
which  they  must  be  viewed;  otherwise  the  illusion  fails  and  the 
enchantment  is  lost. 


THE   RELATION   OF   PROJECTION   TO   PERSPECTIVE.        217 


Sect.  4.  Principles  of  Descriptive  Geometry  and  Projection  entering 
INTO  Perspective  Drawing. 

Though  native  genius  for  art  may  enable  the  pupil  to  become 
practically  efficient  in  the  execution  of  perspective  drawing,  yet  in 
art,  as  in  all  other  human  pursuits,  theoretical  knowledge  of  the 
science  that  enters  into  the  art  is  of  7nost  importance  to  the  artist 
himself,  while  it  is  all  important  to  the  educated  lover  of  art  who 
has  little  or  no  time  for  its  practice.  An  engineer  may  be  skilful 
without  a  training  in  the  mathematical  principles  that  enter  into  his 
profession ;  but  he  will  be  at  a  loss  when  any  new  application  of  his 
mere  experience  is  called  for.  The  science  of  engineering  is  most 
important  to  the  practical  man  and  all  important  to  the  general 
student.  So  the  unscientific  artist  can  only  be  a  copyist  of  old  ideas 
and  of  former  applications.  To  originate  new  conceptions  and 
execute  his  own  individually  conceived  forms  and  combinations  of 
form  in  perspective,  the  artist  must  be  master  of  the  geometrical 
principles  that  underlie  all  practical  experience.  The  College 
student  should  have  made  thorough  mastery  of  the  science  of 
Descriptive  Geometry;  then  it  will  be  a  delight  unequalled  perhaps 
by  any  other  in  the  course  of  his  College  studies  to  find  how  perfect 
and  admirable  is  the  dependence  of  all  the  laws  of  beauty, 
grandeur,  and  sublimity  on  pure  and  exact  science.  A  brief  refer- 
ence to  the  main  applications  of  geometrical  principles  to  perspective 
is  all  that  is  possible  in  a  condensed  and  fragmentary  treatise  on  Art 
Criticism. 

The  leading  object  of  Descriptive  Geometry  is  to  present  the  laws 
for  representing  with  mathematical  accuracy  the  visual  appearance 
of  objects  having  three  dimensions  on  a  j)lane  having  but  two  dimen- 
sions. This  representation  is  called  in  scientific  language  the  projec- 
tion of  an  object.  The  plane  on  which  this  representation  is  drawn 
is  called  the  plane  of  projection,  or  the  perspective  plane.  Every  por- 
tion of  the  thickness  of  an  object  viewed  in  front  of  the  eye  lies  in 
one  of  a  series  of  vertical  planes,  or  of  planes  perpendicular  to  the 
line  of  vision ;  and  every  portion  of  the  height  of  the  same  object  also 
lies  in  a  series  of  horizontal  planes,  or  of  planes  parallel  to  the  line 
of  vision.  In  projection,  which  presents  only  the  visual  face  of  an 
object,  all  the  parts  of  the  object  viewed  are  referred  to  two  single 
planes  called  "the  vertical  plane"  and  "the  horizontal  plane;"  and 
the  main  requisite  for  an  artist,  so  far  as  Geometry  is  concerned,  is 

19  2  C  ^^j?B^4-^ 


218  ART   CRITICISM. 

to  be  able  to  transfer  the  representations  on  both  these  two  planes  to 
one  and  the  same  plane  of  projection  or  of  perspective. 

For  the  purposes  of  geometrical  delineation  and  calculation  these 
two  planes,  the  vertical  and  horizontal,  are  supposed  to  be  perpen- 
dicular the  one  to  the  other.  In  nature  the  objects  to  be  represented, 
whether  lying  at  length  as  a  fallen  column  on  the  horizontal  plane 
or  rising  like  an  upright  column  above  the  horizon  in  the  vertical 
plane,  are  few  of  them  really  in  a  plane  horizontal  or  vertical,  i.  e. 
parallel  to  or  perpendicular  to  the  line  of  vision ;  but  they  lean  in 
different  directions,  and  in  some  of  their  parts  present  themselves  at 
every  possible  angle  of  obliquity  to  the  line  of  vision:  yet  in  projec- 
tion the  dimensions  of  all  objects  are  referred  to  these  two  planes. 
The  law  of  the  diminution  of  objects  seen  thus  obliquely  is  import- 
ant ;  as  also  the  execution  of  this  law  is  difficult  in  what  is  called 
"foreshortening,"  or  that  shortening  of  the  length  of  an  object  which 
arises  from  its  being  before  the  eye.  The  diminution  of  objects  seen 
in  the  distance  is  in  both  dimensions  height  and  breadth  of  the  same 
proportion ;  while  the  diminution  of  objects  shortened  by  their  obli- 
quity to  the  line  of  vision  when  before  the  eye,  is  greater  in  the 
dimension  that  is  in  a  line  oblique  to  the  line  of  vision  than  in  the 
dimension,  whether  height  or  breadth  which  is  not  oblique  to  that 
line. 

Descriptive  Geometry  treats  first  of  the  methods  of  projecting  on 
the  plane  of  the  drawing,  single  objects  with  straight  or  curved  lines 
as  their  contour;  second,  of  drawing  straight  lines  and  plane  surfaces 
as  tangents  to  curved  lines  and  curved  surfaces,  such  as  circles  and 
spheres,  ellipses  and  ellipsoids ;  and  third,  the  method  of  representing 
the  intersections  of  various  bodies  bounded  by  curved  lines  as  cylin- 
ders, cones,  etc.,  which  cut  each  other. 

The  first  subject  may  be  illustrated  by  a  simple  method.  A  book 
set  upon  its  edge  on  a  table  may  represent  the  vertical,  while  the 
table  represents  the  horizontal  plane.  If  a  long,  slender  object,  as  a 
pencil,  be  held  first  parallel  to,  then  obliquely  to  these  two  planes  ita 
trace  will  be  straight  or  bent  according  as  it  falls  in  one  or  both 
planes.  Holding  the  cover  of  a  book  horizontally,  so  that  its  edge 
only  is  presented  to  the  eye,  its  trace  in  the  vertical  plane  will  be 
observed  to  be  only  a  straight  narrow  line  on  that  plane,  whereas 
if  looked  upon  from  above  it  will  be  projected  in  its  full  length 
and  breadth  on  the  horizontal  plane;  while  if  viewed  from  any 
point  between  the  horizontal  and  vertical  position  the  entire  length 
with  more  or  less  diminished  breadth  will  fall  on  one  or  both  planes. 


THE   THREE   OBJECTS   OF   DESCRIPTIVE   GEOMETRY.       219 

A  coin  thus  held,  is  but  a  line  upon  the  vertical  plane  when  viewed 
horizontally ;  it  is  a  circle  on  the  horizontal  plane  when  viewed  from 
above ;  and  it  is  an  ellipse  of  greater  or  less  eccentricity  when  viewed 
from  any  point  between  the  vertical  and  horizontal  positions.  When 
thus  the  eye  has  been  trained  to  this  observation  with  the  two  planes, 
the  same  experiments  may  be  tried  with  the  single  plane  on  which 
the  drawing  is  to  be  executed. 

The  second  portion  of  Descriptive  Geometry  may  also  be  familiarly 
illustrated,  A  bright  sheet  of  tin  seems  to  glisten  at  every  point  in 
the  sun ;  since  its  rays  striking  every  point  of  the  surface  at  the  same 
angle  are  also  reflected  at  the  same  angle.  Upon  a  cylindrical  tube, 
however,  there  will  be  seen  a  single  narrow  line  of  light  from  top  to 
bottom ;  this  line  alone  standing  in  such  a  position  to  both  the  sun's 
light  and  the  observer's  eye  that  the  angles  made  by  each  with  the 
tube  are  equal.  Upon  a  globe  the  field  of  reflection  will  be  but  a 
single  round  bright  spot  at  the  corresponding  angle.  If  the  curved 
body  from  which  the  reflection  comes  be  an  ellipsoid  the  field  of 
bright  reflection  will  take  a  corresponding  shape.  Thus  the  bright 
spot  called  the  white  of  the  eye,  indicates  by  its  location  the  direction 
in  which  the  eye  is  turned.  The  point  on  the  sphere,  and  the  line  on 
the  cylinder  where  the  reflection  is  seen,  is  the  portion  of  the  curved 
surface  which  would  be  touched  by  a  plane  made  tangent  to  that  sur- 
face. Though  the  applications  of  this  principle  are  wider  in  sculp- 
ture, in  which  Art  every  part  of  the  curved  form,  as  of  a  statue,  is 
conceived  as  lying  under  tangent  planes  from  whose  surface  the  dis- 
tance of  each  part  is  carefully  calculated,  yet  in  drawing,  as  Lio- 
nardo  da  Vinci  indicates  by  the  large  space  he  gave  to  Reflexes  in 
his  teaching,  important  applications  of  it  are  to  be  made. 

The  third  subject  treated  in  Descriptive  Geometry  may  be  ob- 
served in  the  juncture  of  the  stones  in  an  arch,  or  in  the  joinings  of 
mouldings  in  the  ornamental  carved  work  of  doors;  whose  difficult 
attainment  has  made  the  name  "joiner"  the  designation  of  a  profes- 
sion in  the  mechanic  arts.  The  power  to  draw  the  appearance  of 
such  junctures,  and  that  at  every  conceivable  angle,  is  practically 
acquired  by  much  labor;  while  the  method  in  theory  can  only  be 
learned  by  careful  study  of  Descriptive  Geometry. 

As  the  Plotting  of  Maps  of  a  limited  extent  of  country,  in  which 
the  sphericity  of  the  earth's  form  is  not  regarded,  belongs  to  the 
subject  of  Plane  Drawing,  so  to  the  department  of  Perspective  Draw- 
ing, or  of  Descriptive  Geometry  in  its  relation  to  Perspective,  belongs 
the  consideration  of  the  projection  upon  the  plane  of  a  map  of  the 


220  AET   CRITICISM. 

hemispheres  which  make  up  the  globe.  In  representing  this  projec- 
tion four  methods  have  been  pursued ;  which  differ  from  each  other 
chiefly  in  the  distance  at  which  the  eye  is  supposed  to  be  placed  in 
viewing  the  hemisphere  thus  projected. 

In  ordinary  maps  of  the  world  the  division  of  the  globe  is  for  con- 
venience made  into  the  Eastern  and  Western  Hemispheres;  the 
former  including  the  continents  of  Asia,  Africa  and  Europe,  and  the 
latter  those  of  North  and  South  America,  with  a  portion  of  the  two 
intervening  oceans  skirting  each  border.  Each  hemisphere  of  course 
takes  in  precisely  one-half  of  the  entire  globe;  the  poles  being  the 
Northern  and  Southern  limits,  and  the  circles  of  longitude  20°  West 
and  160°  East  of  Greenwich,  being  the  Eastern  and  Western  limits. 
In  projecting  these  hemispheres  upon  the  plane  of  the  map  the  eye  is 
supposed  to  be  over  the  central  point ;  which  in  the  Eastern  hemi- 
sphere would  be  at  the  intersection  of  the  equator  and  of  the  circle 
of  longitude  70°  East  of  Greenwich,  and  in  the  Western  hemisphere 
at  the  intersection  of  the  equator  with  the  circle  of  110°  West 
longitude. 

In  the  first  method  of  projection  the  eye  is  supposed  to  be  at  an 
infinite  distance ;  or,  what  would  be  equivalent,  it  may  be  regarded 
as  moved  so  as  to  be  perpendicularly  over  each  point  of  the  circular 
plane  which  forms  the  base  of  the  hemisphere.  In  this  case,  the 
hemisphere  projected  'is  the  one  nearest  to  the  eye,  or  the  one  above 
the  plane  of  projection;  and  the  portions  of  the  hemisphere  nearest 
to  the  periphery  must  of  course  be  represented  only  in  profile  and 
greatly  compressed.  A  map  of  the  sun  or  moon  made  by  one  on 
the  earth's  surface  must  of  course  be  of  this  description.  This  mode 
of  projection  was  known  to  the  ancient  Greeks,  and  was  called  by 
them  analemma.  It  is  now  styled  "Orthographic;"  the  lines  of 
vision  all  being  parallel  to  each  other,  and  at  right  angles  to  the 
plane  of  projection.  It  was  by  this  method  the  Grecian  astronomers 
represented  their  celestial  sphere  in  a  plane. 

In  the  second  method  of  projection  the  eye  is  supposed  to  be 
placed  at  the  centre  of  the  sphere.  This  method  was  also  known  to 
the  ancient  Greeks,  and  was  called  by  them  "Gnomonic,"  from  the 
Gnomon,  or  triangular  upright  of  the  dial  which  radiates  from  the 
centre.  In  this  mode  of  projection,  as  the  position  of  the  eye  is  the 
extreme  opposite  of  the  former,  so  the  objection  to  it  is  an  opposite 
one ;  the  exterior  portions  of  the  map  are  distorted  by  being  expanded 
beyond  their  proper  proportions,  instead  of  as  in  orthographic  pro- 
jection being  contracted  too  much. 


i 


MODES  OF  PROJECTION  IN  MAPS  OF  HEMISPHERES.         221 

Again,  as  a  third  method,  the  eye  may  be  on  the  surface  of  the 
sphere  at  the  intersection  point  of  the  equator  and  central  circle  of 
longitude.  In  this  case  the  hemisphere  projected  is  the  one  opposite 
the  eye;'  and  the  plane  of  projection  is  the  great  circle  forming  the 
base  of  that  hemisphere.  This  mode  of  projection  was  also  known 
to  the  ancients ;  the  geometrician,  Hipparchus,  seeming  to  have  been 
its  inventor;  and  it  was  called  by  them  planisphere,  because  by  it  a 
sphere  is  represented  upon  a  plane.  Ptolemy,  the  geographer,  wrote 
a  treatise  on  it  and  employed  it  in  his  maps.  This  was  translated 
into  the  Arabic  when  that  people  became  eminent  in  Astronomy; 
and  it  became  to  them  an  introduction  to  Trigonometrical  calcula- 
tions. In  this  mode  of  projection  every  line  from  the  eye  to  the 
plane  of  perspective,  except  the  one  over  the  centre,  strikes  the  plane 
of  projection  at  an  angle  less  than  a  right  angle;  and  hence  every 
part  of  the  hemisphere  represented,  especially  at  the  periphery,  is 
more  or  less  distorted.  This  method,  however,  is  far  preferable  to 
either  of  the  others  mentioned. 

A  fourth  method  of  projection  has  at  a  later  era  been  employed, 
designed  to  correct  the  imperfection  even  of  the  third  method.  The 
effort  was  to  fix  a  point  outside  the  upper  portion  of  the  sphere  from 
which  the  lower  hemisphere  could  be  so  viewed  as  to  make  the  dis- 
tances intercepted  by  the  lines  of  vision  on  the.  area  of  the  project- 
ing plane,  which  is  the  great  circle  dividing  the  hemispheres,  as 
nearly  as  possible  proportionate  to  the  arcs  of  the  projected  hemi- 
sphere intercepted  by  the  same  lines  of  vision.  No  single  point 
could  of  course  be  fixed  which  would  meet  this  condition ;  though  a 
movable  point  might  be  made  to  answer.  The  best  point  is  that  at 
which  the  line  of  vision  which  passes  through  the  plane  of  projection 
half  way  from  the  centre  to  its  circumference  shall  also  cut  the 
lower  hemisphere  one  half  way  from  its  horizon  to  its  nadir. 

More  recently  maps  of  the  world  have  been  constructed  on  a 
system  of  projection  called  "Mercator's;"  in  which  the  superficial 
surface  of  the  sphere  is  so  expanded  from  the  equator  out  to  either 
pole  as  to  be  stretched  over  a  cylinder  whose  diameter  is  that  of  the 
globe.  By  this  method  the  small  circles  of  latitude  constantly 
becoming  of  less  diameter  to  the  poles,  are  made  to  expand  to  the 
size  of  the  equator ;  the  relative  disproportion  between  the  distances 
in  latitude  and  longitude  near  the  poles  being  corrected  by  an  exag- 
geration of  the  former  in  the  same  ratio  that  the  latter  is  expanded. 
This  method  of  projection,  however,  has  direct  connection  rather 
with  the  subject  of  proportion  than  with  that  of  perspective, 
19* 


222  ART   OHITICISM. 


Sect.  5.  The  Principt^es  of  Optics  and  of  Trigonometry  as  they  relate 
TO  Perspective  Drawing. 

Geometry  treats  of  the  measure  of  extension ;  including  'the  con- 
sideration of  the  relation  of  the  sides  to  the  angles  of  triangles,  into 
which  all  j^lane  figures,  or  those  having  two  dimensions,  may  be 
divided,  and  by  means  of  which  their  areas  are  measured,  which  is 
Trigonometry  proper;  while  it  embraces,  also,  the  calculation  of  the 
masses  of  solid  bodies,  or  figures  having  three  dimensions.  Optics 
treats  of  the  laws  of  light  and  of  vision;  excluding  the  chemical 
properties  and  action  of  light  as  a  physical  agent;  but  including  the 
principles  of  the  mechanical  movement  of  light  and  of  the  laws  of 
reflection  and  refraction  as  they  relate  to  human  vision.  In  its  usual 
acceptation,  the  term  Optics  unites  the  consideration  of  the  mechan- 
ical properties  of  light,  with  the  trigonometrical  principles  applicable 
to  their  action. 

The  main  principles  of  Optics  which  the  artist  is  called  to  observe 
relate  to  the  laws  of  the  diminution  of  objects  in  size  according  to 
distance,  their  diflferent  shadings  as  dependent  on  the  laws  of  the 
reflection  of  light,  and  the  distorted  appearance  given  to  objects 
when  seen  through  a  medium  that  refracts  light.  The  first  of  these 
is  inseparable  from  the  geometrical  law  with  which  it  is  associated ; 
the  second  has  a  bearing  on  the  laws  of  Descriptive  Geometry  con- 
sidered in  the  last  section ;  and  the  third  has  a  relation  to  color 
which  will  be  treated  of  in  the  Book  on  Painting.  They  seem, 
however,  to  demand  separate  and  connected  notice  in  their  relation 
to  drawing  in  perspective. 

The  law  of  the  diminution  of  objects  both  by  their  distance  and 
their  inclination  to  the  line  of  vision,  already  alluded  to,  may  be 
illustrated  in  a  simple  manner.  The  angle  of  distinct  vision  does 
not  cover  more  than  about  30°  in  a  vertical  direction ;  and  about 
45°  in  a  horizontal  direction.  Hence,  if  from  the  centre  of  a  circle 
the  eye  is  directed  to  the  circumference  of  the  same  circle,  it  would 
clearly  see  about  30°,  or  one-twelfth  part  of  that  circumference,  if 
held  perpendicularly  before  the  eye;  and  about  45°,  or  one-eighth  of 
the  circumference,  if  held  horizontally.  The  chord  of  an  arc  of  30° 
would  be  about  one-half  the  radius;  and  the  chord  of  45°  about  two- 
thirds  of  the  radius.  Thus  the  angle  of  distinct  vision  is  filled  verti- 
cally by  an  object  placed  at  a  distance  of  about  twice  its  own  height 
from  the  eye;  the  object  having  a  breadth  one-half  greater  than  its 
height.  At  twice  this  distance,  or  at  four  times  its  own  length,  the  object 


EFFECT  OF  REFLECTION  AMD  REFRACTION  ON  PERSPECTIVE.  223 

would  cover  but  half  the  angle  of  vision  in  either  dimension,  filling 
but  one-fourth,  therefore,  of  its  field.  This  law  is  general  in  its  appli- 
cation; a  picture  two  feet  from  top  to  bottom,  and  three  feet  in 
breadth,  filling  the  eye  at  a  distance  of  five  or  six  feet;  while  a 
mountain  three  miles  high  and  four  and  a-half  miles  broad  at  the 
base,  would  cover  the  same  angle  and  hence  fill  the  eye  at  eight  or 
ten  miles  distance.  If  the  frame  of  the  picture  without  the  canvass 
be  held  before  the  eye,  the  mountain  and  all  the  intervening  country 
in  the  same  range  w^ould  be  seen  within  the  borders  of  the  frame; 
each  object  being  diminished  in  size,  both  in  height  and  breadth 
just  in  proportion  to  its  distance.  The  law  of  optical  appearance 
thus  indicates  that  the  whole  of  that  range  of  country  thus  seen 
through  the  picture  frame  could  be  drawn  upon  the  paper  or  canvass 
of  the  dimensions  of  the  aperture  through  which  it  was  viewed. 

By  the  law  of  reflection  a  ray  of  light  falling  on  any  reflecting 
surface  is  bent  back  or  reflected  at  an  angle  equal  to  that  at  w^hich 
it  falls  upon  that  surface.  As  when  two  boys,  throwing  a  ball  to  be 
caught  on  the  rise  as  it  rebounds,  learn  to  make  it  strike  the  earth 
midway  between  them,  so  the  child  soon  learns  to  go  as  far  to  one 
side  of  the  mirror  as  his  companion  is  from  the  other  side  if  he 
would  see  his  face  reflected ;  and  the  intelligent  traveler  is  not  sur- 
prised to  be  told  that  the  lofty  form  of  Mount  Blanc,  rising  four 
miles  high  and  about  forty  miles  south  of  Geneva,  can  be  seen 
reflected  on  the  bosom  of  Lake  Leman,  near  that  city,  by  one  stroll- 
ing along  its  northern  bank  on  a  clear,  still  morning.  The  student 
of  perspective,  learns  by  observation,  that  every  surface  in  nature, 
even  the  rosy  evening  clouds,  are  reflecting  surfaces;  that  every 
body  with  several  surfaces  throws  back  light  upon  objects  around  it 
at  every  angle  which  its  sides  present  to  the  light ;  that  this  angle  is 
always  equal  to  that  at  which  the  light  strikes  the  reflecting  surface ; 
that  the  intensity  of  the  light  reflected  is  always  proportional  to  the 
smoothness  or  polish  of  the  reflecting  surface,  and  to  the  clearness 
of  the  atmosphere  through  which  it  passes ;  so  that  even  the  rough 
face  of  the  moon,  turned  from  the  sun,  throws  back  the  light  first 
reflected  to  it  from  the  earth  with  sufficient  distinctness,  even  after 
this  double  reflection  to  make  the  full  round  orb  at  new  moon  to  be 
plainly  seen  by  the  eye  in  a  clear  sky. 

The  law  of  refraction,  though  specially  demanding  study  when 
the  refracting  substance  is  a  prism  separating  the  sun's  rays  and 
producing  color,  is  also  to  be  considered  in  its  relation  to  perspective. 
The  oldest  painters  had  learned  that  the  rays  of  light  are  bent 


224  ART .  CRITICISM. 

downward  as  they  pierce  a  surface  of  water;  so  that  the  foot -of  a  man 
or  animal  seen  in  water  seems  raised,  and  his  leg  shortened  from  the 
point  where  it  enters  the  water.  This  law  seems  to  have  been  known 
even  to  the  earliest  Egyptians  and  the  rudest  Chinese  painters.  The 
ancient  Greeks  and  Romans  also  understood  that  objects  seen  through 
vapor,  especially  white  objects,  appear  larger  than  they  are ;  chiefly, 
indeed,  from  the  dimness  of  the  outline  which  makes  them  seem 
distant,  and,  therefore,  larger  than  they  are  from  their  apparent 
distance ;  but  partly  also  from  the  law  of  refraction ;  a  nice  point  in 
perspective  to  which  Lionardo  da  Vinci  has  alluded.  In  fine,  the 
careful  study  of  the  laws  of  optics,  in  these  and  others  of  its 
branches,  is  essential  to  the  scientific  practice  of  the  artist's  profes- 
sion. Though  genius  in  art  seems  intuitively  to  catch  from  observa- 
tion of  nature  the  laws  of  perspective,  or  practically  to  apprehend 
them,  the  Art-critic  must  master  their  theory. 

Sect.  6.  The  Perspective  of  Shadows. 

Every  object  in  the  sun-light  by  day,  or  in  the  moon  or  lamp-light 
by  night,  is  accompanied  by  its  shadow,  more  or  less  distinct  as  the 
light  is  stronger  or  weaker.  Shadows  in  Perspective  Drawing  are  to 
be  distinguished  from  shades  in  Plane  Drawing.  A  shade  is  the 
darkened  portion  of  an  object  from  which  the  light  is  cut  oflT;  the 
eye  regarding  only  the  single  object  thus  darkened  when  shade  is 
considered.  A  shadow  can  never  be  conceived  without  thought  first 
of  the  object,  perhaps  a  distant  one,  cutting  off"  the  light,  and  second, 
of  the  shaded  object  or  that  from  which  the  light  is  cut  ofi";  the  shadow 
being  the  whole  long  column  of  darkened  space  between  these  two 
objects.  Shadows  are  caused  by  the  fact  that  the  rays  of  light  ema- 
nating from  the  sun  or  any  other  luminous  centre  proceed  in  straight 
lines,  and  that  whenever  their  rays  fall  on  any  opaque  object  the 
rays  are  interrupted;  so  that  neither  these  rays,  nor  others  passing 
near  and  bent  from'  their  course,  illumine  the  space  behind  the  object 
thus  interposed  in  their  straightforward  track.  Shadows  may  be 
entire  or  partial  according  as  the  light  is  more  or  less  cut  ofi'.  A 
shade  may  be  caused  on  one  portion  of  a  body  by  its  own  interpo- 
sition between  the  light  and  a  part  of  itself;  as  the  dark  portion  of 
the  moon  is  shaded  by  its  own  body  cutting  off  the  sun's  rays ;  while 
mountain  peaks  cast  shadows  on  their  own  sides. 

To  represent  shadows  in  perspective  correctly  three  things  must  be 
observed ;  ^rsit,  the  position  of  the  luminary;  second,  that  of  the  object 
illuminated ;  and  third,  that  of  the  observer.     The  position  of  the 


LAWS   OF  SHADOWS   IN   PEESPECTIVE.  225 

luminary  may  be  in  front  of  the  observer  and  back  of  the  object, 
and  thus  the  shadow  be  cast  towards  him ;  or  the  himinary  may  be 
behind  him  and  the  shadow  of  the  object  be  behind  the  object;  or 
the  luminary  may  be  at  the  observer's  right  or  left,  and  the  shadow 
therefore  fall  at  his  opposite  hand. 

The  important  laws  of  shadows  as  they  relate  to  perspective  are 
the  following.  The  depth  or  darkness  of  shadows -is  in  proportion  to 
the  amount  of  light  of  which  they  are  deprived  compared  with  that 
which  illuminates  other  objects;  the  shadow  cast  by  the  sun  being 
really  less  dark  than  that  cast  by  the  moon,  though  as  compared 
with  the  illumination  produced  by  the  sun  and  moon's  rays,  the 
sun's  shadow  is  the  darker  of  the  two.  The  direction  of  shadows  is 
dependent  on  the  position  of  the  sun  or  other  luminous  centre;  its 
elevation  being  of  great  importance  in  securing  that  particular  length 
of  shadow  most  favorable  to  the  artist's  design ;  the  short  shadows 
of  noon-day  giving  an  air  of  oppressive  weariness,  the  long  evening 
shadows  a  solemn  and  soothing  air,  while  the  medium  of  early  day 
speaks  of  the  hours  favorable  to  action.  The  length  of  all  shadows  is 
in  proportion  to  the  relative  size  of  the  luminous  centre  as  compared 
with  the  object  interrupting  its  rays;  if  the  luminous  body  be  the 
larger,  as  the  sun  shining  past  the  moon  in  an  eclipse,  or  a  man's 
body  before  a  large  fire  at  night,  the  shadow  will  terminate  in  a 
point  where  the  rays  of  light  shining  past  the  smaller  object,  con- 
verge; if  the  luminous  object  be  the  smaller,  as  a  lamp-light  at  night, 
or  a  beam  of  sun-light  admitted  into  a  room  through  a  small  aper- 
ture, the  shadow  will  be  of  indefinite  length ;  and  so  if  the  lumi- 
nous centre  and  the  intervening  object  be  of  the  same  size.  The 
shape  of  the  shadow  will  be  a  cone  or  cylinder,  with  its  figure  of  the 
form  of  the  object;  either  a  cone  converging  to  its  apex,  or  a  cone 
diverging  towards  its  base,  or  a  cylinder  of  equal  dimensions  through- 
out, according  as  the  luminous  centre  compared  with  the  object  casting 
the  shadow  is  of  greater,  less,  or  equal  size.  The  size  of  a  shadow  at 
any  given  point  will  depend  on  the  relative  size  of  the  luminous 
point  as  compared  with  the  object  casting  the  shadow,  and  also  upon 
the  distance  between  the  object  and  the  shaded  spot  as  compared 
with  the  distance  between  the  object  and  the  luminous  centre ;  the 
shadows  from  objects  on  the  earth  as  men  and  trees  being  substantially 
of  the  same  size  as  the  objects  themselves  when  cast  on  a  wall  near  by, 
because  though  the  size  of  the  sun  is  immensely  greater  than  that  of 
a  man  on  the  earth,  yet  its  distance  from  the  man  as  compared  with 
his  distance  from  the  wall  is  equally  immense,  so  that  the  one  coun^ 

2  D 


226  AET   CRITICISM. 

terbalances  the  other.  The  number  of  shadows  cast  by  any  object 
depends  upon  the  number  of  centres  of  light,  whether  of  the  sun  or 
moon,  or  of  two  or  more  lamps  in  combination,  added  to  the  number 
of  reflecting  surfaces,  as  of  mirrors,  smooth  waters  and  polished 
walls,  from  which  the  light  of  the  central  luminary  is  reflected. 

In  a  drawing,  as  in  nature,  every  object  must  be  accompanied  by 
its  shadow ;  except  it  be  in  the  rare  case  of  the  artist's  taking  a  view 
on  a  cloudy  day,  when  no  distinct  shadoAV  can  be  perceived  or  traced. 
Indeed  so  dependent  is  art  on  the  more  striking  contrasts  of  light 
and  shade  in  nature  that  the  pencil  or  brush  cannot  make  an  object 
seem  to  stand  out  from  the  canvass  as  real,  unless  the  artist  avail 
himself  of  a  time  when  and  of  a  point  of  view  where  the  most  advan- 
tage can  be  taken  of  the  lights  and  shadows  in  nature.  Both  the 
elevation  of  the  sun  and  the  point  of  the  compass  at  which  it  strikes 
the  object  or  scene  to  be  delineated  are  to  be  regarded;  the  angle  of 
about  45°  both  above  and  in  front  of  the  picture  being  the  best.  In 
taking  a  portrait,  therefore,  the  artist  is  careful  in  selecting  a  spot 
in  his  studio  and  an  adjustment  of  his  subject  at  an  angle  to  the 
window  such  as  will  give  him,  not  only  the  strongest  light,  but  the 
deepest  shade.  So  the  landscape  painter  selects  for  each  particular 
view  he  is  to  take  that  hour  of  the  day,  as  nine  o'clock  A.  M.,  or 
three  o'clock  P.  M.,  which  will  give  him  the  best  light,  or  rather  the 
best  shade. 

The  important  applications  of  the  laws  of  perspective  to  shadows 
are  these.  In  shadows  of  a  near  object  on  a  wall,  as  of  a  portrait 
and  of  furniture  on  the  sides  of  a  room,  the  lines  of  the  shadow  must 
follow  the  laws  of  shade  already  mentioned  as  those  of  nature ;  the 
lines  of  light  being  parallel  to  each  other  when  the  light  comes 
directly  from  the  broad  face  of  the  sun,  and  diverging  from  the 
object  when  the  luminous  centre  is  but  a  point,  as  a  lamp's  light  or 
an  aperture  in  a  window.  In  shadows  thrown  upon  a  horizontal 
plane,  as  the  floor  of  a  room  or  the  surface  of  the  earth,  both  the 
laws  of  shadow  and  of  perspective  are  to  be  kept  in  view  in  the  ex- 
ecution. When  the  shadow  of  an  object  falls  on  a  broken  surface 
and  upon  objects  of  greater  or  less  height  than  itself  the  nicest  care 
is  requisite  that  the  cylinder  of  shade  follow  its  true  line  in  nature 
and  cast  a  shade  of  truly  proportionate  height  or  length,  or  of  the 
precise  breadth  of  the  object  on  every  other  object  or  part  of  an 
object  behind  it.  Euskin  specially  suggests  that  though  the  shading 
of  water  is  in  the  main  to  be  made  by  parallel  lines,  yet  great  skill 
is  requisite  in  varying  the  depth  of  shade  according  to  the  shadows 


NATURE   OF   AERIAL   PERSPECTIVE.  227 

falling  on  the  water,  and  also  to  insert  the  broken  curves  which 
indicate  the  outline  of  shadows  on  its  face  when  smooth,  or  the  rip- 
ples upon  it  where  it  is  ruffled.  In  the  study  of  shadows  upon  dis- 
tant objects  where  lights  from  different  reflecting  surfaces  and  shadows 
and  half-shadows  meet  and  overlap  in  endless  combination,  the 
principles  of  aerial  perspective  come  into  consideration. 

Sect.  7.  Aerial  Perspective,  and  its  Kelation  to  Chiaroscuro. 

The  expression  aerial  perspective  is  sometimes  used  in  works  upon 
art  as  distinguished  from  linear  perspective.  This  term  relates  to 
the  shading  as  distinguished  from  the  outline  of  the  perspective 
drawing.  As  distance  not  only  diminishes  the  size  but  obscures  the 
distinctness  of  objects  seen,  the  copying  accurately  of  the  gradation 
of  distinctness  of  view  in  representing  objects  in  the  background  is 
the  province  of  aerial  perspective.  It  is  called  "aerial"  perspective 
because  the  air,  whether  clear  or  hazy,  has  even  more  influence  than 
distance  in  rendering  a  remote  object  indistinct;  as  is  witnessed  in 
portions  of  Italy,  and  especially  in  Egypt,  where  there  is  no  rain 
or  mist. 

The  term  "chiaroscuro,"  as  observed  in  the  Chapter  on  Plane 
Drawing,  is  the  word  used  in  the  Italian,  the  language  of  Art,  to 
represent  the  meeting,  overlapping  and  blending  of  light  and  shade 
in  the  landscape,  as  the  sun's  rays,  or  any  combination  of  lights  are 
reflected  from  diflerent  points  with  more  or  less  directness  and  clear- 
ness upon  each  separate  object.  The  shading  of  a  single  object, 
where  perspective  is  not  required,  demands  a  practical  acquaintance 
with  the  principles  of  chiaroscuro ;  otherwise  the  angles  of  the  jutting 
corners  and  retiring  indentations  of  an  object  with  plane  surfaces 
cannot  be  represented  to  the  eye;  and  still  less  can  the  roundness  of 
an  object  with  curved  surfaces  of  different  sweep  be  so  pictured  that 
the  alternate  swell  of  the  convex  and  depression  of  the  concave  will 
be  made  to  stand  out  as  in  the  object  itself.  In  perspective  a  second 
end,  in  addition  to  that  of  the  representation  of  precise  form,  is  to  be 
attained.  When  a  man,  a  house,  or  a  tree  is  drawn  in  the  back- 
ground the  fixed  size  of  these  objects  makes  the  proportion  of  their 
diminution  in  size  a  fixed  measure  of  their  distance.  On  the  other 
hand,  a  rocky  cliff,  a  river,  a  mountain,  a  cloud,  has  no  fixed  size; 
and  therefore  the  space  it  is  made  to  occupy  in  the  drawing  is*  not  at 
all  an  indication  of  its  distance.  It  requires  a  long  and  special  train- 
ing of  the  eye  even  in  nature  itself  to  determine  the  distance  of  such 
objects  by  their  peculiar  tinge  or  shade ;  so  that  by  the  distant  blue 


228  ART   CIIITICISM. 

or  the  deep  black,  the  beholder  is  able  to  judge  rightly  of  the  miles 
that  intervene  between  the  eye  and  the  mountain,  and  to  determine 
the  shape  and  the  depth  of  the  valleys  on  its  side.  It  is  only  the 
long  trained  eye  of  the  huntsman  on  the  prairie,  and  of  the  sailor  on 
the  ocean,  that  forms  a  just  judgment  of  aerial  perspective  as  it 
exists  in  nature.  The  acquirement  necessary  for  the  artist  is  a  double 
task ;  since  he  has  to  learn  the  art,  not  only  so  as  to  be  able  to  recog- 
nize it  when  seen,  but  also  to  copy  it  with  the  pencil  that  others  may 
see  it  in  his  drawing. 

It  is  worthy  of  special  notice,  that  this  is  a  distinct  and  new  study 
in  every  different  country  and  climate.  As  in  one's  own  clime  the 
distant  hills  look  nearer  of  a  morning  after  a  long  storm,  and  even 
after  an  hour's  showier  at  midday,  so  the  Englishman  or  Hollander, 
accustomed  to  a  murky,  hazy,  or  foggy  sky,  has  no  standard  for 
measuring  distances  in  the  clear  atmosphere  of  the  American  prairie, 
of  the  desert  about  Egypt,  or  of  the  sunny  plains  of  Italy.  The 
Englishman  who  has  never  seen  the  full  round  orb  of  the  moon's 
reverse  when  between  the  eye  and  the  sun  in  its  first  quarter,  as  by 
its  own  light  reflected  from  the  earth  that  dark  orb  is  clearly  seen  in 
America,  the  Dutch  painter,  who,  trained  only  in  his  sombre  low- 
land, has  never  imagined  the  bright  admixture  of  yellow  overpow^er- 
ing  the  blue  in  the  gay  green  of  an  Italian  landscape,  the  artists  of 
England  and  Holland  must  be  a  School  distinct  from  the  Italian, 
the  American,  and  even  the  French,  in  landscape  sketching;  since 
the  "aerial  perspective"  they  have  studied  is  so  different.  The 
attainment  of  comprehensive  skill  in  chiaroscuro,  and  in  aerial 
perspective,  a  method  and  a  power  adapted  to  all  climes  and  in  the 
same  clime  to  all  changes  of  day  and  night,  of  summer  and  wdnter, 
of  clear  and  cloudy  weather,  is  the  rarest  of  all  excellence  in  art. 

Sect.  8.  Curvilinear  Perspective;  and  the  relation  which  the  actual 
CURVE  OF  Perspective  lines  in  Nature  has  to  their  representation 
in  Drawing. 

The  subject  of  curvilinear,  or  "circular"  perspective,  as  it  is  some- 
times designated,  has  but  recently  attracted  the  attention  of  artists 
as  a  matter  of  practical  study.  Hogarth  argued  that  the  curved 
line  is  the  line  of  beauty;  that  all  the  Creator's  works,  unlike  man's, 
are.  executed  in  forms  composed  of  curved  lines ;  and  that  if  there 
be  any  exception,  it  is  the  line  of  crystalization,  or  the  path  of  a  ray 
of  light.  In  Hogarth's  argument  there  is  much  of  truth ;  for,  as  we 
shall  find,  in  those  models  of  Grecian  architecture  which  are  the 


CURVATURE   IN   LINES   OF   NATURE.  229 

climax  of  man's  attainment  in  conceiving  and  executing  forms  of 
beauty,  there  is  scarcely  a  truly  straight  line  to  be  found.  In  the 
Creator's  handiwork,  in  flower,  leaf,  fruit,  twig,  branch,  and  even  in 
the  sloping  height  as  well  as  the  rounded  sides  of  the  tree  trunk,  in 
hill  and  vale,  in  mountain  top  and  cloud,  in  the  form  of  the  round 
world  and  of  the  "  grand  o'erhanging  canopy"  of  the  vaulted  sky  with 
its  circling  stars,  there  is  not,  perhaps,  a  purely  straight  line  to  be 
met ;  while  the  human .  form,  the  master-piece  of  beauty  has  its 
myriad  forms  of  grace  wrought  out  in  lines  of  varied  curvature. 

Even  the  exception  hinted  in  the  path  of  a  ray  of  light,  is  in  per- 
spective no  exception.  In  the  photograph,  Avhich  catches  the  flitting 
aspect  of  nature  as  it  passes  and  stereotypes  it,  the  lines  of  perspec- 
tive, for  instance  in  the  roof  of  a  long  building  in  a  view  taken  from 
its  centre,  are  not  made  up  of  purely  straight  lines,  but  of  lines  slightly 
curved.  We  detect  the  fact  in  the  copy  ;  though  we  overlook  it  in 
nature.  Careful  attention  will  lead  us  to  observe  that  the  line  of 
the  floor  of  an  extended  hall  does  not,  to  appearance  even,  rise  in  a 
straight,  but  in  a  slightly  curved  line.  An  accurate  observation,  in 
fact,  of  natural  appearances  everywhere,  in  the  landscape  and  the 
sky,  indicates  the  same  law  of  visual  formation.  Every  point  in 
each  line  in  perspective  is  not  only  raised  to  a  horizontal  plane 
nearer  the  eye,  but  every  point  is  also  drawn  inward  to  a  vertical 
plane  nearer  the  eye ;  for  the  very  raising  of  each  point  in  the  line 
of  perspective  does  actually  bring  the  point  nearer  the  eye,  of  course 
making  it  appear  in  a  nearer  vertical  plane,  and  hence  giving  a 
curved  appearance  to  the  perspective  line.  This  law^  on  its  large 
scale  is  recognized  in  the  vaulted  sky ;  for  all  men,  as  well  as  all  ar- 
tists, see  the  heavens  as  an  arch.  Its  operation  is  observed  in  all 
mountain  and  balloon  views ;  from  which  elevated  points  the  land- 
scape appears  as  a  hollow  basin  ;  an  aspect  which  the  ablest  artists 
have  copied  in  all  good  birds-eye  views.  In  nature  and  art  alike  all 
above  and  all  below  the  eye  is  made  to  meet  in  the  extended  distance 
in  elliptical,  or  at  least  in  curved  lines.  And,  moreover,  though  in 
drawings  upon  a  small  scale,  this  curvature  is  so  minute  that  it  need 
not  be  taken  into  account,  yet  nature  herself,  the  only  perfect  artist, 
does  even  in  the  smallest  picture  taken  in  the  photograph  by  the 
lines  of  her  pencil,  strictly  regard  her  own  law,  that  the  curved  line 
is  the  line  of  truth,  if  it  be  not  the  line  of  beauty. 

The  nature  of  the  law  of  Curvilinear  Perspective  may  be  demon- 
strated by  the  principles  of  Geometry  and  of  Optics  entering  into 
perspective;  while,  moreover,  the  precise  measure  of  this  curvature 

20 


230  ART   CRITICISM. 

may  be  fixed  by  an  application  of  the  principles  of  the  Calculus. 
Suppose  the  observer  to  be  standing  at  a  distance  of  200  feet  in  front 
of  the  centre  of  a  symmetrical  building  100  feet  long  and  40  feet 
high.  It  is  manifest  that  while  the  centre  of  the  front  of  the  build- 
ing is  precisely  200  feet  from  his  eye,  each  line  in  the  remaining 
portions  of  that  front,  as  he  looks  from  the  centre  toward  either  end, 
is  more  than  200  feet  from  his  eye;  the  ends  of  the  building  being 
about  206  feet  distant.  As  now  the  space  an  object  occupies  in  the 
angle  of  vision  is  less,  in  proportion  to  its  distance  from  the  eye,  the 
apparent  height  of  the  building  should  be  about  one-thirtieth  less  at 
the  ends  than  at  the  centre.  The  correction  is  in  ordinary  vision  so 
instinctively  made,  that  very  few  persons  are  aware  of  the  fact,  that 
they  do  see  the  line  of  the  eaves  of  a  long  building  sloping  at  a 
curve,  that  by  careful  attention  they  will  become  sensible  that  they 
thus  see  it,  and  that  unconsciously  to  themselves  they  have  the  habit 
of  correcting  their  own  real  impression.  The  photograph  has  no 
habit  of  this  sort ;  it  presents  the  fact  as  it  is ;  and  it  reveals  to  our 
eye  its  own  unconscious  self-deception  in  supposing  that  it  sees  a 
straight  horizontal  line  where,  in  fact,  it  sees  a  curved  line  arched 
upward. 

The  same  law  must  apply  to  horizontal  as  to  vertical  lines.  The 
horizontal  line  of  the  front  immediately  before  the  eye,  or  the  line 
running  about  five  feet  above  the  ground,  is  at  its  centre  200  feet 
from  the  eye.  The  line,  however,  running  along  the  top  of  the 
building,  is  about  203  feet  at  its  centre  from  the  eye.  This  upper 
line,  therefore,  must  be  shorter  in  appearance,  filling,  as  it  does,  a 
smaller  portion  of  the  angle  of  vision,  than  does  the  lower  line. 
The  effect,  therefore,  must  be  to  make  the  vertical  lines  at  either  end 
of  the  building  seem  to  slope  inward  as  they  rise ;  a  slope  which  the 
eye  in  the  photograph  perceives  to  be  not  a  straight  slant,  but  a 
curve. 

It  is  manifest  also  that  this  appearance  of  curvature  extends  to 
the  lines  below  the  eye  as  well  as  to  those  above  it.  The  vertical 
and  horizontal  lines  alike,  immediately  before  the  eye,  the  one  at  fifty 
feet  from  either  end,  and  the  other  at  five  feet  above  the  ground  are 
the  longest ;  while  the  vertical  lines  of  the  two  ends  are  bent  inward 
at  the  bottom  from  a  point  five  feet  above  the  ground,  the  horizontal 
line  at  the  base  or  underpinning  of  the  building  will  appear  curved 
upward  at  both  ends,  though  proportionally  less  than  the  line  of  the 
roof  or  eaves.  It  is  equally  manifest  that  this  same  law  will  give  a 
curve  to  every  line  out  of  the  centre.     The  line  of  the  top  of  the 


THE  LAW  OF  CURVATURE  IN  PERSPECTIVE  LINES.  231 

windows  will  be  curved,  though  less  than  the  line  of  the  eaves,  and 
the  line  of  the  bottom  of  those  same  windows  will  also  be  curved 
though  less  than  their  tops ;  and  so  with  each  line  successively  from 
the  top  to  the  horizontal  line  directly  before  the  eye.  So  the  sides 
of  the  windows  nearest  the  end  will  be  less  curved  than  the  end  line 
itself;  and  each  line  farther  inwards  successively  less. 

The  effect  of  this  general  curvature  is  to  make  the  face  of  a  broad 
surface  seem  to  be,  not  a  flat  plane  merely  rounded  at  the  edges,  but 
a  bulging  or  hollowed  curve,  convex  or  concave  towards  the  beholder. 
In  general,  whether  looking  from  above  upon  the  surface  of  a  lake 
or  a  plain,  or  from  one  side  upon  the  line  of  a  distant  road,  river,  or 
forest,  or  again  from  below  on  a  broad  ceiling  or  into  the  expanse  of 
the  heavens,  this  curvature  seems  to  be  concave  towards  the  beholder ; 
while  for  a  small  object  it  may  seem  to  be  convex,  if  it  appear  at  all. 
The  cause  of  this  apparent  curvature  is  probably  this.  We  are  so  in 
the  habit  of  correcting  the  impression  made  by  the  diminished  visual 
angle  at  which  we  view  a  man,  a  house,  a  tree  or  any  object  of  known 
height,  that  we  do  not  judge  of  distance  by  it;  we  judge  in  part 
indeed  by  this  diminution,  more  by  the  differing  distinctness  in  out- 
line produced  by  distance,  but  mostly  by  the  number  and  size  of 
intervening  objects.  When  intervening  objects  are  removed,  as  in 
looking  over  a  river,  there  is  no  power  in  either  the  diminished  size, 
or  the  indistinctness  of  outline  of  objects  on  the  opposite  bank  to  give 
us  a  just  idea  of  the  distance;  and  in  throwing  a  stone,  or  in  speak- 
ing to  a  man,  we  find  we  have  very  much  underrated  the  distance. 
When  now  a  line  of  men  all  known  to  be  of  equal  stature,  stand 
before  a'n  observer,  with  no  intervening  object  between,  he  instinct- 
ively corrects  the  real  impression  made  upon  his  eye  by  the  visual 
angle  at  which  they  are  seen ;  he  ascribes  to  the  men  at  the  extremes 
of  the  line  the  same  size  as  to  those  at  the  centre ;  and  as  when  look- 
ing over  the  river,  he  imagines  the  more  distant  men  on  the  extremes 
to  be  nearer  than  they  are.  If  equally  distant,  as  their  known  equal 
size  naturally  leads  the  beholder  to  suppose,  the  line  of  men  would 
be  in  the  circumference  of  a  circle ;  but  as  the  illusion  is  only  partial 
their  line  seems  slightly  curved. 

The  law  of  this  curve  of  the  line  seen  in  perspective  is  susceptible 
of  geometrical  analysis ;  the  rate  of  its  curvature  is  ascertained  by 
the  simplest  form  of  the  Calculus ;  and  it  can  be  laid  off  readily  from 
the  elements  thus  obtained.  Suppose  lines  drawn  from  the  eye  to 
different  points  upon  the  horizontal  line  immediately  before  the  eye 
on  the  front  of  the  building  above  mentioned ;  the  first  line  to  the 


232  ART   CRrTICISM. 

point  immediately  before  the  eye,  the  second  ten  feet  to  the  left  of 
this  point,  the  third  twenty  feet,  the  fourth  thirty  feet,  the  fifth  forty 
feet,  and  the  sixth  to  the  end  of  the  building  on  the  left,  fifty  feet  of 
course  from  the  centre.  Then  the  second,  third,  fourth,  fifth,  and 
sixth  lines  will  each  be  the  hypothenuse  of  a  series  of  right  angled 
triangles,  the  altitude  of  each  of  which  is  the  first  line,  which  we 
supposed  to  be  two  hundred  feet ;  while  the  bases  will  be  severally 
ten,  twenty,  thirty,  forty,  and  fifty  feet.  The  hypothenuse  of  each 
of  these  triangles  is  the  distance  of  the  eye  from  that  point  or  from 
the  vertical  line  running  from  the  top  to  the  bottom  of  the  building 
through  that  point ;  and  the  length  in  perspective  of  that  vertical 
line  wall  be  to  the  length  of  the  vertical  line  passing  through  the  first 
point,  as  two  hundred  feet,  the  altitude  of  a  right  angled  triangle 
having  a  varying  base,  is  to  its  hypothenuse.  That  hypothenuse 
is  found  by  squaring  the  altitude  and  base,  adding  these  squares,  and 
extracting  the  square  root  of  the  sum.  The  curve  may  be  drawn 
by  laying  off  on  a  line  as  an  abscissa  divided  into  equal  parts, 
ordinates  which  shall  be  to  each  other  inversely  as  the  square  root 
of  the  sum  of  the  squares  of  two  quantities,  one  of  which  is  fixed, 
while  the  other  increases  at  the  same  rate  as  that  abscissa.  The  curve 
may  be  traced  through  the  termini  of  these  ordinates  thus  laid  off.* 

Though  this  law  of  perspective  has  been  recognized  in  quite  mo- 
dern times  by  scientific  artists  its  principles  have  been  little  analyzed, 
and  it  has  not  assumed  a  practical  form  in  art.  Thibault  remarks, 
"  The  horizon  of  nature  is  a  circular  line ;  but  this  line  drawn  on  a 
plane  horizontally  at  the  point  of  view  is  a  straight  line."  The 
faithful  pencil  of  Nature,  dipped  in  her  own  pure  light,  is  truer  than 
the  eye  of  erring  man ;  and  in  the  curved  lines  of  all  her  drawings 
in  perspective  she  is  teaching  a  lesson  from  which  future  artists  may 
gather  some  instructive  hint.  Herdman  has  devoted  a  volume  to 
prove  that  there  is  a  practical  application  to  be  made  of  the  principles 
of  Curvilinear  Perspective  in  Art.  In  his  conclusion  he  expresses 
his  confidence  that  "  in  views  of  large  extent  its  use  will  give  greater 
beauty  and  less  distortion  than  rectilinear  perspective;"  and  that 


'  Applying  the  Calculus  to  the  determination  of  these  ordinates  we  should 
have  the  following.     Taking  a  —  altitude,  x  —  base,  y  =  hypothenuse,  we 

—  xdx 

have  y«  =  a'  +  x**;  whence  y  =  /a"  +  x«.     Difierentiating  dy  =     /"T^qr^ 

from  which  formula,  the  rate  of  variation  in  the  ordinates  of  the  curve  with 
any  value  of  a  and  of  x  is  readily  obtained. 


1 


EARLY   NOTICE   OF    BTNOCULAR    PERSPECTIVE.  233 

thus  "lateral  extents  and  spaces  hitherto  totally  unattainable  in  art 
may  be  wrought  with  truth,  in  accordance  with  what  is  seen.''^ 

Sect.  9.  Binocular  Vision,  in  its  relation  to  Perspective. 

As  observed  under  Plane  Drawing,  Binocular  or  two-eyed  vision 
has  its  most  important  application  in  Perspective.  As  the  distance 
from  centre  to  centre  of  the  two  eyes  in  ordinary  persons  is  about 
two  and  one-half  inches,  any  object  placed  directly  before  the  nose 
is  the  apex  of  an  isosceles  triangle,  whose  base  is  the  distance  betw^een 
the  two  eyes ;  which  has  hence  been  termed  "  The  Visual  Base." 
When  a  small  object  is  placed  near  the  nose,  one  eye  views  one  side, 
and  the  other  the  opposite  side  of  that  object.  If,  however,  the 
object  be  removed  in  a  line  directly  between  the  two  eyes,  the  two 
views  will  soon  begin  to  overlap  each  other,  until  they  become  per- 
fectly one.  One  important  result  of  this  two-eyed  or  "binocular" 
vision,  in  its  bearing  on  art,  as  already  observed,  is  the  appearance 
of  roundness  it  gives  to  the  figure  of  the  object  seen ;  an  effect  which 
in  a  single  object  in  Plane  Drawing  may  be  copied.  In  perspective, 
also,  artists  have  understpod  and  availed  themselves  of  this  binocular 
effect  in  giving  projection  and  life-like  relief  to  objects  in  the  fore- 
ground. 

The  important  eflTects  of  binocular  vision  in  the  execution  of  per- 
spective, are  the  two  following.  The  object  thus  placed  very  near  the 
eye  is  very  indistinctly  seen ;  and  that  for  the  double  reason  that  it  is 
not  in  the  focus  from  which  a  distinct  image  falls  on  the  retina  of 
either  eye,  and  also  that  each  of  these  images  is  the  sight  of  only 
one  eye.  The  object  farther  off,  and  in  that  focus,  is  the  object  most 
distinctly  seen.  Again,  an  object  immediately  behind  the  very  near 
object  is  completely  seen;  as  much  as  if  the  near  object  did  not 
intervene ;  one  eye  seeing  around  and  behind  it  on  the  one  side,  and 
the  other  eye  on  the  other  side.  A  careful  attention  to  the  impres- 
sion on  the  eye  will  lead  to  the  additional  observation,  that  two 
separate  images  are  recognized  as  they  fall  on  the  retina,  that  these 
two  images  seem  to  be  before  the  eye,  and  that  two  projections  of 
these  images  are  thrown  upon  the  background  of  a  w^all,  or  land- 
scape, behind  the  object.  The  recent  and  important  applications  of 
this  in  painting  are  illustrated  by  the  following  history. 

The  great  reformer  in  the  revival  of  modern  art,  Lionardo  da 
Vinci,  wrote  the  following  about  A.  D.  1500  as  the  foundation  of  one 
of  his  Rules  in  Painting :  "  Painters  often  despair  of  being  able  to 
imitate  nature  from  observing  that  their  pictures  have  not  the  same 

20  »  2  E 


234  ART   CRITICISM. 

life  that  natural  objects  have  when  seen  in  a  looking-glass;  though 
they  both  appear  upon  a  plane  surface.  It  is  impossible  that  objects 
in  painting  should  appear  with  the  same  relief  as  those  in  the  look- 
ing-glass, unless  we  look  at  them  with  one  eye ;  of  which  this  is  the 
reason.  The  two  eyes  looking  at  objects  one  behind  another,  see 
them  both ;  because  the  nearer  cannot  entirely  occupy  the  space  of 
the  more  remote  since  the  base  of  the  visual  rays  is  so  broad  that 
the  second  object  is  seen  behind  the  first.  But  if  one  eye  be  shut, 
and  you  look  with  the  other  alone,  the  nearer  body  will  entirely 
cover  the  body  more  remote,  because  the  visual  rays  beginning  at 
one  point  form  a  triangle  of  which  the  body  nearer  is  the  base,  and 
being  prolonged,  they  form  two  diverging  tangents  at  the  two 
extremities  of  the  nearer  object  which  cannot  touch  the  body  more 
remote  behind  it ;  therefore  we  can  never  see  it."  Da  Vinci  intro- 
duces a  diagram  to  illustrate  this ;  much  the  same  as  used  by  modern 
writers  on  binocular  vision. 

Lionardo  applying  this  fact  of  binocular  vision  to  the  practical 
execution  of  art  taught :  "  When  a  ball  held  before  a  wall  is  painted, 
the  painted  figure  must  cover  the  space  behind  it.  Since,  then,  when 
seen  with  both  eyes,  the  wall  would  appear  behind  the  ball,  the 
painter  should  place  a  mirror  before  the  object,  and  paint  it  as  it  is 
seen  reflected  looking  at  the  object  with  one  eye  only."  In  accord- 
ance with  this  teaching,  after,  as  w^ell  as  before  the  times  of  Lionardo 
and  of  Raphael,  it  continued  to  be  the  method  of  painters  to  regard 
and  to  paint  the  view  presented  to  "monocular"  or  one-eyed  vision ; 
the  right  eye  being  naturally  the  one  employed.  Within  the  last 
half  century  the  theory  of  binocular  vision  has  been  more  studied. 
In  England  Sir  David  Brewster  has  written  upon  the  general  theory ; 
Professor  Wheatstone  has  applied  it  to  the  construction  of  the  stereo- 
scope ;  and  James  Hall  has  written  upon  its  relations  specially  to 
art  execution.^  Hall's  theory  is  in  substance  as  follows.  The  true 
idea  of  the  execution  of  a  picture  is  this;  first,  all  objects  should 
first  be  constructed  of  life  size  as  they  appear  to  both  eyes,  and  on  a 
vertical  plane  passing  through  the  principal  part  of  the  chief  object, 
the  eyes  being  directed  to  the  principal  object,  and  the  "duplications 
and  regulated  obscurities"  under  which  the  very  near  objects  are 
seen  being  introduced ;  and  second,  this  life  sized  construction  should 
be  reduced  to  the  miniature  scale  of  the  artist's  design  and  be  finished 


'  See  London  Art  Journal,  1851 — 1853 ;  and  the  North  British  Keview,  May 
1852. 


SUGGESTED  APPLICATION  OF  BINOCULAR  PERSPECTIVE.      235 

as  seen  by  both  eyes  and  with  the  "regulated  obscurities"  still 
retained. 

In  support  of  this  view,  Hall  cites  the  experience  and  testimony 
of  the  best  artists  before  the  subject  of  binocular  vision  was  scientifi- 
cally analyzed.  Those  artists  had  observed,  first,  that  the  view  of 
an  object,  drawn  in  perspective  with  one  eye,  has  less  breadth  than  if 
drawn  with  two  eyes ;  and  second,  that  a  monocular  view  of  an  object 
gives  no  measure  of  the  distance  of  the  object  such  as  is  given  by 
the  view  with  two  eyes.  Again,  the  laws  of  binocular  vision  chiefly 
affect  the  execution  of  the  background  in  Portrait  Painting  and  in 
Historic  Pictures,  and  the  foreground  of  Landscape  sketches;  and 
these  are  the  very  portions  of  their  work  with  which  all  students  of 
art  have  found  the  most  difficulty ;  a  difficulty  which  the  true  theory 
of  binocular  vision  in  its  relation  to  perspective  so  fully  explains. 
The  suggestions  of  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  Hall  thinks,  indicate  his 
appreciation  of  the  directions  for  artists  to  which  the  present  know- 
ledge of  binocular  vision  leads.  He  says:  "Let  the  artist  labor 
single  features  to  what  degree  he  thinks  proper;  but  let  him  not 
forget  continually  to  examine  whether  in  finishing  the  parts  he  is 
not  destroying  the  general  effect.  No  work  can  be  too  much  finished, 
provided  the  diligence  employed  be  directed  to  its  proper  object;  but 
I  have  observed  that  an  excessive  labor  in  the  detail,  has  nine  times 
in  ten,  been  pernicious  to  the  general  effect ;  even  when  it  has  been 
the  labor  of  great  masters."  Hall  expresses  surprise  after  all  this 
experience  of  artists,  that  Sir  David  Brewster  should  maintain  the 
pre-Raphaelite  theory;  that  the  eyes  should  be  adjusted  to  every 
part  of  the  picture  separately ;  and  that  the  artist  should,  to  use  his 
own  words,  "delineate  every  part  of  the  picture,  whether  in  the  fore- 
ground, middle  ground,  or  distance,  with  the  same  distinctness  with 
which  he  sees  it,"  when  thus  separately  viewed. 

The  important  result  of  his  own  theory  Hall  thinks  to  be  the  fol- 
lowing. The  law  of  binocular  perspective  is  "that  every  line  not 
parallel  to  the  picture  has  two  vanishing  points  and  one  intersection ; 
and  that  the  indefinite  representation  of  such  a  line  is  found  by 
drawing  a  line  from  the  intersection  to  each  of  the  vanishing  points. 
The  two  vanishing  points,  for  the  purpose  of  duplication,  are  found 
by  drawing  a  line  through  each  of  the  spectator's  eyes  parallel  to  the 
original  line,  till  they  meet  the  picture  one  visual  base  apart  mea- 
sured horizontally  on  the  picture,  full-sized ;  in  other  words  half  a 
visual  base  to  the  left  and  right  of  any  vanishing  point  obtained  in 
the  old  monocular  way.     Every  plane  except  the  horizontal  plane 


236  ART   CRITICISM. 

through  both  eyes  will  have  two  vanishing  points.     The  centre  of 
the  picture  will  be  midway  between  the  two  vanishing  points." 

The  consideration  of  the  science  that  enters  into  the  subject  of  both 
curvilinear  and  binocular  perspective,  so  beautiful  in  their  theoretic 
truth,  too  nice  perhaps  to  have  much  influence  in  the  practical  ex- 
ecution of  the  artist's  pencil,  has  the  effect  to  train  the  mind  to  close 
observation.  In  practice  the  lines  of  perspective  may  be  made 
straight  and  not  curved,  and  the  duplication  of  a  very  near  object 
may  be  avoided  either  by  not  introducing  it  at  all  or  by  making  it 
act  a  subordinate  part  in  the  picture.  The  knowledge  of  the  real 
modification  in  our  sight  produced  by  curvilinear  and  binocular  per- 
spective will  make  better  students  and  critics,  if  it  do  not  make 
better  artists. 

Sect.  10.  The  History  of  Drawing  in  Perspective. 

The  ancient  Egyptians,  the  Chinese  down  to  modern  times,  and  in 
general  the  people  of  all  rude  and  but  half  civilized  nations  have  failed 
in  observing,  or  in  applying  the  laws  of  vision  to  drawing  in  perspec- 
tive. In  the  sculptures  and  paintings  on  the  monuments  of  Egypt 
the  most  distant  in  a  line  of  soldiers,  the  farthest  of  four  chariot 
horses  abreast,  is  drawn  of  the  same  dimensions  with  the  nearest  in 
the  line;  and  objects  in  more  distant  fields  are  put  in  compartments 
in  corners  of  the  main  picture  without  any  apparent  connection  with 
it.  In  Chinese  paintings  either  everything  is  put  in  the  foreground, 
or  if  there  be  a  background  and  the  figures  in  it  are  drawn  smaller, 
the  gradation  of  the  intervening  space  is  not  preserved,  and  the  geo- 
metrical law  of  convergence  in  the  lines  of  the  picture  is  not  under- 
stood or  attempted. 

Among  the  ancient  Greeks  the  old  geometrician  Euclid  presents 
principles  which  show  that  the  principles  of  optics  were  to  a  certain 
extent  recognized  as  they  relate  to  perspective;  and  Geminus  of 
Rhodes,  the  special  home  of  Grecian  art,  an  eminent  mathematician 
of  Cicero's  day,  treated  particularly  of  the  laws  of  Optics  as  they 
relate  to  art.  In  the  following  passage  of  Plato's  Republic,  a  know- 
ledge of  perspective  seems  to  lie  at  the  basis  of  this  beautiful  allu- 
sion. "Imitation,  or  fiction,"  says  Socrates,  "is  always  inferior  to 
reality  or  truth ;  it  is  an  amusement,  a  pastime.  A  magnitude  seen 
at  a  distance  is  not  the  same  as  when  seen  near  to  us.  Objects  strike 
our  eyes  in  different  ways  according  to  the  medium  through  which 
we  see  them.  Our  senses  are  deceived  by  color ;  and  this  deception 
is  transferred  to  the  mind.     While  the  art  of  painting  taking  advan- 


GKEEK    KNOWLEDGE   OF   PERSPECTIVE.  237 

tage  of  our  liability  to  this  deception  does  not  hesitate  to  practice 
enchantment  and  dazzle  our  eyes,  the  gods  have  given  us  for  our  aid 
a  rule  and  measure  to  protect  us  against  such  deceits.  If  we  take 
them  always  as  our  guide,  we  shall  see  things  as  they  are ;  so  that 
what  is  but  apparent  or  plausible,  and  what  is  but  false  magnitude 
will  no  more  exercise  an  influence  over  us,  while  what  is  correct  and 
real  will  alone  reign  in  our  soul."  Vitruvius  the  Roman  writer  on 
the  history  of  art,  when  treating  in  the  time  of  Augustus  of  the 
principles  which  originated  the  Ionic  order  in  Architecture,  represents 
the  knowledge  of  perspective  to  have  been  coetaneous  with  the  acting 
of  the  drama.  He  relates ;  "  Agatharsius,  at  the  time  when  iEschylus 
taught  at  Athens  the  rules  of  tragic  poetry  was  the  first  who  con- 
trived scenery;  upon  which  subject  he  wrote  a  treatise.  After  him 
Democritus  and  Anaxagoras  went  still  further  in  that  way,  showing 
the  power  of  imitating  nature  by  making  all  the  lines  to  vanish  to 
one  point  as  a  centre,  when  viewed  at  a  fixed  distance ;  by  which 
means  they  were  enabled  to  represent  in  their  scenery  on  the  stage 
the  image  of  real  buildings  as  they  usually  appear  to  the  eye,  and 
that  whether  they  were  painted  on  horizontal  or  upright  surfaces; 
and  thus  they  exhibited  objects  near  and  remote."  This  was  the 
early  application  of  perspective  to  seenie  representation ;  which,  as 
now,  must  have  combined  several  rude  paintings  so  arranged  behind 
each  other  as  to  give  the  appearance  of  an  extended  view  in  the 
background.  The  paintings  of  the  ancient  Greeks,  in  general,  did 
not  require  a  background ;  consisting,  as  they  did,  chiefly  of  single 
figures  or  of  architectural  and  historic  groups,  into  which  perspective 
could  not  to  any  great  extent  enter.  That  their  painters  however 
understood  and  taught  perspective  is  evident  from  Pliny's  statements 
as  to  Pamphilus,  one  of  the  early  Greek  teachers  of  Painting:  "He 
was  learned  especially  in  arithmetic  and  geometry ;  without  whose 
principles  he  declared  that  art  could  not  be  perfected." 

When  in  quite  modern  times  landscape  painting  began  to  be 
favorite,  treatises  on  the  science  of  Perspective  appeared  whose  tho- 
rough mastery  of  the  subject  could  have  originated  only  in  a  know- 
ledge before  perfected.  The  very  earliest  work  on  perspective  in 
this  new  age,  that  of  the  Italian  artists  Pietro  del  Borgo,  who  died 
in  1443,  and  of  Bartolemeo  Bramantine,  professed  in  its  very  title  to 
be  "Rules  of  Perspective  derived  from  Antiquity."  Lionardo  in 
Italy,  and  Albert  Durer  in  Germany,  laid  down  in  their  age  the 
main  rules  which  guide  artists  of  the  present  day. 


238  ART   CRITICISM. 


CHAPTER    III. 

engraving;  the  transfer  of  drawings  to  engraved  plates 
for  the  multiplying  of  copies. 

In  the  progress  of  human  improvement  the  applications  of  an  art 
come  often  to  overshadow  and  almost  hide  from  view  the  original 
which  gave  it  birth,  and  on  which  it  depends;  the  parent  stock  being 
lost  among  the  scions  of  later  growth.  Books  multiplied  by  the 
press  make  us  forget  the  day  when  the  pen  copied  everything;  yet 
the  printed  page  is  but  the  copy,  and  the  written  page  must  be  the 
original.  Engraving,  and  its  kindred  arts,  but  copy  that  of  which 
the  drawing  pencil  has  given  an  original ;  and  photography,  in  its 
various  branches,  only  compels  nature  to  the  imposed  toil  of  pencil- 
ling her  own  face.  There  are  many  arts  allied  to  drawing;  but 
they  all  rest  upon  it  as  the  fundamental  art. 

Sect.  1.  The  Nature  and  History  of  Engraving. 

In  the  study  of  an  art  proper  we  naturally  consider  the  processes 
before  tracing  the  history  of  its  practice.  It  is  the  reverse  in  our 
consideration  of  an  invention ;  for  an  invention  is  the  application  of 
the  art  already  perfected ;  and  its  history  is  the  best  illustration  of 
its  nature.  Engraving  is  an  invention  originating  when  drawing  as 
an  art  was  so  perfected  that  men  sought  some  method  of  multiplying 
its  superior  creations.  An  engraving  is  a  drawing  cut  into  the  mate- 
rial on  which  it  is  executed;  as  wax,  clay,  wood,  stone,  or  metal. 
Engraving  as  an  art  manifestly  follows  drawing;  because  every 
engraving  in  order  to  be  cut  into  any  material  must  first  have  been 
drawn  upon  it.  Engravings  are  executed  for  two  purposes-;  first,  to 
be  themselves  works  of  art  for  individual  observation ;  second,  to  be 
used  merely  as  a  mechanic's  copy  whose  im|)ressions  are  to  be  works 
of  art  multiplied  for  numerous  observers.  The  first  kind  of  engrav- 
ing is  of  very  early  origin ;  it  is  alluded  to  by  Job  before  Abraham's 
age,^  and  is  preserved  now  in  the  monuments  of  Egypt  and  Assyria 
of  the  same  age.  The  second  kind  of  engraving  existed  in  its  germ 
in  the  signet  rings  of  the  ancients  worn  even  by  the  Pharaohs  of 
Joseph's  time,  and  also  in  the  dies  from  which  the  earliest  rude  coins 
must  have  been  struck ;  allusions  to  which  with  the  image  of  a  sheep 
upon  them  we  find  in  Abraham's  day,^  and  specimens  of  which  of  a 


»  Job  xix.  24.  »  Gen.  xxiii.  18;  xli.  42. 


GRECIAN  ENGRAVERS  AND  CHINESE  STEREOTYPING.       239 

more  elaborate  character  are  found  now  in  the  oldest  tombs  of  Egypt. 
Engraving  of  the  former  class  in  its  increasing  perfection  became  the 
germ  of  the  art  of  sculpture ;  while  the  exquisitely  beautiful  speci- 
mens of  the  second  kind  executed  in  modern  times  have  become  the 
most  finished  master-pieces  in  the  art  of  drawing. 

To  the  first  class  belong  the  long  and  numerous  line  of  celebrated 
engravers  mentioned  in  Grecian  and  Roman  history.  The  materials 
on  which  they  worked  were  metals  and  precious  stones;  and  the 
articles  adorned  were  cups,  signet  rings  and  like  trinkets.  Their 
work  often  was  merely  geometric  figures,  or  foliated  decorations ;  but 
sometimes  the  finest  eflfects  of  statuary  and  painting,  both  ideal  forms 
and  portraits,  were  attempted  on  precious  stones.  The  consideration 
of  these  works  belongs  more  especially  to  the  subject  of  Decorative 
Art;  but  the  choice  relics  of  Grecian  engravings  are  among  the 
richest  treasures  of  the  fine  arts  proper.  Even  the  decorators  of 
armor,  and  rings,  and  smaller  articles  described  by  Homer,  whose 
names  are  lost  to  history,  were  advanced  in  the  art.  Mnesarchus, 
the  father  of  Pythagoras,  the  philosopher,  lived  in  the  time  of  the 
earliest  able  artists  of  Greece;  and  to  the  same  age  belonged  Theo- 
dorus  who  wrought  the  celebrated  ring  of  Polycrates.  Herodotus  at 
his  early  day  mentions  maps  engraved  on  metal.  In  the  days  of 
the  philosophers,  Agathermus  engraved  the  figure  of  Socrates  on  a 
precious  stone;  and  Plato  extols  Diodorus  who  wrought  a  Satyr 
upon  silver.  Under  Alexander  able  engravers  were  numerous;  and 
the  proud  conqueror  by  an  edict  forbade  any  one  but  Pyrgoteles  to 
engrave  his  image.  Rome  had  its  masterly  engravers,  nearly  all 
Greeks,  after  the  decline  of  Sculpture ;  who  cut  on  precious  stones 
exquisite  portraits  of  the  emperors  from  Augustus  onwards,  as  well 
as  ideal  figures. 

The  engraving  of  plates  for  the  purpose  of  multiplying  copies  of 
drawings  has  much  the  same  relation  to  stereotype  printing  that  pic- 
ture writing  has  to  alphabet  writing ;  the  former  preceded  the  latter. 
In  the  oldest  tombs  of  Egypt,  cones  of  clay,  with  lines  of  hierogly- 
phics or  picture  writing  are  found;  which  tablets  must  have  been 
made  from  a  wooden  or  metallic  engraved  plate,  precisely  like  mo- 
dern printing  taken  from  stereotyped  plates.  The  same  art  is  on  good 
authority  said  to  have  been  known  in  China  as  early  as  1120 
B.  C,  or  during  the  time  of  the  Hebrew  Judges ;  a  record  worthy 
of  confidence  since  Egypt,  India,  Assyria  and  China  are  found  to 
have  had  much  the  same  arts  in  most  ancient  times.  The  art  was 
probably  never  lost  in  the  East  or  West.     The  modern  art  seems  to 


240  ART   CRITICISM. 

have  originated  in  Italy,  and  was  first  employed  in  the  copying  and 
multiplying  of  small  pictured  cards  requiring  very  little  art ;  as  play- 
ing cards  and  pictures  of  saints  executed  in  dark  and  colored  figures. 
These  seem  to  have  been  struck  from  wood  plates  as  early  as  the 
Thirteenth  Century  in  Venice;  and  the  use  of  metal  soon  followed. 
The  material  first  used  as  the  copying  ink,  introduced  at  Florence, 
was  soot  mixed  with  oil. 

Sect.  2.  Xylography  or  Engraving  on  Wood. 

The  simplest  material  for  engraving  is  wood ;  whence  the  Greek  word 
Xylography.  The  best  woods  are  box,  beech,  and  mahogany.  The 
engraving  is  executed  on  a  section  cut  across  the  fibre  of  the  standing 
wood.  The  picture  is  first  drawn  with  a  pencil  on  thin  or  tissue 
paper,  oiled  so  as  to  be  transparent.  A  second  paper,  smeared  upon 
one  side  with  white,  red,  or  black  chalk,  is  laid  Avith  its  chalked 
face  downward  upon  the  wood  to  be  engraved;  and  over  it  is  placed 
the  first  paper  with  the  drawing  upon  it  downwards.  With  a  hard- 
pointed  style  the  lines  of  the  drawing  are  traced  through  the  two 
thicknesses  of  paper  upon  the  wood,  so  as  to  leave  its  lines  in  chalk 
upon  the  face  of  the  wood.  With  a  fine  chisel  a  small  groove  is  cut 
along  both  sides  of  each  line  in  the  drawing,  so  as  to  leave  a  thin 
raised  edge  corresponding  to  the  lines  of  the  drawing;  and  the 
intervening  parts  of  the  surface  of  the  wood  are  scooped  out  with  a 
gouge.  The  block  thus  prepared  is  used  as  a  stereotype  plate  in 
printing;  the  raised  lines  only,  like  the  type,  being  touched  by  the 
ink.  As  the  drawing  was  reversed  when  traced  on  the  wood,  and  as 
thus  the  engraved  block  is  the  reverse  of  the  drawing,  the  print  upon 
the  paper  is  the  reverse  of  the  engraving  on  the  block,  or  the  original 
drawing  restored  again.  The  more  experienced  engravers  will  copy 
the  drawing  directly  and  in  reverse  upon  the  wood. 

As  already  mentioned,  wood-engraving  existed  as  early  as  B.  C. 
1120  in  the  printing  of  the  complicated  and  picture-like  characters 
of  the  Chinese  from  engraved  blocks  of  wood.  This  is  proved  by  the 
following  historic  fact.  The  great  Sacred  Book  of  the  Chinese  called 
Y-King  or  the  "  Book  of  Changes,"  re-published  by  Confucius  about 
B.  C.  550,  composed  by  Fohi  one  of  the  earliest  Emperors  of  China, 
in  whose  age  the  Chinese  system  of  writing  was  incomplete,  is  known  to 
have  been  first  put  into  a  connected  form  by  the  Emperor  Ven  Vang 
of  the  Tscheou  dynasty,  about  B.  C  1120.  In  this  work,  then  first 
published,  occurs  this  comparison;  "As  the  ink  which  is  used  to 
blacken  the  engraved  characters  can  never  become  white,  so  a  heart 


EARLY    WOOD    ENGRAVING.  241 

blackeued  by  vices  will  retain  its  blackness."  It  is  manifest  from 
this  allusion  that  the  art  was  known  in  the  time  of  the  compiler  Ven 
Vang,  even  if  it  was  not  in  the  earlier  age  of  Fohi.  The  modern 
process  is  cited  more  than  a  century  ago  by  one  of  the  Jesuit  fathers 
in  China ;  and  may  be  now  witnessed  by  the  foreign  resident.  The 
entire  page  of  a  book  to  be  printed  is  written  carefully  on  thin  paper 
which  permits  the  writing  to  be  seen  on  the  opposite  side.  This  page 
is  then  glued  with  the  written  face  downward  upon  a  block  of  wood 
of  the  apple  or  pear  tree,  well  smoothed  and  cut  to  the  size  of  the 
page.  The  engraver  then  cuts  the  block  in  the  same  manner  already 
described  as  that  pursued  by  European  engravers. 

The  art  of  engraving  on  wood  was  probably,  as  already  intimated, 
introduced  into  Europe  in  the  twelfth  century;  being  brought  from 
Southern  or  Eastern  Asia  by- the  Venetian  merchants  who  penetrated 
to  the  ports  of  that  distant  region.  At  first,  the  execution  was 
extremely -rude ;  and  Germany  has  the  honor  of  its  improvement. 
Only  the  outside  border  lines  were  cut  upon  the  wood  and  printed 
upon  the  paper;  the  entire  figure  within  the  exterior  outline  being 
filled  in  by  the  colorist.  The  next  step  in  the  progress  of  the  art 
was  to  introduce  the  inner,  as  well  as  outer  lines,  tracing  limbs  and 
features;  the  shading,  however,  being  left  for  the  finishing  touch  of 
the  artist.  Still  later,  a  species  of  shading  by  dots  was  added ;  until 
at  length  a  German  engraver  named  Wohlgemuth,  began  to  put  in 
the  cross-cuts  and  hatchings  which  formed  the  shading  of  the  draw- 
ing to  be  engraved. 

It  was  in  the  low  country,  however,  of  Holland  and  Flanders, 
among  the  Flemish  artists,  that  engraving  became  truly  a  Fine  Art. 
Its  progress  to  perfection  may  be  traced  by  examining  German 
engravings  between  the  eras  of  those  great  masters  Van  Eyck,  A.  D. 
1395,  and  Albert  Durer,  A.  D.  1.495.  The  clog  upon  its  improve- 
ment as  an  art  was  the  extreme  difficulty  of  cutting  the  nice  cross 
lines  of  a  sufficient  thinness,  and  the  spaces  between  to  a  sufficient 
depth,  to  give  at  once  fineness  and  clearness  to  the  impression.  The 
skill  of  Albert  Durer  overcame  in  a  remarkable  degree  this  obstacle 
to  success  in  wood  engraving ;  and  the  blocks  engraved  under  his 
auspices,  if  not  by  his  hand,  are  still  preserved  as  monuments  of 
triumph  in  this  art.  Finally  the  genius  of  Holbein  gave  almost 
perfection  to  the  art ;  introducing  the  finest  of  lines  and  most  deli- 
cate of  shading  which  characterizes  the  celebrated  prints  of  his 
published  at  Basle,  between  the  years  A.  D.  1520  and  1540.  Those 
of  the  "Dance  of  Death,"  forty-one  prints  in  all,  published  at  Lyons, 
21  2  F 


242  ART   CRITICISM. 

France,  in  1538,  seem  to  have  been  the  climax  in  the  perfection  of 
wood  engraving;  of  which  a  French  Editor  of  a  new  issue,  made 
apparently  about  the  time  of  the  death  of  Holbein,  who  deceased  in 
1554,  says,  "To  return  to  our  'Cuts  of  Death,'  we  now  very  justly 
regret  the  *  Death'  of  him  who  has  designed  such  elegant  Figures ; 
exceeding  as  much  all  the  Examples  hitherto,  as  the  Paintings  of 
Apelles,  or  of  Zeuxis,  exceed  those  of  the  Moderns."  In  later 
days  the  half  shading  of  nicer  engravings,  has  been  introduced  by 
the  application  of  a  second  block,  whose  print  is  laid  upon  the 
already  prepared  outline. 

Sect.  3.  Chalcogeaphy;  or  Engraving  on  Copper. 

The  art  of  engraving  on  copper,  and  other  metals,  was  known  as 
we  have  observed,  in  very  early  times;  though  the  engraved  maps 
mentioned  by  Herodotus  were  not  like  those  of  our  day,  designed 
for  printing  copies.  The  word  chalcography,  like  typography,  is  a 
scientific  term  of  modern  times  put  for  convenience  into  the  Greek, 
the  language  of  technical  terms,  that  it  may  be  common  to  men  of 
all  nations  engaged  in  the  pursuits  of  science  and  art.  The  ancient 
Greeks  had  themselves  numerous  similar  compounds;  as  chalchoergos, 
to  designate  the  coarser,  and  chalchotypos,  the  finer  artificer  in  brass 
or  copper. 

The  ancients,  however,  of  every  cultured  nation  were  familiar 
with  the  method  of  taking  impressions  upon  wax  with  signets 
engraved  on  gold  or  precious  stones.  These  were  in  relief;  the  soft 
wax  being  pressed  into  the  depressions  in  the  engraved  seal  and  cor- 
responding elevations  thus  being  obtained  in  the  wax.  The  idea, 
however,  that  ink  might  be  made  to  fill  the  cavities  of  the  engraved 
plates  while  it  was  carefully  removed  from  the  remainder  of  its  face, 
and  that  the  pressure  of  the  plate  upon  parchment,  or  other  material, 
might  cause  the  fibres  of  the  sheet  to  be  so  forced  into  the  depres- 
sions of  the  plate  as  to  receive  the  distinct  lines  of  the  engraving  in 
ink,  seems  not  to  have  occurred  to  the  minds  of  those  accustomed  to 
wood  engraving  and  to  print  impressions  from  raised  type. 

It  was  by  a  happy  accident  that  the  discovery  was  made  that 
prints  might  be  struck  as  readily  from  depressed,  as  from  raised 
lines.  Among  the  arts  of  adornment  for  chased  silver  and  gold 
wrought  upon  chalices,  sword-hilts,  etc.,  that  called  niello  was  exten- 
sively practiced  in  Italy.  It  consisted  in  filling  the  depressed  lines 
of  the  carved  or  embossed  silver  or  gold  with  a  fused  compound  of 
silver  and  lead,  which  melted  and  ran  into  the  lines  prepared  for  it, 


ENGRAVING   AND   STIPPLING   ON   COPPER.  243 

turned  black  and  thus  gave  the  outline  of  any  figure  desired.  A 
servant  woman  of  Tomaso  Finiguerra,  having  accidentally  laid  a 
wet  cloth  on  a  piece  of  niello  in  his  study,  the  print  on  the  cloth 
when  removed  suggested  to  that  artist  the  idea  of  filling  the  lines  of 
an  engraved  copper-plate  with  ink,  and  printing  from  it  as  from  a 
wood-plate.  The  art  became  in  time  quite  perfect  in  Italy ;  while  in 
Germany  it  made  slower  progress ;  even  Albert  Durer,  so  skilful  in 
wood  engraving,  failing  to  attain  the  grace  of  the  Italian  copper- 
plate engravers.  In  both  countries  this  style  of  engraving  was  for 
a  long  time  restricted  to  outlines;  no  landscape  background  or  half 
shade  being  introduced. 

Copper-plate  engraving  embraces  several  varieties.  The  simplest 
method  is  first  to  cover  the  prepared  copper-plate  with  a  very  thin 
layer  of  white  wax ;  then  to  lay  a  copy  of  the  engraving  or  drawing 
to  be  executed  on  the  wax,  and  to  subject  it  to  a  heavy  pressure,  so 
as  to  leave  its  outlines  upon  the  plate ;  next,  to  remove  the  paper  of 
the  transferred  engraving  or  drawing  by  moistening  and  gentle  rub- 
bing ;  afterwards  to  expel  the  wax  by  heating  the  plate ;  and  lastly, 
to  cut  the  picture  left  upon  its  surface  into  the  copper  with  the  graver. 
The  point  of  the  graver  is  triangular  or  pyramidal  in  shape ;  and 
being  inclined  to  one  side  in  cutting  the  copper,  it  leaves  a  depres- 
sion smooth  on  one  side,  but  having  on  the  other  a  rough  raised  edge, 
or  bur,  which  must  be  removed  by  the  scraper,  formerly  styled  a 
burin.  Faint  parallel  lines  for  the  shading  of  clouds,  etc.,  are  cut 
with  a  pointed  instrument  drawn  along  the  edge  of  a  ruler.  The 
yet  fainter  shades  are  scratched  in  with  a  needle.  The  polish  of  the 
plate  is  completed  by  rubbing  with  olive  oil.  The  depressions  in  the 
engraved  copper-plate,  receive  the  ink ;  and  in  this  respect  the 
metallic  plate  engraving  is  the  counterpart  of  the  wood-plate 
engraving. 

One  part  of  the  process  of  engraving  on  copper  is  called  stippling; 
a  word  from  the  Latin  stipula  or  stubble.  It  consists  in  puncturing 
the  surface  of  the  plate  with  dots  made  by  the  point  of  the  graver ; 
the  number  of  the  dots  increasing  the  depth  of  shading.  This  part 
of  the  work  of  engraving,  designed  for  particular  portions  of  nearly 
all  engravings,  became  in  time  a  style  of  art;  and  a  favorite  in 
England  in  the  latter  part  of  the  last  century.  It  has  the  advan- 
tage of  giving  a  peculiarly  soft  appearance  to  the  picture ;  and  is 
used  in  the  best  modern  engravings  to  represent  human  flesh,  and 
the  more  delicate  flowers.  Many,  however,  regard  the  best  line 
engravers  as  the  true  masters  in  the  art.     The  most  successful  copper- 


244  ART   CRITICISM. 

plate  engravers  have  employed  their  own  chosen  modes  of  shading; 
using  at  pleasure  lines  or  dots  representing  different  objects.  The 
crossing  of  the  lines  at  acute  angles,  forming  rhomboidal  or  lozenge- 
shaped  interstices,  however,  are  generally  used  in  representing  objects 
in  landscape  views,  as  land,  cloud,  water  in  agitation,  etc, ;  the  angles 
being  more  acute  as  the  shading  required  is  darker;  while  delicate 
substances,  as  fruits,  flowers,  human  flesh,  etc.,  are  usually  softened 
by  dotting ;  or,  if  the  engraver  employ  lines  instead  of  dots,  they  are 
made  to  cross  at  angles  nearly,  though  never  quite,  right  angles. 

The  delicate  shading  called  mezzo-tinto,  or  half  tint,  executed  on 
copper-plate,  is  said  to  have  owed  its  origin  to  Sir  Christopher  Wren. 
It  is  attained  by  the  use  of  a  small  steel  wheel  with  a  notched  edge 
of  sharp  teeth ;  which,  when  rolled  over  the  plate  with  a  pressure, 
more  or  less  heavy,  gives  regular  and  superficial  indentations  which 
receive  slight  amounts  of  ink,  and  give  to  the  print  a  delightful 
evenness  and  softness  of  aspect. 

Sect.  4.  Etching  ;  Engraving  on  Copper  by  Acid  Reaction. 

A  method  of  copper-plate  engraving  invented  about  forty  years 
after  the  art  itself  began  to  be  practiced  is  called  Etching.  To  pre- 
pare it  for  the  etching,  the  plate  is  heated  over  a  spirit  lamp,  and  is 
then  covered  with  a  varnish  specially  adapted  to  its  purpose.  Upon 
this  varnish  the  copy  in  pencil,  or  ink,  is  transferred,  and  the 
engraver  traces  the  entire  drawing,  both  the  outline  and  lighter 
shading,  with  his  graver,  cutting  only  the  varnish.  A  solution  of 
aquafortis,  or  nitric  acid,  is  then  poured  over  the  plate;  which  eats 
into  the  copper  along  the  lines  where  the  varnish  is  removed.  When 
the  acid  has  stood  long  enough  to  produce  the  light  shading  it  is 
poured  ofl*,  and  the  plate  is  washed  with  water  and  dried;  after 
which  the  parts  of  the  picture  which  are  to  remain  of  a  light  shade 
are  touched  with  the  varnish  by  means  of  a  brush.  The  shade  next 
darker  is  then  produced  by  pouring  the  acid  again  upon  the  plate 
and  allowing  it  to  stand  until  this  new  shade  is  secured  by  the  deeper 
corrosion  of  the  plate;  whose  greater  depth,  of  course,  enables  it  to 
take  up  a  greater  quantity  of  ink  when  used  in  printing,  and  thus 
to  deposit  on  the  paper  a  darker  tint.  By  repeating  this  process,  any 
number  of  shades  may  be  produced.  There  is  a  double  advantage 
in  the  method  of  etching  over  ordinary  plate  engraving.  The  labor 
is  diminished;  the  acid  doing  the  work  of  the  graver;  and  thus 
cheapness  is  secured.  Again  the  eating  of  the  acid  forming  a  regu- 
lar depression,  the  distribution  of  the  ink  is  more  uniform  and  the 


ETCHING    AND   STEEL   ENGKAVING.  245 

effect  is  therefore  more  perfect.  Etching  has  for  these  reasons 
become  specially  in  use  for  ordinary  landscape  engraving.  The  ease 
and  accuracy  with  which  copies  of  the  finest  works  of  art  could  be 
multiplied,  and  thus  brought  to  his  studio,  made  this  style  of  engrav- 
ing a  favorite  with  the  artist  at  the  era  of  its  invention. 

The  aqua-tinta,  or  water-tint,  a  species  of  Etching,  is  so  called 
from  the  resemblance  of  the  copies  done  in  this  style  to  drawing 
done  in  water-colors  with  "India  Ink;"  an  article  used  for  ink  in 
China  and  India  which  seems  to  be  made  of  animal  glue  and  lamp- 
black. In  aqua-tinta  the  light  shade  is  .first  produced  as  in  etching. 
A  solution  of  resin,  or  of  Burgundy  pitch,  in  alcohol,  is  then  poured 
over  the  plate.  As  the  alcohol  rapidly  dries  off,  the  resin  is  left  in 
dots  or  granulations  over  the  entire  surface.  This  is  the  first,  or 
lightest  shade;  and  the  dots  of  resin  remaining  fixed  during  all  the 
future  process,  preserve  this  light  shade  in  dots.  The  portions  of  the 
plate  to  receive  the  darker  shades  are  then  covered  with  a  gummy 
syrup  called  the  bursting-ground,  which  will  burst  when  immersed 
in  water.  The  whole  is  next  covered  with  varnish,  as  in  etching. 
Water  is  then  poured  on  the  plate;  when  in  about  fifteen  minutes 
the  gum  breaks  and  exposes  the  plate  on  all  the  portions  which  are 
to  receive  the  deeper  shade.  The  nitric  acid  is  then  poured  on  the 
plate  a  second  time,  as  in  etching.  The  granulated  or  dotted  light 
spots  amid  the  dark  shade  preserved  by  the  resin  gives  a  delightful 
softness  to  the  aspect  of  the  engraving  which  has  made  it  a  favorite 
for  the  background  in  portraits  and  night-scenes. 

Sect.  5.  Siderography;  Engraving  on  Steel. 

Steel  engraving  more  truly  than  copper-plate,  was  unknown  to  the 
ancients;  itsdGrreek  name  being  of  modern  invention.  Though  early 
suggested  as  a  metal  the  most  desirable  for  engraved  plates,  steel  was 
little  used  for  engraving,  until  the  process  of  alternately  softening 
and  hardening  the  plates  was  discovered.  The  great  demand  for 
costly  engraving  in  bank-notes,  felt  from  the  time  that  paper  cur- 
rency with  the  modern  system  of  banking  was  introduced,  made  the 
recently  known  method  referred  to  come  into  immediate  and  very 
general  use.  The  perfected  invention  is  attributed  to  Mr.  Jacob 
Perkins  of  Mass.,  about  1808.  The  engraving  is  first  executed  on  a 
hardened  steel  plate.  A  cylinder  of  soft  steel  is  then  rolled  over  the 
engraved  plate  under  a  heavy  pressure  until  the  soft  steel  has  been 
pressed  into  the  indentations  of  the  hard  plate  forming  thus  on  the 
soft  cylinder  a  raised  counterpart  of  the  engraving.  This  cylinder 
21  * 


24ii  ART  CRITICISM. 

is  then  hardened  for  the  purpose  of  serving  as  a  punch  in  the  making 
of  copies  of  the  engraved  plate  from  which  it  received  its  impress. 
These  copies  are  made  on  soft  steel ;  which  when  hardened  become 
each  of  them  a  plate  capable  of  furnishing  from  50,000  to  100,000 
impressions.  The  great  labor  and  artistic  skill  which  can  thus  be 
bestowed  on  the  original  plate,  and  the  consequent  expense  as  well 
as  skill  required  in  counterfeiting,  forms  a  most  important  safeguard 
in  banking.  The  vast  multiplication  of  banks  in  this  country,  as 
compared  with  England  or  any  other  country  of  Europe,  has  made 
the  United  States  to  take  the  lead  in  the  most  exquisite  perfection 
of  the  art  of  engraving  on  steel.  A  contrast  more  striking  can 
hardly  be  found  in  the  world's  history  than  is  seen  by  comparing  the 
Continental  bank-bills  of  eighty  years  ago  with  the  ordinary  issue 
of  hundreds  of  banks  now  scattered  over  our  States.  While  em- 
ployed thus  for  bank  notes,  steel  plate  is  employed  more  or  less 
extensively  for  the  illustration  of  works  of  popular  literature,  such 
as  Monthly  Magazines  having  an  extensive  sale.  For  this  pur- 
pose the  soft,  or  uncarbonized  steel  is  used.  While  a  copper- 
plate is  worn  out  in  printing  5,000  or  6,000  impressions,  the  soft 
steel  will  print  nearly  or  quite  100,000  copies;  a  number  which  may 
be  increased  by  hardening,  or  carbonizing  the  engraved  steel-plate. 

Sect.  6.  Lithography;  or  Engraving  on  Stone. 

Engraving  on  stone,  or  lithography,  in  its  primitive  form  is  a  very 
ancient  art;  being  earlier  mentioned,  indeed,  than  engraving  on 
wood ;  though  the  use  of  stone  as  a  plate  to  be  engraved  for  printing 
purposes  is  of  later  date  than  wood-plate  engraving.  There  are  two 
methods  of  preparing  the  plate  for  this  purpose ;  the  one  correspond- 
ing to  copper-plate  engraving  proper,  and  the  other  to  etching  proper. 
As  an  engraved  plate  for  printing  purposes,  a  hard  stone  is  employed ; 
the  lines  are  cut  upon  it  as  upon  copper-plate,  and  the  depressions 
receive  the  printer's  ink. 

The  method  of  preparing  the  stone  corresponding  to  etching  is 
quite  a  modern  invention,  commended  by  the  ease  and  cheapness  of 
its  execution.  It  is  said  to  have  originated  with  Sennefelder,  an 
actor  of  Munich  in  Bavaria.  The  stone  used  for  this  purpose  is  cal- 
careous limestone ;  a  stone  found  in  Bavaria  and  Hungary,  as  also 
the  white  lias  of  England  being  specially  adapted  to  this  purpose. 
The  drawing  is  executed  on  the  stone  with  an  oily  or  resinous  paint ; 
which  from  its  chemical  affinity  adheres  tenaciously  to  the  portions 
of  the  stone  covered  by  it.     More  commonly  the  artistic  design  or 


LITHOGRAPHING   AND   ITS   ADVANTAGES.  247 

letter-copy  to  be  lithographed  is  drawn  or  written  upon  paper  with 
the  paint  just  mentioned;  and  this  paper  copy  is  then  transferred  to 
the  stone.  A  double  advantage  is  thus  gained ;  the  copy  which  must 
be  executed  in  reverse,  or  back-handed,  if  drawn  directly  upon  the 
stone,  is  made  in  natural  order  upon  the  paper,  and  thus  becomes  a 
reversed  copy  when  transferred;  while,  moreover,  any  error  com- 
mitted in  the  original  drawing  is  a  loss  only  of  the  paper,  whereas  if 
committed  upon  the  stone  its  whole  face  would  require  a  new  chip- 
ping, facing  and  polishing.  When  the  stone  has  thus  received  the 
impress  of  the  paint  from  the  drawing,  the  action  of  vitriolic  acid  is 
employed  to  eat  away  the  stone  where  it  is  not  covered  with  the 
paint.  Thus  prepared,  the  stone,  when  about  to  be  used,  is  kept  wet 
with  gum  water.  The  ink  is  composed  of  an  oily  soap  mixed  with 
lamp  black ;  which  when  applied  adheres  to  the  portions  of  stone 
already  covered  with  the  paint  for  which  it  has  an  affinity,  while  the 
portions  soaked  with  water,  for  which  the  ink  has  no  affinity,  are 
left  free  from  ink.  The  number  of  copies  which  can  be  made  from 
a  stone  thus  prepared  is  almost  incredible ;  the  stone  being  almost  as 
durable  as  a  steel  plate.  A  later  suggestion  has  led  to  the  employ 
of  zinc  plates  instead  of  stone.  The  zinc  plate  is  prepared  as  the 
stone  by  writing  upon  it  with  the  oily  ink ;  for  which  this  metal  has 
a  strong  affinity.  Dipped,  when  the  drawing  is  completed,  in  Gallic 
acid,  the  uncovered  portions  of  the  zinc  lose  this  affinity  for  the  ink ; 
after  which  the  plate  is  also  washed  with  gum  water.  The  zinc  plate 
is  said  to  be  preferable  to  the  stone,  because  the  acid  on  the  stone 
continues  its  action,  and  thus  injures  the  finer  lines,  while  upon  the 
zinc  the  action  of  the  acid  is  exhausted  at  its  first  application. 

The  chief  advantage  of  lithography  over  any  other  kind  of  engrav- 
ing is  the  rapidity  and  facility  with  which  coarse  prints  may  be 
obtained.  It  is  for  this  reason  resorted  to  when  haste  is  required ; 
though  it  cannot  be  employed  for  the  inserted  engravings  worked  in 
with  the  type  in  newspaper  and  magazine  illustrations.  The  hastily 
prepared  maps  of  the  U.  S.  Coast  Survey,  which  it  is  necessary  to 
have  early  in  the  hands  of  navigators,  are  printed  from  stone ;  but 
their  finished  work  is  engraved  on  copper-plates. 

Sect.  7.  Printing  of  Engravings;  the  Wear  and  Kenewal  of  Plates; 
Proof  Impressions  and  their  Graduated  Value. 

In  printing  from  engraved  plates  the  face  is  subjected  to  a  heavy 
pressure  which  has  the  effect  gradually  to  wear  and  obliterate  the 
outlines  and  make  the  impression  indistinct.     This  wear  is  less  on 


248  ART   CRITICISM. 

the  raised  edges  of  wood  and  other  surfaces  which  print  from  relief, 
like  ordinary  type,  than  it  is  on  copper  and  steel  which  print  from 
intaglio  or  depressed  lines.  Two  causes  control  this  wear;  the  dura- 
bility of  the  material  of  the  plate,  and  the  amount  of  pressure  requi- 
site to  secure  the  impression.  Belief  surfaces,  as  wood  and  type 
metal,  which  receive  readily  the  ink  from  the  roller  passed  over 
them,  require  far  less  weight  of  pressure  in  printing  than  do  copper 
and  steel  plates.  Stone,  also,  which  prints  from  a  relief  or  an  adhe- 
sive raised  surface,  is  like  other  reliefs  in  respect  to  the  pressure 
required.  Copper  and  steel  prints,  however,  into  whose  shallow 
lines  the  ink  must  be  rubbed  with  great  care  by  the  workman's  hand, 
require  for  nicety  of  impression  the  greatest  pressure  to  which  by 
combination  of  mechanical  powers  the  workman's  arm  is  adequate. 
The  comparative  softness  of  copper,  which  makes  it  most  desirable 
for  finer  work  when  but  few  copies  are  required,  renders  it  undesir- 
able for  extensive  printing;  since  not  more  than  from  1,000  to  5,000 
impressions  of  varied  qualities  of  excellence  can  be  obtained  from  a 
copper-plate.  Steel  plates,  as  stated,  which  require  the  same  pressure 
as  the  copper,  will  give  even  100,000  sufficiently  distinct  impres- 
sions; and  are  therefore  chosen  for  the  numerous  copies  required  in 
popular  literature  of  the  day  having  an  extended  sale. 

As  the  engraved  plates  are  from  the  causes  mentioned  gradually 
worn,  two  features  of  the  work  of  printing  engravings  become  im- 
portant. The  constantly  growing  wear  of  the  plate  produces  a  con- 
stant deterioration  in  the  distinctness  and  value  of  the  successive 
prints.  Though  in  ordinary  engravings  this  effect  is  little  regarded 
by  common  observers,  in  the  higher  works  of  the  Art  it  is  of  the 
greatest  importance  as  fixing  the  value  of  first  and  second  hundreds 
in  the  succession  of  copies.  The  name  of  "proof,"  taken  from  the 
language  of  common  printing,  has  been  employed  for  the  purpose  of 
designating  this  graduated  depreciation  of  prints.  As  the  "press- 
proof"  in  book-printing  is  the  first  finished  impression  when  all  the 
author's  and  compositor's  corrections  are  made,  so  in  printing  en- 
gravings, "press-proofs,  first-proofs,  engraver's  proofs,"  have  been 
used  as  terms  indicating  the  earliest  and  most  distinct  impressions 
from  engraved  plates.  Some  of  the  more  celebrated  engravers,  as 
Raphael  Morghen,  with  a  somewhat  questionable  ambition  both  in 
the  artist  and  his  patrons,  have  made  it  a  condition  of  subscription 
to  their  superior  works  that  not  more  than  100  impressions  should  be 
taken ;  and  that  then  the  plate  should  be  broken  up,  so  that  no  infe- 


MULTIPLYING  OF  COPPER  PLATES  BY  THE  ELECTROTYPE.    249 

rior  rivals  could  take  from  the  exclusive  privilege  of  the  first  pur- 
chasers, or  from  the  first-rate  merit  of  the  artist. 

The  gradual  obliteration  of  the  outline  of  copper  and  steel  engraved 
plates  is  in  part  practically  offset  by  the  use  of  a  stiffer  ink  on  the 
plate  of  the  printer.  The  ink,  made  of  lamp-black  and  burnt  linseed 
oil,  can  be  rendered  more  adhesive  so  as  to  be  retained  in  a  more 
shallow  line  by  increased  burning  and  rigidness  of  the  oil ;  of  which 
there  are  four  degrees,  weak,  medium,  strong,  and  very  strong. 
When,  at  length,  however,  the  wear  of  the  plate  is  such  that  the 
obliterated  lines  will  not  take  ink  of  any  amount  of  stiffness,  the 
plate  itself  must  be  retouched,  or  thrown  aside. 

Sect.  8.  Kenewal  of  Plates  ;  Electrotyping,  or  the  Multiplying  of 
Engraved  Copper-Plates. 

"We  have  observed  how  the  importance  of  having  a  durable  plate 
has  led  to  the  use  of  stone,  whose  coarse  texture  is  nevertheless  un- 
favorable to  the  execution  of  the  finer  lines  of  engraving;  and  how 
in  the  alternate  softening  and  hardening  of  steel  the  renewal  of 
plates  without  the  great  cost  of  new  engraving  is  secured.  The 
almost  limitless  demand  for  maps  of  coasts  and  harbors  has  made 
it  important  that  copies  of  the  finely  engraved  copper-plates  from 
which  they  are  printed  should  be  readily  multiplied.  This  is  done 
by  what  the  French  chemists  called  Galvano-plastie,  and  the 
English  Electro-Metallurgy. 

Shortly  after  the  invention  of  the  Voltaic  pile  it  was  observed  that 
the  metals  in  acid  solution  are  electro-positive,  going  over  when 
decomposed  by  electricity  to  the  negative  pole  of  the  battery.  As 
early  as  1801,  Wollaston,  in  England,  observed  that  a  silver  coin 
placed  at  the  negative  pole  of  the  battery  would  be  coated  with 
copper  when  immersed  in  a  solution  of  sulphate  of  copper.  In  1805, 
an  Italian  chemist  gilded  silver  by  the  same  method.  It  was  not 
however  till  1837  that  the  idea  of  electrotyping  was  suggested  by 
Spencer  of  Liverpool,  England ;  who  observed  that  when  a  drop  of 
varnish  was  accidentally  spread  upon  the  surface  of  a  copper  coin 
exposed  to  the  battery  there  was  no  coating  at  the  point  thus  covered. 
The  idea  of  copying  coins,  medals,  etc.,  in  reverse,  was  thus  suggested; 
which  has  since  been  employed  for  the  copying  and  reproducing,  to 
any  number,  of  the  plates  used  in  printing  the  most  elaborate  and 
finished  specimens  of  copper-plate  engraving. 

The  important  and  difficult  thing  to  be  secured  is  the  coating  of 
the  surface  to  be  copied  with  a  material  so  thin,  and  yet  so  uniform, 

2  G 


250  ART  CUTTICISM. 

that  the  nicest  lines  will  be  left  open  for  the  copper  to  enter ;  the 
coating  at  the  same  time  preventing  the  union  of  the  plate  and  of 
the  copy  into  the  same  mass.  The  material  first  used  was  grease,  or 
oil,  rubbed  upon  the  plate  so  as  to  leave  the  minutest  possible  thick- 
ness. The  best  article  to  secure  the  necessary  thinness,  is  that  sug- 
gested by  Mr.  George  Mathiot,  of  the  U.  S.  Coast  Survey ;  iodine  in 
solution  with  alcohol.  A  single  grain  dissolved  in  a  quart  of  alcohol 
spreads  over  such  an  amount  of  surface,  that  when  the  alcohol  is 
dried  out,  there  is  left  a  stratum  of  iodine  so  thin,  that  no  less  than 
400,000,000,000  layers  would  be  required  to  make  an  inch  in  thick- 
ness. By  this  method,  two  important  ends  are  attained;  first,  a 
separating  stratum  is  secured  whose  extreme  thinness  allows  the 
copper  to  settle  into  the  nicest  hair  lines ;  and  second,  a  perfect  inter- 
vening coating  of  iodide  of  copper  is  formed  which  prevents  the  two 
plates  from  uniting  at  any  point. 

This  method  is  employed  by  the  Topographical  and  Hydrographi- 
cal  Bureaus  of  the  U.  S.  Coast  Survey,  for  the  purpose  of  multipl}&- 
ing  the  engraved  copper-plates  from  which  their  finely  executed  maps 
are  printed.  The  original  plate,  which  in  the  larger  maps  has 
required  ten  or  twelve  years  labor  on  the  part  of  the  engraver,  is 
immersed  in  the  bath  having  sulphate  of  copper  in  solution.  A  set 
of  powerful  galvanic  batteries  are  made  to  communicate  with  the 
plate  thus  immersed  on  its  upper  or  engraved  face ;  which  has  been 
previously  washed  with  an  alcoholic  solution  of  iodine.  The  copper 
gradually  deposited,  penetrates  the  nicest  lines  made  by  the  engraver. 
The  time  necessary  to  acquire  a  deposite  of  the  requisite  thickness, 
about  one-eighth  of  an  inch,  is  ninety  hours,  or  nearly  four  days. 
When  taken  from  the  bath  the  jar  of  a  slight  blow  by  a  hammer 
breaks  the  connection  through  the  entire  cleavage  preserved  by  the 
minute  film  of  iodide  of  copper  formed  between  the  two;  and  a 
perfect  raised  counterpart  of  the  original  engraved  plate  is  thus 
obtained.  This  new  plate,  the  reverse  of  the  original,  is  taken  as  a 
positive;  from  which  negatives,  or  engraved  plates  like  the  original, 
are  obtained  by  depositing  it,  as  its  fellow  before  was,  in  the  copper 
bath. 

Among  the  ingenious  applications  of  this  same  art,  as  it  relates  to 
engraving,  is  the  construction  of  a  stereotype  plate  from  the  cheap 
wood  engraved  for  newspaper  and  handbill  illustrations.  The  wood, 
engraved  as  it  is  for  printing,  is  pressed  into  wax  so  as  to  form  a 
mould,  with  depressions  the  counterpart  of  its  elevated  portions.  In 
this  mould,  a  thin  copper  deposite .  from  the  action  of  the  galvanic 


THE   DIGNITY   OF  LINE-ENGRAVING.  251 

battery  is  obtained ;  into  which  melted  type  metal  is  poured,  giving 
a  cast  with  a  copper  surface,  the  fellow  of  the  engraved  wood.  From 
this  more  durable  and  delicate  material  the  cuts  are  printed  as  from 
the  wood. 

Sect.  9.  The  Place  of  Engraving  among  the  Fine  Akts. 

The  Art  of  Engraving,  allied  as  it  is  to  Drawing,  may  degene- 
rate, it  is  true,  in  professional  hands,  from  the  high  dignity  of  a 
"Fine  Art."  There  is  no  necessity,  however,  that  Engraving, 
because  in  its  various  branches  it  is  practiced  as  a  iisefal  art,  should 
therefore  cease  to  be  studied  and  presided  over  by  artists  of  true 
genius.  So  honorable  a  place  has  Engraving  come  to  occupy,  that 
4ts  higher  departments  are  restricted  in  Europe  to  those  who  have 
taken  a  thorough  course  of  training  in  Academies  of  Art.  In  the 
Academy  of  the  Fine  Arts,  for  instance,  at  Dusseldorff,  the  aspirant 
for  future  practice,  as  an  engraver,  is  required  to  pass  through  all 
the  schools  organized  for  pupils  in  painting,  except  the  school  of 
Composition.  This  demand  is  one  called  for  by  the  art  itself;  for 
next  to  the  skill  required  by  the  great  painter  and  sculptor,  must  be 
that  of  the  engraver,  who  shall  so  enter  into  the  spirit  of  a  great 
master,  as  to  be  a  true  interpreter  and  translator  of  his  work  upon 
an  engraved  plate  of  wood,  of  stone,  or  of  copper. 

Burnet,  urging  the  dignity  of  line  engraving  where  the  artist's 
genius  may  be  shown,  as  opposed  to  the  mere  mechanic's  trade  of 
etching  and  mezzotint,  says :  "  We  must  always  bear  in  mind  that 
an  engraving  is  not  a  eopy  of  a  picture;  it  is  a  translation;  and  as  a 
picture  is  possessed  of  three  properties,  outline,  light  and  shade,  and 
color,  no  print  can  be  a  proper  transfer,  unless  something  is  given  as 
an  equivalent  for  this  last.  Hence  the  variety  so  pleasant  and  effec- 
tive in  line  engraving."  "A  line  engraver  expresses  the  luminous 
and  prominent  parts  by  a  series  of  short  dots,  as  if  the  lines  were 
crossed  by  touches  of  white  chalk ;  while  in  the  shades  and  retiring 
portions,  his  lines  are  smooth  and  undisturbed,  thus  giving  the  very 
quality  required ;  while  the  mezzotint  engraver  has  nothing  to  sub- 
stitute but  the  scraping  away  of  the  furred  or  rough  coat  of  his 
ground  which  retains  the  ink,  thus  giving  emptiness  instead  of 
solidity,  and  retiring  qualities  in  his  lights  in  place  of  projecting."^ 


'  Burnet's  Essays  on  the  Fine  Arts,  London,  1848,  pp.  134,  148. 


252  ABT  CRITICISM. 


CHAPTEK    IV. 

photography;  or  drawing  by  light. 

The  art  of  Photography  is  assuming  a  constantly  increasing  im- 
portance in  connection  with  Drawing.  Though  every  effort  thus  far 
made  to  copy  eolor  by  the  power  of  light  has  failed,  yet  the  pencil 
of  the  sun's  ray  is  so  unerring  a  copier  of  form,  that  photography 
has  taken  the  place  very  extensively  of  engraving  in  the  multiplying 
of  copies  both  of  drawings,  statuary,  and  paintings;  while  photo- 
graphed portraits,  colored  in  oil,  have  perfect  truth  in  outline  and 
shading,  and  receive  color  of  a  character  constantly  improved. 

Sect.  1.  The  coloring  rNFLUENCE  of  Light,  which  led  to  the  Art  op 

Photography. 

The  effect  of  light  in  blackening  the  chloride  of  silver,  (popularly 
termed  hornsilver),  was  known  to  the  alchemists  of  the  Middle  Ages ; 
and  probably  to  the  famed  Magi  of  Ancient  Egypt,  Assyria  and 
India,  who  had  such  extensive  knowledge  of  metallic  compounds, 
that  they  sought  for  one  which  should  lead  to  the  production  of  gold. 
As  early  as  A.  D.  1722,  a  French  chemist,  named  Petit,  referred  this 
effect  to  the  crystalization  of  the  metallic  salts  produced  by  the 
influence  of  light.  Between  1775  and  1800,  several  German  chemists 
investigated  the  differing  effect  of  the  different  colored  rays  of  the 
solar  spectrum  in  producing  the  black  tint  on  paper  saturated  with 
a  solution  of  chloride  of  silver,  and  ascertained  that  the  violet  ray 
produced  the  effect  after  fifteen  minutes'  exposure,  while  the  red  rays 
required  twenty  minutes. 

About  1800,  Wedgewood  and  Sir  Humphrey  Davy  conceived  the 
idea  of  copying  paintings  by  the  action  of  light  on  paper  saturated 
with  a  solution  of  nitrate  of  silver ;  and  succeeded  in  getting  a  copy 
in  two  or  three  minutes.  Of  this  effort,  Davy  wrote  in  1803:  "All 
that  is  now  required  to  render  these  experiments  as  useful  as  they 
are  interesting,  is  to  find  a  way  of  preventing  the  subsequent  color- 
ing of  the  white  parts  upon  exposure  to  daylight."  In  1812,  nine 
years  later,  the  existence  and  properties  of  iodine,  so  called  from  its 
violet  color,  was  discovered ;  an  agent  found  to  be  most  efficient  in 
giving  to  the  metallic  salt  an  increased  sensitiveness  to  the  action  of 
light;  and  in  1819,  seven  years  yet  later,  the  discovery  of  the  hypo- 


I 


THE   DAGUERREOTYPE   AND    EARLY   PHOTOGRAPHS.      253 

sulphite  of  soda,  by  Sir  John  Herschel,  realized  the  desideratum  of 
Davy,  an  agent  which  arrested  the  chemical  action  of  light  on  the 
salt,  and  thus  prevented  the  farther  discoloring  of  the  plate  when 
the  picture  was  taken. 

Meanwhile,  in  1814,  Niepce  a  French  chemist,  the  real  author  of 
Photography  as  an  art,  began  his  experiments.  In  1827,  after  thir- 
teen years  of  persevering  effort  he  obtained  photographic  pictures ; 
and  in  1829  he  communicated  the  result  to  Daguerre  a  French 
artist.  Niepce  died  in  1833;  and  Daguerre  continued  his  experi- 
ments till  1839,  when  he  astonished  the  French  Academy  by  the 
report  of  his  perfected  invention.  At  that  time,  however,  twenty 
minutes  was  required  to  take  a  picture;  and  no  living  object  could 
be  copied  owing  to  the  difficulty  of  securing  a  quiet  position  so  long. 

Sect.  2.  The  Daguerreotype;  and  the  early  Applications  of  Pho- 
tography. 

The  original  process  of  Daguerreotyping,  substantially  the  inven- 
tion of  this  artist  from  whom  it  was  named,  though  since  his  day 
modified  in  many  particulars,  was  as  follows.  The  copper-plate,  sil- 
vered by  galvanism,  was  held  over  a  box  of  iodine  heated  so  that  its 
vapor  would  rise  to  the  plate.  The  iodine  fumes  forming  iodide  of 
silver  on  the  plate  changed  its  color  first  to  a  straw,  then  to  a  gold, 
then  to  a  rose,  then  to  an  indigo,  and  finally  to  a  blue  tint.  The 
blue  tint  was  found  to  render  the  plate  the  most  sensitive  to  light, 
allowing  an  impression  to  be  obtained  in  about  two  minutes.  At  a 
later  day  the  plate  was  dipped  in  water  having  bromine,  or  both 
bromine  and  chlorine  in  solution ;  when  its  sensitiveness  was  so  in- 
creased as  to  receive  an  impression  in  a  few  seconds. 

The  camera,  not  materially  changed  in  the  progress  of  the  art, 
consists  of  a  box  having  a  double  lens  as  an  object  glass  in  a  tube, 
and  a  dark  square  chamber  in  the  rear  through  which  the  prepared 
plate  is  thrust  in  a  slide.  The  plate  is  protected  from  the  light  by  a 
sliding  metallic  cover,  while  the  tube  of  the  object  glass  is  also  dark- 
ened by  a  cloth  or  metallic  cover.  In  the  early  experiments  it  was 
found  that  the  large  lens  required  in  daguerreotyping  admitted  such 
an  amount  of  light  into  the  camera  as  greatly  to  prolong  the  time 
required  to  take  a  picture ;  which  difficulty  was  avoided  by  covering 
the  orifice  of  the  tube  before  the  lens  with  a  brass  cap  having  a  cir- 
cular opening  in  the  centre  just  sufficient  to  admit  the  rays  of  light 
coming  from  the  object  tfi  be  photographed. 

The  light  thus  admitted  into  the  front  of  the  object  tube  passes 

22 


254  ART   CRITICISM. 

through  it  into  the  camera.  When  the  object  to  be  copied  is  placed 
in  the  best  position  for  taking  a  good  picture,  the  metallic  plate,  now 
prepared,  is  brought  from  a  darkened  room  covered  by  a  slide  over 
its  face  to  protect  it  from  the  light.  The  plate  and  slide  are  intro- 
duced through  the  top  of  the  camera  into  the  field  of  the  object  glass; 
when  the  slide  is  removed,  and  the  rays  of  light  from  the  object  fall 
directly  on  the  plate,  thus  acting  upon  the  iodide  or  nitrate  solution 
on  its  surface.  From  the  countenance,  white  portions  of  the  dress, 
and  all  light  colored  substances  there  is  a  strong  light  reflected 
through  the  tube  on  the  plate;  while  from  the  pupils  of  the  eyes,  the 
hair,  and  all  dark  colored  objects  little  light  is  reflected  upon  the 
plate. 

When  this  action  has  continued  sufiiciently  long  for  the  proper 
impression  to  be  made  on  the  plate  by  the  light  the  plate  is  removed 
into  a  dark  room.  In  the  early  art  the  plate  was  next  held  over 
mercury  evaporated  by  a  spirit  lamp;  when  the  vapor  of  mercury  so 
acted  on  the  parts  which  had  been  most  exposed  to  the  light,  as  in 
the  language  of  the  art,  to  "bring  out"  the  picture.  To  remove 
then  the  iodine  still  in  combination  with  the  silver  of  the  less  exposed 
portions  of  the  plate,  and  thus  in  the  language  of  the  art,  "to  fix  the 
picture"  the  plate  was  immersed  in  a  solution  of  the  hyposulphite 
of  soda  dissolved  in  distilled  water. 

Sect.  3.  The  Ailbrotype;   and  Pkintinq  of  Multipued  Engbavtnqs 
BY  Photography. 

Photographs  taken  originally  on  metallic  plates  received  the  name 
of  Daguerreotypes  from  Daguerre ;  though  he  himself  first  gave  to  the 
art  the  name  of  Niepce.  Photographing  on  paper  saturated  with  a 
solution  of  some  salt  of  silver,  especially  the  nitrate,  was  as  we  have 
observed,  attempted  by  Davy  in  1800.  In  England,  paper  instead 
of  metal  became  the  favorite  ground;  and  photographs  on  paper 
were  named  Talbotypes,  from  Fox  Talbot,  who  had  done  most  to 
perfect  this  branch  of  the  art.  The  paper  was  prepared  by  immer- 
sion first  in  salt  water,  or  chloride  of  sodium,  drying  and  immersing 
again  in  a  solution  of  nitrate  of  silver.  Talbot  first  used  gallic  acid, 
made  of  gall  or  oak  apples,  in  the  nitrate  solution  to  heighten  the 
sensitiveness  of  the  paper.  The  paper  thus  prepared  received  the 
picture  in  the  camera  as  the  plate  receives  it,  and  was  a  negative  or 
reverse.  To  obtain  the  positive  the  negative  was  laid  upon  a  second 
paper  prepared  as  the  first ;  a  board  was  placed  behind  the  second 
and  a  glass  before  the  first;   and  the  whole,  being  then  carefully 


THE   PRINTING   OF   PHOTOGRAPHS.  255 

pressed  into  contact,  was  exposed  for  some  hours  to  the  sunlight 
with  the  glass  uppermost.  The  impression  was  received  through  the 
glass  and  the  first  paper  upon  the  second ;  the  rapidity  of  the  process 
depending  upon  the  thinness,  or  translucence,  of  the  paper  through 
which  the  light  must  pass,  and  its  evenness  on  the  purity  of  the 
paper. 

The  difficulty  of  obtaining  paper  free  from  impurities,  and  the 
slow  action  of  the  light  through  paper,  led  to  the  invention  of  the 
Vitrotype  or  Ambrotype;  the  former  name  being  derived  from  the 
Latin,  the  latter  from  the  Greek  words  for  glass;  which  material 
Sir  John  Herschel  first  employed  in  1840.  Difierent  and  constantly 
improving  methods  of  preparing  the  glass  plate  have  been  employed 
by  practical  photographers.  At  the  U.  S.  Coast  Survey  Bureau,  the 
following  is  among  the  most  approved.  Dissolve  ordinary  cotton 
fibre  in  an  equal  mixture  of  sulphuric  and  nitric  acids,  forming 
collodion.  Dissolve  iodide  of  ammonia  and  bromide  of  potassa  in 
water;  take  equal  parts  of  alcohol  and  of  ether;  and  with  these  two 
mixtures  combine  the  collodion.  In  a  room  to  which  only  yellow 
light  is  admitted,  either  gas  or  oil  light  or  that  of  the  sun  coming 
through  a  yellow  curtain,  pour  the  before-mentioned  liquid  compound 
over  the  glass  for  the  ambrotype ;  or  spread  it  by  rolling  a  small 
glass  cylinder  wet  with  it  over  the  entire  surface  of  the  glass.  When 
by  the  rapid  evaporation  of  the  ether  the  plate  is  dry,  immerse  it  in 
a  bath  of  nitrate  of  silver,  which  will  soon  form  with  the  collodion  a 
white  film  over  the  surface.  After  being  placed  in  the  camera,  and 
removed  to  the  darkened  room,  fix  the  picture  by  immersion  in  a 
mixture  of  acetic  or  pyrogallic  acid,  having  in  solution  protosulphate 
of  iron.  After  rinsing  in  water  immerse  the  plate  in  a  bath  of  hypo- 
sulphite of  soda,  to  destroy  any  remaining  iodide  of  silver;  and,  if 
haste  is  required,  add  to  the  soda-bath  the  cyanide  of  potassium. 
Finally  wash  thoroughly  to  destroy  the  hyposulphite  of  soda. 

The  picture  thus  brought  out  and  fixed  is  now  used  as  a  negative 
for  obtaining  positive  pictures ;  the  printing  process  being  the  same 
as  that  already  described.  In  its  early  first  use,  however,  the  am- 
brotype was  framed  as  a  daguerreotype ;  having  the  double  advan- 
tage of  allowing  the  picture  to  be  seen  at  any  angle,  and  also  of  being 
reversed  so  to  become  a  positive,  the  picture  being  seen  through  the 
glass,  and  viewed  on  its  back  side.  The  paper  on  which  the  ambro- 
type is  to  be  laid  for  the  purpose  of  printing  photographs  by  the 
sunlight  is  thus  prepared.  Immerse  the  paper  in  salt  water,  or  solu- 
tion of  chloride  of  sodium ;  or  coat  it  with  albumen,  the  white  of  an 


256  ART  CRITICISM. 

egg,  in  which  rock-salt  has  been  dissolved.  Dip  it  when  dry  in  the 
bath  of  nitrate  of  silver.  After  the  impression  has  been  taken  from 
the  ambrotype,  fix  or  "tone"  the  picture  by  immersion  in  a  bath  of 
hyposulphite  of  soda  having  chloride  of  silver  and  gold  in  solution 
to  "gild"  the  picture.  Finally  soak  the  picture  not  less  than  twelve 
hours  in  running  water  to  remove  the  hyposulphite  of  soda. 

Sect.  4,  The  Chemical  Action  which  takes  place  in  Photographing. 

The  law  of  the  chemical  action  which  takes  place  in  photographing, 
especially  the  mode  in  which  the  sunlight  acts  on  the  metallic  salts 
to  produce  the  light  and  shade  of  the  picture,  has  been  a  difficult 
matter  for  decision  among  chemists.  The  principles  involved  seem 
to  be  these.  When  the  silvered  plate  of  the  original  daguerreotype 
was  held  over  the  vapor  of  iodine,  the  iodine  combined  with  the 
silver,  coating  the  plate  with  iodide  of  silver.  In  the  sun's  rays,  as 
chemistry  now  teaches,  there  are  three  classes  of  physical  agencies; 
those  of  light,  heat,  and  electricity  or  chemical  affinity ;  the  latter  of 
which  tends  to  strengthen  some  and  weaken  other  chemical  affinities. 
When  for  instance  chlorine  is  mixed  with  water,  its  affinity  for  hy- 
drogen, while  kept  in  the  dark,  is  not  sufficient  to  decompose  the 
water ;  but  on  exposure  to  the  light,  the  affinity  of  the  oxygen  for  the 
hydrogen  of  the  water  is  so  weakened  that  the  chlorine  decomposes 
the  water,  unites  with  its  hydrogen,  and  sets  free  the  oxygen.  So 
when  the  photographic  plate  is  exposed  to  the  light,  the  affinity  of 
the  iodine  for  the  silver  is  so  weakened  on  the  parts  specially  exposed 
to  the  light  that  the  silver  is  more  ready  to  unite  in  amalgam  with 
mercury.  When,  therefore,  the  plate  is  taken  from  the  camera,  and 
held  over  the  vapor  of  mercury,  the  affinity  of  the  mercury  for  the 
silver  overpowers  the  affinity  of  the  iodine  for  the  silver  just  in  pro- 
portion to  the  amount  of  light  that  has  fallen  on  the  difterent  parts 
of  the  picture ;  and  an  amalgam  of  mercury  and  silver  more  perfect 
on  the  light,  and  less  perfect  on  the  dark  parts,  is  formed.  The 
iodine,  whose  presence  makes  the  silver  sensitive  to  the  action  of 
light,  is  thus  expelled  in  vapor  where  the  amalgam  is  complete;  and 
the  remainder  is  taken  up  when  immersed  in  the  hyposulphite  of 
soda. 

Where  the  amalgam  of  the  mercury  and  silver  is  complete,  the 
surface  of  the  plate  is  covered  with  an  unbroken  metallic  coating ; 
thus  presenting  a  smooth  polished  surface  from  which  the  light  fall- 
ing on  the  picture  is  reflected,  and  by  which  the  light  parts  of  the 
picture  are  formed.     On  the  parts  of  the  plate  where  the  light  has 


THE   FIELD   FOR   TRUE   ART   IN   PHOTOGRAPHY.  267 

not  fallen,  so  that  the  mercury  has  not  acted  upon  the  iodide  of 
silver  and  combined  with  its  silver,  the  removal  of  the  iodine  by  the 
hyposulphite  of  soda  leaves  the  silver  coating  broken  into  minute 
particles;  whose  surface  reflecting  no  ray  of  light,  forms  the  dark 
background  of  the  picture.  The  intermediate  shades  are  produced 
on  the  parts  of  the  picture  where  the  light  is  of  medium  intensity  in 
taking  the  impression;  and  where  consequently  the  amalgam  on  the 
plate  is  but  partial. 

The  chemical  action  in  the  case  of  the  ambrotype,  and  in  photo- 
graphs on  paper,  appears  to  be  this.  When  the  light  has  acted  on 
the  plate  or  paper,  the  affinity  of  the  silver  for  the  nitric  acid  is  so 
weakened  that  it  can  unite  with  the  vegetable  fibre  of  the  cotton,  or 
the  animal  albumen  of  the  egg ;  for  both  of  which  the  acid  has  also 
a  strong  affinity.  The  silver  set  free  forms  a  thin  film  on  the  glass ; 
which,  becoming  a  reflecting,  and  therefore  light  surface,  gives  the 
light  parts  of  the  picture  where  the  surface  of  the  object  was  lightest 
and  therefore  more  reflecting.  When  employed  in  printing,  this 
film  of  silver  cuts  off  the  action  of  the  sunlight  from  the  parts  of 
the  ambrotype  that  were  made  light  by  this  same  film ;  leaving  the 
other  parts  to  be  darkened  and  thus  shaded  by  the  action  of  the 
light.  The  action  of  the  protosulphate  of  iron,  prior  to  the  immer- 
sion of  the  plate  in  the  hyposulphite  of  soda,  seems  to  be,  to  take  the 
oxygen  from  the  nitrate  of  silver,  prepared  beforehand  as  it  is  by 
the  sunlight  to  be  easily  decomposed. 

Sect.  5.  The  claim  of  Photography  as  a  Fine  Art. 

Photography  considered  as  comprising  all  methods  of  producing 
images  of  objects  by  the  action  of  reflected  light,  is  a  branch  of  art- 
industry  which  may  be  practiced  merely  as  a  trade ;  and  yet  it  may 
rise  to  the  highest  dignity  as  an  art.  To  do  justice  to  his  work,  the 
operator  must  possess  the  culture  of  an  artist,  both  in  Taste,  and  in 
Study  of  the  Laws  of  the  Beautiful.  He  should  also  be  a  careful 
student  of  nature,  as  well  as  conversant  with  the  best  works  of  art 
in  painting ;  in  order  that  he  may  select,  in  taking  portraits,  such 
attitudes  and  accompanying  emblems,  implements  or  surroundings, 
as  will  be  in  consistency  with  the  station  and  occupation  of  the  par- 
ties, and  in  harmony  with  their  character  and  culture.  At  the  same 
time  he  should  possess  an  educated  and  refined  taste,  so  as  skilfully 
to  select  the  direction  and  degree  of  light  suited  to  the  complexion 
of  skin,  color  of  eyes,  and  style  of  dress  in  his  sitters.  The  mere 
mechanical  application  to  the  plate,  or  glass,  of  the  proper  chemicals, 
22  *  •  2  II 


258  ART   CRITICIS^f. 

the  putting  of  that  unmeaning  or  perverted  emblem,  a  book,  into 
every  man's  hand,  no  matter  what  his  occupation,  and  the  counting 
of  seconds  of  time  required  for  the  due  action  of  the  light,  while 
the  sitter  is  screwed  stiffly  upon  a  chair,  gives  the  manager  no 
title  to  be  ranked  as  an  artist;  and  yet  the  highest  genius  and 
amplest  culture  in  art  may  find  a  field  for  exhaustive  employ  in 
the  photographer's  gallery. 

The  application  of  Photography  to  the  copying  of  natural  scenery, 
either  in  single  or  stereoscopic  views,  demands  for  its  successful 
execution  the  same  artistic  skill.  Here,  of  course,  there  is  not  as  in 
the  taking  of  portraits  the  direct  arranging  of  attitudes  and  of  light  ; 
yet  there  is  the  same  demand  for  skilful  selection  of  place  and  of 
time.  The  artist  has  the  powder  of  unlimited  choice  as  to  the  point 
from  which,  and  the  season  or  hour  at  which,  he  will  take  his  view; 
and  these  two  studies  will  be  decisive  as  to  his  success. 

In  addition  to  the  two  already  mentioned  claims  of  Photography 
to  take  a  dignified  rank  among  the  Fine  Arts,  that  busy  agent  in 
portraying  everything  visible,  the  artistic  pencil  of  the  sunlight,  has 
yet  a  third  and  a  wider  range  in  the  creation  of  works  of  utility  and 
of  beauty.  Eecent  discoveries  in  sensitive  chemicals  and  combina- 
tions of  lir'ht  have  caused  Photography  to  become  a  cheap  and  most 
perfect  substitute  for  engraving.  Like  the  Genii  with  talismanic 
wand,  it  claims  to  be  gifted  with  power  to  reproduce  the  finest  origi- 
nals in  the  galleries  of  Painting,  and  to  multiply  them  in  such 
numbers,  that  every  student  and  lover  of  art  can  have  all  the 
best  masters  on  the  walls  of  his  studio.  The  influence  thus  exerted 
on  the  culture  of  both  artist  and  people,  must  be  great.  A  culturing 
effect  may  already  be  seen  from  photographic  views  of  the  choice 
relics  of  ancient  statuary,  of  the  paintings  of  masters  like  Raphael, 
as  well  as  of  gems  of  modern  art.  More  than  all  cartoons  by  the 
most  eminent  artists,  rough  charcoal  sketches  drawn  of  colossal  or 
life-size  proportions,  admitting,  of  course,  of  great  accuracy  in  the 
detail  of  the  drawing,  have  been  reduced  by  the  photographing 
camera.  When  thus  copied  in  miniature,  the  bold  and  rough  out- 
line assumes  a  delicacy  and  nicety  of  finish  which  no  skill  of  the 
engraver  can  approach.  In  this  latter  field  Photography  may 
become  the  Art  of  Arts. 


MODERN   COLLECTIONS   OF   DESIGN   IN    DBA  WING.  259 


CHAPTER    V. 

DESIGN   IN   DRAWING. 

When  a  mechanic  merely  copies  a  model  of  a  chair,  or  any  other 
article  of  utility,  he  has  nothing  to  do  with  designing;  he  has  only 
to  execute  a  design  previously  prepared.  So,  when  in  drawing,  the 
pupil  merely  copies  the  pattern  given  by  his  master,  or  when  in 
advanced  studies  he  draws  from  casts  and  even  from  nature,  he  is 
but  executing  a  design  already  prepared ;  he  is  not  at  all  the  origi- 
nator of  a  model,  much  less  of  an  idea. 

When,  in  the  useful  arts,  any  piece  of  mechanism,  as  a  watch,  is 
to  be  constructed  to  accomplish  a  special  purpose,  as  that  of  keeping 
time,  then  design  is  demanded.  So,  when  in  the  Fine  Arts,  any  new 
work  adapted  to  a  special  end  is  required,  the  artist  has  to  design 
before  he  can  execute  the  desired  work.  The  act  of  designing  as  a 
study  naturally  includes  three  parts;  first,  the  conceiving  of  the 
general  work  by  which  the  end  is  to  be  attained ;  second,  the  invent- 
ing of  the  parts  of  the  work  which  is  to  accomplish  that  end ;  and 
third,  the  combining  of  those  parts  so  that  as  a  whole  they  shall 
secure  that  end. 

Drawing  is  the  first  of  the  Arts  of  Design,  and  that  for  a  double 
reason ;  it  is  the  first  of  the  arts  addressing  the  eye  which  the  child 
or  savage  learns ;  and  it  is  also  the  foundation  of  all  the  other  arts 
of  the  same  class,  since  the  sculptor,  the  architect,  the  painter  must 
always  begin  his  work  with  drawings.  As  a  striking  illustration  of 
the  fact  here  referred  to,  and  of  its  appreciation  by  great  artists,  we 
find  still  preserved  in  the  Ufizi  Gallery,  at  Florence,  over  20,000 
drawings  of  the  ablest  Italian  sculptors,  painters,  and  architects, 
such  as  Raphael  and  Michael  Angelo.  The  German  galleries  are 
filled  with  similar  collections  from  the  pencils  of  Albert  Durer, 
Rembrandt  and  others. 

Lionardo  da  Vinci  and  other  eminent  writers  on  art  have  brought 
the  subject  of  design,  including  as  it  does  Conception,  Invention, 
Composition  and  Expression,  under  the  department  of  drawing ;  and 
that  not  only  because  Drawing  is  the  foundation  of  the  other  arts, 
but  also  because  in  Sculpture  and  Architecture,  Composition  is  but 
subordinate.  The  subject  of  design  therefore  must  be  considered 
under  Drawing  or  Painting.     The  former  is  preferable  since  design 


260  ART   CRITICISM. 

iu  some  or  all  of  its  parts  holds  an  important  place  in  all  the  arts 
mentioned. 

Sect.  1.  Conception,  or  the  Originating  of  the  Idea  to  be  embodied 

IN  Drawing. 

As  Conception  is  the  originating  stage  in  the  process  which  gives 
form  to  objects  endowed  with  natural  life,  so  it  is  in  the  process  by 
which  the  artist  gives  to  "airy  nothings"  in  his  imagination  a  "local 
habitation  and  a  name."  The  Greeks  called  the  first  conception  of 
the  artist  hypothesis;  the  word  used  by  Greek  rhetoricians  to  express 
the  statement  of  the  proposition  in  an  argument,  or  that  which  a 
speaker  or  writer  proposes  to  discuss.  It  is  used  by  Plato  in  his 
"  Laws "  to  indicate  the  design  or  purpose  which  governs  a  man  in 
any  act  or  employ.  Pliny  says  that  Nicias  the  painter  excelled  in 
this  originating  power:  and  he  declares  that  a  good  design,  hypothesis, 
is  as  important  to  the  painter  as  is  a  well  conceived  theme,  mythos,  to 
the  poet.  The  same  Greeks  called  the  complete  conception  formed 
by  this  act  of  the  mind  eideia,  or  idea ;  the  word  so  familiar  among 
the  disciples  of  Plato. 

The  desigriy  of  course,  will  depend  for  its  special  character  on 
the  particular  object  sought  in  the  work  of  sculpture,  painting  or 
architecture,  for  which  the  drawing  is  the  first  study.  The  subjects 
for  works  of  art,  as  will  be  more  fully  considered  under  Sculpture, 
may  be  referred  mainly  to  three  classes;  first,  those  designed  as  pri- 
vate decorations ;  second,  as  civic  monuments ;  and  third  as  religious 
symbols.  In  either  of  these  classes  of  subjects  the  artist  must  first 
study  his  design  until  it  takes  shape  in  a  conception,  which  he  can 
begin  to  put  into  a  drawing  with  his  pencil.  This  conception  may 
embrace  one  or  more  figures;  it  may  have  either  a  single  object 
united  to  a  single  figure,  as  a  statue  with  its  pedestal,  or  it  may  com- 
bine all  thevaried  objects  in  an  extended  landscape.  In  either  case, 
it  should  be  remembered,  it  is  not  the  direct  copying  of  any  form  or 
forms  already  existing  in  nature  or  embodied  by  another  artist  that 
constitutes  design;  but  it  is  the  originating  of  new  forms,  as  truly 
unlike  though  similar  to  others  in  existence,  as  every  new-bom  child 
is  unlike  though  similar  to  thousands  of  children  already  born. 

It  is  in  the  department  of  drawing  that  the  study  of  design  is 
especially  to  be  pursued.  Fuseli  devotes  his  Seventh  Lecture  to  this 
subject;  in  which  he  shows  that  the  field  for  the  study  and  practice 
of  design  is  drawing,  or  the  executing  of  forms  in  mere  outline.  In 
his  Eighth  Lecture,  which  is  upon  Color,  he  quotes  the  statement  of 


CONCEPTION   AND   INVENTION   IN   DESIGN.  261 

Sir  Joshua  Keynolds ;  who,  though  one  of  the  greatest  masters  in 
coloring,  declared  that  this  department  of  art  in  which  he  excelled 
was  but  secondary  and  subordinate  to  that  of  design  in  drawing  the 
forms  afterwards  to  be  colored ;  and  he  expresses  regret  that  his  own 
education  in  this  fundamental  art  had  been  pursued  under  such  great 
disadvantages. 

Sect.  2.  Invention,  or  the  EiiABORATiNG  of  Conceptions. 

Passive  differs  from  active  imagination;  some  men  having  the 
power  of  forming  conceptions  both  poetical  and  artistic,  which  they 
lack  skill  to  put  into  form.  The  second  work  in  design  is  invention, 
or  the  power  of  working  up  the  details  of  a  fine  conception.  Artists 
skilled  in  the  practice,  as  well  as  in  the  theory,  of  their  profession 
have  given  a  large  place  in  their  written  treatises  to  the  discussion 
of  this  subject. 

Lionardo  da  Vinci  thus  describes  the  process  of  inventing  a  single 
figure  which  shall  be  an  ideal  of  perfection  in  form.  "The  artist 
should  form  his  style  upon  the  best  proportioned  model  in  nature. 
After  having  taken  its  measure,  he  should  take  that  of  his  own  per- 
son; so  as  to  avoid  the  influence  of  self-love  in  copying  his  own 
defects.  He  should  aim  at  universal  excellence;  for  one  excellence 
in  a  painting  only  makes  more  manifest  attendant  defects."  Pro- 
ceeding to  consider  the  subsidiaries  of  the  figures,  he  dwells  on  the 
necessity  of  studying  long  and  carefully  different  attitudes,  and  their 
effects  on  the  position  of  different  portions  of  the  figure;  the  manner 
in  which  folds  of  garments  will  hang  in  different  attitudes;  the  par- 
ticular shape  which  the  muscles  will  assume  from  the  position  of  each 
limb ;  especially  the  contour  of  each  part  of  the  entire  figure  when 
the  muscles  are  strained  under  any  nervous  excitement. 

Fuseli  in  treating  of  Invention  suggests  that  its  true  spirit  allows 
the  borrowing  of  ideas  from  great  artists  of  former  ages.  As  a  Mil- 
ton may  borrow  conceptions,  not  their  embodiment,  from  Virgil  or 
Homer,  and  as  an  inventor  in  the  useful  arts  may  borrow  principles 
from  a  man  of  science,  so  may  a  truly  original  artist  gather  ideas 
from  former  great  masters,  and  incorporate  them  into  his  own  inde- 
pendent works.  Each  great  master  in  art  has  his  own  peculiar  style ; 
as  distinct  from  that  of  other  leading  minds,  as  one  poet's  style  is 
distinct  from  another;  Michael  Angelo  being  epic  in  his  invention, 
Raphael  dramatic,  while  such  an  artist  as  Poussin  is  historical.  In 
each  of  these  styles  a  different  order  of  invention  is  of  course  required. 


262 


ART  CRITICISM. 


Fuseli  cites  Hans  Holbein  as  remarkable  for  the  fertility  of  his 
inventive  skill. 

Ruskin  has  many  valuable  suggestions  belonging  to  the  subject  of 
Invention,  in  his  remarks  upon  the  attaining  of  Truth  in  drawing. 
The  early  Italian  artists  had  their  "judgment  so  tempered  by  vene- 
ration for  old  models"  that  they  were  "dull  in  their  perception  of 
truth ;"  and  hence  there  was  little  genuine  invention  in  their  works. 
A  "particular  truth"  is  more  important  than  a  general  truth;  and 
variety  is  attained  "  in  giving  a  genus  by  individuals."  "  The  painter 
and  preacher  are  both  commentators  on  infinity ;  and  the  duty  of 
each  is  to  take  for  each  discourse  one  essential  truth."  "Primary 
truths,  or  those  which  belong  to  essence  or  substance,  are  of  o^reater 
importance  than  secondary  truths,  as  those  of  color;"  a  statement 
which  is  the  idea  of  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  as  presented  by  Sir  Wil- 
liam Hamilton. 

Among  "special  truths"  to  be  sought  Ruskin  enumerates  the  fol- 
lowing. "Truths  in  Space"  were  overlooked  by  the  old  masters.  In 
a  distant  background  there  was  none  of  the  obscurity  belonging  to 
nature;  you  could  either  count  all  the  bricks  as  well  in  a  distant  as 
in  a  near  house,  or  both  alike  would  be  a  blank  flat.  The  Dutch 
artists  were  the  first  to  attain  truth  in  space;  the  Italians  were  the 
last  to  reach  it.  The  true  rule,  Ruskin  says,  is  this;  "You  shall  not 
be  able  to  count  the  bricks,  nor  to  see  a  dead  flat."  "Truth  in 
Clouds "  was  yet  later  in  being  secured.  The  old  masters  separated 
clouds  from  the  blue  beyond ;  they  should  be  a  part  of  the  common 
vault.  It  is  the  rarest  attainment  in  art  to  succeed  in  every  variety 
of  cloud.  "Truths  in  Earth"  Ruskin  thinks  of  modern  attainment 
also.  In  the  old  masters  the  foots  of  mountains  come  from  under- 
neath the  plains ;  and  the  summits  are  always  pyramidal.  Extreme 
distance  should  always  be  indicated  by  a  sharp  outline.  Near  objects 
in  the  foreground  are  to  be  worked  into  their  real  forms  as  seen  in 
nature;  blocks  of  limestone  in  irregular  cubes,  the  corners  rounded 
and  the  light  and  shade  distinctly  marked.  "Truths  in  Water" 
Ruskin  regards  the  most  difiicult  of  all  to  attain ;  especially  the  irre- 
gular eflTect  of  its  reflecting  surface  when  agitated  and  thus  modified 
from  extreme  dark  to  a  perfectly  light  shade.  In  all  these  particu- 
lars mentioned,  it  is  only  the  principle  of  truth,  not  any  real  appear- 
ance, that  can  be  copied;  for  appearances,  especially  in  cloud  and 
water,  are  so  perpetually  shifting,  that  no  copy  can  possibly  be  made. 

Ruskin  regards  the  success  of  the  great  Italian  painters  to  have 
been  greater  in  drawing  figures  in  the  foreground  than  in  the  back- 


COMPOSITION   AS   A   PART   OF   DESIGN.  263 

ground.  In  Raphael's  drawings  the  dark  and  heavy  lines  are 
towards  the  light;  a  fine  specimen  of  which  is  the  "Angel  pursuing 
Heliodorus"  in  the  Gallery  of  the  Louvre,  in  which  the  dark  and 
strong  lines  terminating  the  nose  and  forehead  towards  the  light  are 
opposed  to  the  tender  and  faint  lines  behind  the  ear  in  the  shade. 
Salvator  Rosa,  he  thinks,  "had  great  perception  of  the  sweep  of 
foliage  and  of  the  rolling  of  cloud;"  but  he  "never  drew  a  single 
leaflet  or  wreath  of  mist"  aright.  Here  again  it  is  inventive  skill 
alone  that  can  guide  the  pencil  to  those  touches  which  shall  give  a 
true  picture  of  nature ;  for  these  are  not  features  that  can  be  copied, 
they  must  be  originated. 

Sect.  3.  Composition,  or  the  Grouping  of  Details  when  Invented. 

Invention  proper  is  at  the  end  of  its  mission  when  it  has  wrought 
into  form  the  parts  of  a  figure  or  groups  of  figures  and  objects  to  be 
embodied  in  a  work  of  art.  When  the  parts  are  thus  wrought  out, 
it  is  still,  as  in  the  useful  arts,  a  great  labor  to  adjust  the  parts  to 
each  other.  The  ancient  Grecian  painters,  as  Pliny  states,  differed 
as  to  their  success  in  Composition,  called  by  him  "  Dispositio/'  or  dis- 
position. He  relates,  that  Apelles  excelled  in  this  power;  mention- 
ing several  specimens  of  his  successful  disposition  of  the  parts  of  his 
pieces ;  among  others  a  painting  of  "  Diana  mingling  with  a  troop  of 
virgins  offering  sacrifices,"  the  grouping  of  which  is  so  admirable 
that  "he  seems  to  have  surpassed  the  verses  of  Homer  describing  the 
same  scene."  Pliny  also  gives  illustrations  of  the  skill  of  the  painter 
Nicias;  who  said  "that  it  was  not  a  small  matter  in  his  art  to  take  a 
whole  forest  and  picture  it;  to  delineate  contests  of  horses  and  ships; 
to  group  horses  in  many  positions,  some  running,  some  standing  in 
battle  array,  and  some  kneeling  for  their  riders;  to  represent  the 
riders  of  some  horses  as  hurling  javelins,  and  of  others  as  falling 
from  their  backs."  This  early  attention  to  the  composition  of  great 
pieces  shows  how  inseparable  from  success  in  drawing  is  this  portion 
of  the  artist's  study. 

Lionardo  da  Vinci  having  dwelt  upon  Invention  as  it  relates  to 
the  elaborating  of  single  figures,  passes  to  consider  Composition  as 
the  grouping  of  the  parts  already  invented.  In  a  storm,  for  instance, 
many  objects  and  figures  are  to  be  brought  together ;  a  wide  field  of 
view  is  to  be  compressed  upon  the  canvass ;  and  in  the  outline  sketch 
of  the  artist,  sky  and  earth,  light  and  shade,  are  to  blend  in  the  same 
harmony  as  in  nature.  Still  more,  if  the  scene  depicted  be  a  his- 
torical event,  as  a  battle,  in  addition  to  the  work  just  mentioned,  the 


264  ART  CRITICISM. 

artist  must  study  the  facts  he  is  to  represent  with  a  care  and  compre- 
hensiveness like  that  of  the  great  dramatist  or  writer  of  romance; 
while  at  the  same  time  he  has  not  a  whole  volume  at  command,  over 
whose  ample  leaves  he  may  expand  his  conceptions,  but  only  a  single 
page  upon  which  his  entire  comprehensive  picture  must  be  com- 
pressed. Still  more,  in  an  audience  addressed  by  a  popular  orator, 
each  face  amid  the  whole  sea  of  upturned  heads  must  be  character- 
ized by  its  own  peculiar  natural  features,  while  each  mind  seems 
swayed  by  the  emotions  peculiar  to  its  possessor.  In  such  delinea- 
tions, since  the  study  of  each  countenance  is  to  be  a  master-work, 
and  the  grouping  of  all  to  be  such  as  to  produce  one  harmonious 
effect  on  the  beholder,  and  that  the  one  desired  by  the  artist,  the 
severest  possible  test  of  the  skill  of  the  composer  is  called  into 
exercise. 

The  same  artist  gives  the  following  particular  instructions  indi- 
cating the  constant  and  life-long  study  by  which  alone  an  artist  can 
become  eminent  in  Composition.  "In  proceeding  to  Composition, 
the  pupil  should  study  every  variety  of  form  and  of  motion ;  making 
sketches  of  single  figures  from  various  different  points  of  view. 
Then  he  may  combine  figures  in  different  attitudes;  as  two  men 
walking,  wrestling,  etc.  If  a  historical  picture,  which  he  is  study- 
ing, is  to  be  elevated  for  subsequent  view,  the  artist  must  place 
himself  in  the  same  relative  position  while  composing.  In  counte- 
nances and  figures  he  should  never  repeat,  but  always  present  an 
entirely  new  and  original  specimen.  For  this  purpose  the  young 
artist  should  watch  men  as  he  sees  them  under  the  influence  of  varied 
passions ;  and  in  his  note-book  he  should  copy  their  expressions  of 
countenance,  their  positions  and  gesticulations,  so  that  when  com- 
posing he  may  have  an  inexhaustible  store  of  nature  from  which  to 
draw.  Each  part  of  the  body,  in  its  anatomy  and  in  its  perspective, 
must  be  a  separate  study  and  labor.  The  folds  of  dress  should  be 
copied  from  nature,  so  as  to  represent  real  clothing,  flowing  and  easy, 
not  swelled  as  with  wind,  nor  stiff  and  tight  drawn.  When  the 
figure  is  foreshortened  there  ought  to  appear  a  greater  number  of 
folds,  all  drawn  around  in  circles."  "In  grouping  a  historical  sub- 
ject, the  chief  figure  should  stand  forward  and  be  painted  in  clear 
strong  colors.  In  drawing  trees,  contrive  to  have  them  half  in 
shadow  and  half  in  the  light;  selecting  a  day  when  the  sun  is  par- 
tially hid  by  clouds.  Unite  every  variety ;  finished  figures  in  the 
foreground  and  unfinished  in  the  background;  otherwise  neither  will 
be  executed  well."     Hogarth,  in  his  "Analysis  of  Beauty,"  makes 


ELEMENTS   OF   SUCXJESSFUL   COMPOSITION.  265 

this  strong  statement  as  to  the  importance  of  variety  in  Composition : 
"The  art  of  composing  well  is  no  more  than  the  art  of  varying  well." 
Fuseli,  again  in  his  Fifth  Lecture  on  Painting,  states  that  "Inven- 
tion is  followed  by  Composition."  In  the  work  of  composing,  he 
teaches  that  attention  should  be  paid  to  both  physical  and  moral 
elements ;  among  the  former  to  Perspective,  Light  and  Shade ;  and 
among  the  latter,  to  Unity,  Perspicuity,  and  Propriety.  While 
much  which  the  Italian  Lionardo,  and  the  English  artists  and  critics 
quoted,  urge  in  treating  of  Composition  is  made  applicable  by  them 
to  Painting,  intermixed  with  their  general  statements  are  special 
rules  for  Composition  in  Drawing;  while,  moreover,  nearly  all  their 
teachings  as  to  excellence  acquired  in  composing  by  the  painter,  are 
made  to  depend  upon  his  skill  in  executing  the  previous  drawing, 
which  gives  the  forms  that  he  is  afterwards  to  color,  not  only  in  their 
general  outlines,  but  still  more  in  all  their  minute  details. 

Ruskin  has  stated  the  following  as  the  laws  of  Composition.  First, 
Principality ;  there  should  always  be  a  principal  figure  or  part  in  a 
work  of  art,  as  there  is  a  head  or  prominent  portion  to  every  object 
or  scene  in  nature.  Second,  Repetition :  symmetry  requiring  that  a 
principal  figure  be  supported  on  each  side  by  similar  subordinates ; 
as  two  small  domes,  if  any,  on  the  two  sides  of  a  central  and  larger 
one ;  and  a  right  and  left  group  to  a  central  statue  in  a  pediment. 
Third,  Continuity ;  the  pillars  of  a  Cathedral,  if  diminishing  in  per- 
spective, or  if  from  necessity  of  different  sizes,  having  a  regular  ratio 
of  increase  or  diminution ;  the  bank  of  a  river,  against  which  the 
current  sets,  being  represented  with  a  graduated  increase  of  steepness. 
Fourth,  Curvature ;  the  tops  of  spires,  trees,  and  even  of  bridges  and 
buildings,  as  also  the  outlines  of  clouds  being  drawn  not  in  straight, 
but  in  curved  lines ;  in  which  the  critic  seems  to  have  in  mind  the 
subject  of  "Curvilinear  Perspective."  Fifth,  Radiation;  as  fibres  in 
leaves  and  ribs  in  a  boat.  Sixth,  Contrast ;  not  too  striking,  yet  real ; 
dresses,  not  all  of  the  same  cut  or  color;  the  battlements  of  a  tower, 
not  all  of  one  fixed  measure.  Seventh,  Interchange;  succession  in 
change,  as  in  colors  of  dresses,  and  in  light  and  shade.     Eighth,  Con- 

Isistency;  as  in  the  appropriate  colors  of  massive  and  of  distant 
Objects;  in  the  dependence  of  the  slender  and  graceful,  on  the  sturdy 
and  rugged ;  by  study  of  which  principle  breadth  is  secured.  Ninth, 
JG-radation ;  if  obliged  to  make  one  tint  in  a  landscape  fainter  than 
It  is  in  nature,  to  make  all  correspondingly  faint;  a  good  study  in 
phich  is  the  representing  of  a  dark  tree  against  the  sky,  painting 
23 


266  ART   CRITICISM. 

first  the  white  cloud,  then  the  blue  sky,  then  the  dark  tree,  and 
lastly  putting  in  the  intermediate  tints. 

Sect.  4.  Expression  ;  on  the  giving  of  reality  and  life  to  Composition. 

In  the  useful  arts,  when  the  parts  of  a  machine  are  all  fitted  and 
adjusted  in  one  compact  whole,  it  is  the  triumph  of  art  to  make  the 
inert  and  passive  mass  become  a  moving  agent,  doing  the  work  and 
accomplishing  the  end  for  which  it  was  designed.  The  poet,  who 
has  elaborated  in  detail  and  woven  together  in  composition  an  epic 
of  twenty-four  books,  is  not  a  Homer,  unless  his  pictured  men  seem 
to  move  and  speak,  so  as  in  fact  to  make  the  reader  forget  that  they 
are  fancied  beings,  and  not  real  men,  with  whom  he  is  living  and 
acting.  So  all  great  masters  in  art  have  felt  that  the  design,  the 
end  of  their  conception,  invention  and  composition,  is  not  reached 
unless  such  a  power  of  expression,  the  attribute  of  apparent  life  and 
motion,  has  been  infused  into  the  forms  they  have  executed,  that  the 
beholder  can  hardly  imagine  as  he  gazes,  that  it  is  not  a  scene  of 
actual  existence  upon  which  his  eye  rests. 

Socrates,  as  Xenophon  relates,  went  one  day  into  a  studio  of  a 
sculptor  who  had  admirably  succeeded  in  representing  every  variety 
of  human  posture  in  marble,  those  of  the  racer,  boxer,  wrestler,  etc., 
and  asked,  "Is  it  not  necessary  in  order  to  give  pleasure  to  the 
beholder,  to  imitate  the  emotions  of  the  men  performing  any  particu- 
lar act?"  Lionardo  da  Vinci  makes  this  part  of  the  subject  of 
design  relate  to  inanimate,  as  well  as  animate  beings;  adding  the 
term  "  Character"  to  that  of  "  Expression,"  in  order  to  make  clear 
the  extent  and  force  of  his  meaning.  The  artist,  he  urges,  "should 
express  motion  in  the  forms  he  draws;  old  men  and  youth  must 
appear  to  be  real ;  those  laughing  and  weeping  should  so  speak  as  to 
call  forth  the  sympathetic  emotion  in  the  beholder."  More  than  this, 
Character  is  to  be  given  even  to  objects  without  life,  such  as  shall  be 
like  Expression  in  human  beings.  "  Shadows  must  be  made  to  seem 
actual ;  more  time  even  being  spent  upon  them  than  upon  the  figures 
themselves.  Clouds  should  be  so  detached  from  the  background  as  to 
seem  suspended  in  the  air."  He  gives  lengthy  directions  for  the 
study  of  features  expressing  particular  emotions;  mentioning  that 
"in  laughing,  the  brows  are  open  and  the  corners  of  the  mouth 
turned  up ;  in  weeping,  the  brows  are  contracted  and  the  corners  of 
the  mouth  turned  down;"  that  "men  weep  from  anger  or  fear,  joy  or 
sorrow,  suspicion  or  compassion,  enmity  or  tenderness;"  and  that 
"each  mental  impression  has  its  outward  expression  in  the  form  of 


EXPEESSION  THE  INTERPRETER   OF   DESIGN.  267 

the  features."  Yet  more,  "there  is  a  position  of  each  part  of  the 
body,  as  well  as  a  form  of  the  features,  characterizing  different  emo- 
tions and  each  shade  of  emotion;"  many  of  which  the  writer 
describes.  These  frequent  and  particular  directions  of  this  great 
artist,  demands  so  far  beyond  even  the  hope  of  attainment  by  ordi- 
nary artists,  would  seem  overstated  had  not  men,  like  the  writer 
himself,  spent  a  life-time  of  ceaseless  daily  and  nightly  toil,  with 
sketch-book  and  pencil  in  hand ;  Lionardo  to  the  very  last  days  of 
his  life  seeking  to  perfect  himself  in  drawing  as  the  fundamental  art 
upon  which  the  higher  arts  depended  for  success. 

Many  other  writers  might  be  cited.  The  following  from  Fuseli, 
when  treating  of  Expression,  is  a  fitting  close  of  this  brief  analysis 
of  the  subject  of  Design  in  Drawing.  "Expression,"  says  Fuseli, 
"gives  vividness  to  an  image,  and  interprets  Composition."  It  is, 
indeed,  as  its  very  name  indicates,  that  aspect  of  perfect  reality 
which  makes  the  work  of  art,  as  it  were,  weal  to  the  eye ;  even  as,  in 
the  counterpart  address  to  the  organs  of  hearing,  a  well  modulated 
voice  reciting  a  poem  gives  an  expression  to  the  poet's  composition 
which  makes  his  images  visible  to  the  ear. 


BOOK   III. 

SCULPTURE;    THE    EXECUTING    OF    FORMS    IN    ALL    THEIR 
DIMENSIONS. 

Drawing  presents  figures  in  two  dimensions  on  the  surface  of  a 
plane ;  only  representing  the  third  dimension  by  shading.  Moulding 
or  Sculpture  actually  executes  forms  in  three  dimensions ;  rounding 
out  the  figure  so  as  to  present  an  image  in  its  solid  proportions. 
Drawing  must  precede  Sculpture ;  since  the  sculptor  cannot  success- 
fully begin  to  model  any  ideal  which  he  would  put  into  form,  till  he 
has  first  conceived  the  outline  as  it  would  appear  to  the  eye  of  the 
beholder  from  every  point  of  view,  and  has  elaborated  each  with  the 
pencil.  A  brief  notice  of  the  modes  of  executing  sculpture  will  illus- 
trate the  nature  of  its  works ;  the  history  of  ancient  sculpture,  par- 
ticularly in  Egypt  and  Greece,  will  show  the  influence  of  science  and 
philosophy  on  this  branch  of  plastic  art ;  while  a  brief  glance  at  the 
sculpture  of  Modern  Europe  will  enable  the  student  to  trace  the  laws 
of  its  progress  towards  perfection. 


CHAPTEK    1. 


GENERAL   PRINCIPLES    RELATING   TO   THE    EXECUTION   AND    CLASSI- 
FICATION  OF   WORKS   OF   SCULPTURE. 

In  Drawing,  lines  are  the  elements  of  the  art ;  in  Sculpture,  surfaces. 
As,  however,  surfaces  are  made  up  of  lines,  the  ability  to  execute 
truly  the  lines  of  any  curvature  must  precede  the  power  to  mould 
surfaces  into  any  contour.  The  principles  of  Drawing  must  there- 
fore be  kept  before  the  mind  in  the  study  of  the  art  of  Sculpture ; 
while  new  and  distinct  applications  of  those  principles,  new  ends  to 

268 


TECHNICAL   TERMS   OF  SCULPTURE.  269 

be  atttained,  and  distinct  methods  of  accomplishing  those  ends,  are 
also  to  be  regarded. 

Sect.   1.    Technical    Terms    expressive  of  Different    Methods   of 
Executing  and  of  Classifying  works  of  Sculpture. 

After  the  Greeks  the  whole  class  of  arts  generally  designated 
under  the  term  Sculpture,  have  been  called  the  plastic  arts;  from  the 
Greek  word  plasso  or  plattOy  whence  our  word  plat  or  plait,  and  also 
plaster.  The  terms  employed  to  designate  the  different  processes, 
methods  or  styles  of  plastic  art  have  each  its  specific  meaning ;  some 
of  these  methods  being  compelled  by  the  character  of  the  material 
employed ;  others  being  suggested  by  some  principle  of  design  in  the 
artist's  mind. 

To  the  first  class,  those  compelled  by  the  character  of  the  material 
employed,  belong  the  following  forms.  Moulding  is  the  pressing  out 
with  the  fingers  of  forms  in  soft  pliable  material,  as  clay ;  and  it 
designates  either  the  finished  work  of  the  house  plasterer,  or  the  first 
process,  usually  called  modelling,  of  the  sculptor.  Akin  to  this  is 
imvught  or  "beaten"  work;  which  is  the  shaping  by  the  hammer  of 
hard  but  malleable  material,  as  the  metals,  into  forms  more  or  less 
finished,  being  the  exclusive  work  of  the  ordinary  smith,  and  one 
method  of  executing  the  most  finished  sculpture  in  metal.  Casting 
is  the  forming  of  images  from  material  in  a  liquid  state ;  as  from 
plaster  mixed  with  water,  or  from  melted  metal,  poured  into  a  mould 
previously  prepared  and  then  left  to  harden  by  drying  or  cooling ; 
and  it  is  either  the  second  process  of  the  sculptor  in  making  his  plas- 
ter cast  from  his  clay  model  after  which  his  marble  statue  is  subse- 
quently to  be  cut,  or  it  is  the  final  process  of  the  common  brass  and 
iron  founder,  as  well  as  of  the  ablest  artists  executing  sculpture  in 
copper  or  bronze.  Carving  is  not  the  constructing  of  whole  forms, 
but  the  cutting  and  rounding  out  of  half  forms  projecting  from  the 
rough  surface  of  material,  like  wood  and  stone,  hard  and  friable  as 
opposed  to  malleable.  Graving,  is  the  slighter  cutting,  of  indented 
figures  as  opposed  to  projecting  forms,  in  material  with  a  polished 
instead  of  a  rough  surface,  and  either  of  malleable  or  friable  texture, 
as  copper  or  marble.  The  word  sculpture,  from  the  Greek  glypho  to 
carve  finely,  a  word  preserved  in  the  terms  triglyphs,  hieroglyphs, 
etc.,  a  designation  opposed  to  glapho  to  carve  coarsely,  is  properly 
applied  only  to  the  finer  works  of  art  in  marble ;  and  is  never  appli- 
cable, like  the  other  terms  mentioned,  to  the  unartistic  works  of  the 


270  ART   CRITICISM. 

useful  arts.  The  term  Sculpture  therefore  is  the  most  appropriate 
designation  of  this  second  department  of  the  Fine  Arts. 

Finished  works  in  sculpture,  whose  forms  are  determined  rather 
by  the  idea  of  the  artist  than  by  the  character  of  material,  are  classi- 
fied according  to  the  prominence  and  completeness  of  the  forms  which 
they  represent;  and  are  designated  by  a  class  of  words  chiefly  derived 
from  the  Italian  applicable  to  his  work  when  completed.  Intaglio, 
or  figure  cut  in,  i.  e.  without  relief,  properly  called  graving,  is  the 
cutting  of  a  figure  into  the  surface  of  stone  without  any  rounding  out 
of  the  figure;  as  exemplified  in  the  hieroglyphics  of  Egypt.  Basso- 
relievo,  called  bas-relief  in  the  French,  or  low-relief,  is  the  rounding  up 
of  slightly  raised  figures ;  as  seen  in  coins,  medals,  etc.,  stamped  on 
metal ;  and  as  shown  also  in  cameos,  in  which  the  figure,  slightly  pro- 
jecting, is  cut  in  the  outer  or  light-colored  surface  of  the  shell,  while 
the  background  is  formed  by  the  inner  or  dark  part.  Alto-relievo,  or 
high  relief,  is  the  carving  of  a  figure  upon  stone  or  other  substance, 
so  that  it  projects  about  one-half  the  diameter  of  the  face  of  the 
natural  object;  as  illustrated  in  the  embossed  worS  of  iron  orna- 
ments on  stoves  and  of  clay  on  ornamented  pitchers  and  vases;  and 
as  seen  in  its  truest  style  of  art  in  medallion  heads.  Perfect  or  com- 
plete relief  is  the  presenting  of  the  entire  half  of  the  form  of  an  object 
as  seen  by  the  eye  on  one  side  only ;  illustrated  in  pilasters  or  half 
columns  projecting  from  a  wall,  and  in  the  carved  work  made  to 
adorn  the  cornice  or  eaves  of  public  edifices  since  the  days  of  the 
perfection  of  the  art  of  sculpture  in  Greece.  Finally  the  complete 
statue,  or  sculpture  proper,  is  the  carving  of  the  entire  figure  with  its 
projection  complete  on  all  sides;  as  in  columns,  or  statuary  standing 
as  a  central  ornament,  to  be  viewed  on  all  sides. 

The  choice  both  of  the  mode  of  working  the  material  and  of  the 
style  of  forming  an  image  have  depended  partly  upon  the  character 
of  the  material  employed,  partly  upon  the  taste  and  culture  of  a 
people,  and  in  part  too  upon  the  fancy  of  the  artist.  Thus  wood  and 
stone  must  be  carved;  but  metal  may  be  either  cast,  carved,  or 
beaten;  a  fact  strikingly  illustrated  in  the  primitive  art  of  the 
Hebrews.^  Again  the  rude  Indian's  sculpture  is  chiefly  carving  in 
wood  and  bone,  and  the  African's  in  ebony  and  ivory;  while  the 
Chinese  carve  in  stone,  cast  in  metal,  and  mould  in  plaster.  The 
choice  of  beaten  or  wrought  work  must  probably  be  set  down  as  an 


'  See  Isaiah  xl.  19;  xli.  7;  and  xliv.  12,  13;  in  which  the  varying  caprice 
of  the  sculptor,  deciding  about  his  mode  of  working,  is  admirably  pictured. 


I 


CHOICE  OF  METHODS  AND  MATERIAL  IN  SCULPTURE.       271 

instance  of  a  peculiar  fancy  or  taste  in  the  artist.  In  the  workman- 
ship of  the  Hebrew  artists,  who  of  course  had  an  Egyptian  education, 
we  observe  that  though  they  could  cast  in  metal  an  idol  god,  yet  the 
celestial  forms  of  the  cherubs  standing  on  the  mercy-seat  of  the  ark, 
and  the  sacred  candlestick  with  its  branches,  knops,  and  other  orna- 
mental work,  was  all  of  "beaten  gold;"  while  in  a  later  age  the 
immense  cherubim  cut  into  statues  of  olive  wood  and  carved  in  relief 
upon  the  walls  were  only  '' overlaid  with  gold"  beaten  into  leaves,  so 
that  the  carving  should  thus  seem  to  be  in  gold.^  Specimens  of  this 
same  style  of  work  are  found  in  ancient  and  modern  statues  wrought 
with  the  hammer. 

Again  the  choice  of  style  in  form,  whether  in  relief  or  in  statue, 
has  depended  in  part  upon  location  and  design ;  partly  on  the  cost 
of  the  work,  but  partly  also  on  the  taste  of  the  age.  Thus  the  carv- 
ing on  the  walls  of  the  Egyptian  and  Hebrew  temples  must  be  in 
relief,  while  the  images  standing  in  front,  could  only  be  complete 
statues.  Again,  though  the  rich  may  have  statues  for  funereal 
monuments,  and  the  less  wealthy  may  have  a  relief  upon  a  marble 
shaft,  the  poor  can  have  only  a  simple  engraving  on  slate.  Yet 
again,  while  Egyptian  taste  allowed  the  entire  temple  to  be  covered 
with  carving  in  relief,  and  the  Greeks  admired  sculpture  in  the 
frieze,  modern  taste  excludes  such  architectural  ornaments,  and  the 
chosen  works  in  sculpture  in  our  day,  are  statues  in  marble  and 
bronze. 

Sect.  2.  The  material  of  Sculpture. 

As  was  natural,  the  earliest  and  rudest  sculpture  has  been  executed 
in  material  most  convenient  to  obtain  and  easy  to  work.  Wood, 
as  the  substance  most  abundant  and  readily  cut,  was  universally  first 
chosen ;  the  boy's  penknife  and  the  savage's  flint,  easily  and  skilfully 
shaping  it,  while  the  lids  of  Egyptian  sarcophagi,  the  early  statues 
of  Greek  artists,  and  especially  the  elaborate  oak  carvings  of  modern 
times  have  proved  it  even  a  noble  material.  Shell,  ivory,  and  kin- 
dred substances,  harder  than  wood  follow;  the  rudest  tribes  of 
Africa  and  the  Islanders  of  the  Pacific,  exhibiting  true  genius  in 
this  species  of  carving,  while  the  master-work  of  Phidias  gave  it  a 
dignity  never  reached  either  before  or  since.  The  very  hardest  sub- 
stance, flint,  has  been  shaped  l)y  the  American  Indian  into  his 
hatchet,  and  by  the  Chinese,  into  miniature  groups,  having  the 


•  See  Exodus  xxv.  18,  36  and  37;  xxxii.  4;  also  Numbers  viii.  4,  compare 
1  Kings  vi.  21—32. 


272  ART  CRITICISM. 

figures  in  a  light  vein  and  the  background  in  a  dark  stratum.  The 
ancient  Egyptians,  probably  because  their  own  river  banks  furnished 
this  material,  while  their  own  bold  ideas  demanded  this  coarse  stone, 
carved  their  statues  and  cut  their  obelisks  in  granite,  while  the 
Greeks  found  in  the  fine  grained  marble,  native  to  their  hills,  a 
material  fit  to  set  forth  their  refined  ideals. 

Another  class  of  material  as  widely  employed  belonged  to  the 
department  of  moulding;  consisting  of  clay  or  kindred  substances 
in  a  soft  and  plastic  form.  Two  classes  of  objects  were  sought  by 
such  mouldings ;  forms  designed  to  be  hardened  either  by  a  drying, 
baking,  or  fusing  heat,  so  as  themselves  to  be  works  of  art;  and 
those  intended  to  be  used  as  patterns  for  a  chiseler  in  stone,  or  as 
models  for  the  caster  in  metal.  The  rudest  of  this  class  was  common 
clay ;  in  all  ages  the  material  for  ordinary  pottery  and  for  the  first 
model  of  the  sculptor  or  caster.  In  the  tombs  of  Egypt,  Chaldea, 
Greece,  and  Italy,  and  even  among  the  Aztec  remains  of  Southern 
and  Central  America,  utensils,  coflfins,  etc.,  of  the  nicest  baked  clay, 
called  by  the  Italian  name  terracotta^  are  exhumed;  while  the 
famed  Etruscan  vases,  the  admiration  of  ancient  and  of  modern 
times,  were  of  the  same  simple  material.  Yet,  again,  the  finest 
statuettes  formed  of  mere  clay,  coated  with  a  substance  which  by 
intense  heat  is  vitrified  or  turned  to  glass,  studied  with  care  by 
modern  artists,  have  comfe  under  the  name  of  Parian  to  rival  the 
ancient  Chinese  Porcelain.  The  ancient  Egyptians,  moreover,  under- 
stood the  nature  of  a  composition  formed  with  lime,  which,  when 
laid  on  the  w^alls  of  rock-hewn  tombs,  and  even  on  the  surface  of 
sandstone  columns,  hardened  to  the  consistency  of  marble,  and 
received  the  nicest  touches  of  the  chisel.  Some,  again,  of  the 
ancient  Grecian,  as  well  as  modern  Italian  sculptors,  moulded  even 
wax ;  and  the  model  of  the  Perseus  of  Cellini  in  this  material,  still 
preserved,  is  regarded  as  even  superior  to  his  bronze  casting  of  the 
same. 

The  third  class  of  material  fitted  for  sculpture  is  metal ;  sometimes 
wrought  into  form  by  blows  of  the  hammer,  but  generally  melted 
and  cast  in  moulds  of  sand  previously  prepared  from  the  model. 
The  famed  ancient  Colossus  of  Rhodes,  and  the  modern  castings  of 
Berlin  and  other  German  cities,  unite  the  past  and  present  in  this 
branch  of  art.  So  prominent  is  this  material  in  ancient  renown,  that 
Pliny  makes  his  entire  history  of  Grecian  and  Roman  sculpture  an 
episode  in  his  treatise  on  the  metal  Brass.  After  the  statement  that 
early  and  rude  sculpture  is  executed  in  "wood  and  clay,"  he  says 


SCULPTURE   THE    LEADING    ART   OF   DESIGN.  273 

that  the  metal  brass  reached  its  glory  first  in  "Delian,"  then  in 
"Corinthian"  castings. 

The  purest  and  noblest  of  all  material  was  niarhle.  Pliny,  after 
mentioning  that  even  Phidias  made  his  Minerva  of  "  ivory  and  gold," 
states  that  Praxiteles  was  "happier  in  marble."  It  was  only  when 
the  art  began  to  decline  that  sculptors  went  back  to  the  coarser 
material  of  ruder  times ;  the  last  stage  of  which  degeneracy,  as  Pliny 
records,  "saw  brass  gilded  with  gold." 

In  each  of  the  various  classes  of  material  thus  suggested  for  works 
of  sculpture,  there  is  probably  some  distinctive  characteristic,  expres- 
sive of  a  correspondent  idea,  which  in  the  higher  development  of 
the  art,  has  led  to  its  special  selection  for  specific  efiects.  Thus,  as 
Jarves  has  intimated,  perspective  and  details  of  background,  plumage 
and  foliage,  are  not  subjects  for  sculpture;  for  no  material  is  fitted 
for  them.  Within  the  field  of  this  art,  strength  and  mass  are  for 
stone;  lightness  for  wood;  transparency  for  glass;  ease  and  free- 
dom for  stucco  and  clay ;  and  tenacity  combined  with  ductility  for 
metals,  since  they  change  their  shape  but  by  effort. 

Sect.  3.  The  Objects  of  Design  ;  as  specially  adapted  to  the  Art  op 

Sculpture. 

It  seems  a  matter  of  course  that  no  work  of  art  proper  can  be 
even  conceived,  much  less  be  executed,  without  a  design.  In  drawing, 
the  art  whose  aim  is  to  furnish  an  outline  or  pattern  after  which  the 
artist  or  artisan  is  to  copy,  it  was  appropriate  to  consider  the  nature 
of  Design.  Since,  however.  Drawing  is  not  a  Form,  but  only  its 
representation,  the  object  which  that  drawing  represents  was  con- 
ceived in  the  mind  before  the  drawing  traced  its  outlines.  A  work 
of  sculpture  is  an  object  of  Design ;  and  the  consideration  of  Design 
in  its  relation  to  this  art  suggests  appropriately  the  notice  of  Objects 
of  Design.  The  "Arts  of  Design,"  technically  speaking,  are  "Sculp- 
ture, Architecture,  and  Painting;"  Sculpture  preceding  the  other 
two  of  the  three,  because  Architecture  takes  on  as  appendages  the 
single  forms  which  Sculpture  has  elaborated  while  Painting  groups 
and  colors  them. 

Sculpture,  even  in  its  rudest  form,  has  as  its  main  end  to  please 
the  taste,  to  gratify  the  love  of  the  beautiful.  The  meaning  of  the 
term  'design,  when  properly  used,  restricts  it  to  the  study  of  methods 
of  appeal  to  the  aesthetic  sensibilities  by  forms  of  grace;  and  in 
sculpture  this  limitation  is  manifest.  The  work  of  the  architect 
must  be  founded  primarily  on  the  idea  of  utility ;  but  the  labor  of 

2  K 


274  ART  CRITICISM. 

the  sculptor,  whether  expended  upon  a  statue  that  can  be  employed 
for  no  purpose  of  mere  utility,  or  upon  an  ornamented  candelabra 
which  has  its  use,  is  founded  directly  on  the  idea  of  beauty ;  this 
being  the  ideal  which  the  sculptor  would  realize  in  his  work  and  the 
sentiment  to  which  he  would  appeal  in  the  beholder. 

The  ends  had  in  view  by  the  sculptor  are  secular  or  religious ;  the 
field  for  the  Creation  of  works  of  design,  embracing  individual  or 
private  and  general  or  public  sesthetic  wants.  Sculpture  is  intended 
to  appeal  to  the  love  of  beauty  alone,  or  through  this  love  to  senti- 
ments of  friendship  or  of  patriotism,  to  emotions  of  human  aifection 
or  of  religious  veneration ;  and  its  creations  are  either  ornaments  to 
decorate,  mementoes  of  affection  to  be  cherished,  monuments  of 
national  gratitude  to  inspire,  funereal  emblems  to  chasten,  or  sym- 
bols of  religion  to  awaken  devotion. 

It  was  the  idea  which  the  artist  would  convey  that  led  to  the 
impress  put  upon  the  earliest  and  simplest  of  sculptured  work, 
ancient  coins ;  whose  first  stamp  was  the  figure  of  a  sheep,  to  whose 
value  the  amount  of  metal  impressed  with  the  image  was  adjusted; 
it  was  equally  the  idea  of  the  artist  which  changed  this  utilitarian 
mark  into  the  character  of  a  historic  tablet  bearing  "the  image  and 
superscription"  of  the  king  or  emperor  under  whom  it  was  coined; 
and  it  was  yet  more  the  same  idea  of  the  artist  which  again  changed 
the  head  of  a  sovereign  to  the  liberty-cap  and  the  eagle  on  the  Repub- 
lican coinage  of  the  New  World.  The  same  may  be  remarked  of 
the  utensils  of  peaceful  pursuits,  of  arms  for  war,  and  of  all  the  num- 
berless carved  and  sculptured  relics  which  make  up  the  collections 
of  that  modern  parody  on  the  old  Grecian  word,  "  Museum." 

It  is  in  sculpture,  in  fact,  more  than  in  any  other  department  that 
the  love  of  design  has  shown  itself  to  be  a  universal  principle  of 
human  nature.  The  rudest  savage,  though  he  shows  no  conception 
of  art  in  architecture  or  painting,  carves  his  pipe  and  tomahawk 
into  the  image  of  some  object  of  admiration  or  devotion,  and  covers 
it  with  devices  of  his  own  grotesque  taste  or  superstitious  adoration. 
The  school-boy,  who  thinks  of  no  other  art,  is  universally  a  sculptor; 
cutting  his  bow  or  bat  into  a  shape  to  please  his  eye,  and  never  hap- 
pier than  in  giving  form  to  some  bit  of  wood  with  his  pocket  knife. 
The  greatest  geniuses  in  art,  like  Phidias,  excelling  with  the  painter's 
brush  and  the  architect's  rule,  have  aspired  to  shape  their  purest  and 
loftiest  ideals  with  the  chisel. 

Works  of  sculpture,  so  far  as  design  is  concerned,  have  taken  two 
separate  forms.     The  simplest  are  separate  and  complete  objects,  cut 


CLASSES  OF  SCULPTURED   FORMS.  275 

into  shapes  of  grace  or  power.  Such  are  jewels  and  other  ornaments 
for  the  person,  vases  and  other  adornments  for  the  mantel,  mirrors 
and  other  articles  for  the  toilette,  staves  and  other  instruments  for 
the  hand,  pitchers  and  other  vessels  for  the  table,  chairs  and  other 
furniture  for  the  parlor,  and  even  pots  and  pans,  hammers  and 
hatchets,  and  other  utensils  for  the  kitchen  and  work-shop.  The 
highest  creations  of  art  in  this  department  are  funereal  emblems 
made  to  adorn  the  tombs  of  private  friends ;  civic  statues  and  monu- 
ments to  perpetuate  the  memory  of  noble  men  and  of  great  events; 
and  sacred  images  and  symbols  which  even  the  simple  rites  of  a  pure 
Christianity  require. 

The  other  form  which  works  of  sculpture  have  assumed  is  that  of 
decorations  carved  upon  larger  and  permanent  structures.  Such  are 
the  sculptures  which  cover  in  such  profusion  the  entire  walls  and 
columns  of  temples  and  tombs  in  Egypt ;  whose  numberless  devices 
make  the  beholder  admire  the  inexhaustible  invention  and  untiring 
labor  of  those  ancient  artists  quite  as  much  as  he  wonders  at  the 
vastness  of  their  conceptions  revealed  in  the  massive  proportions  of  the 
materials  they  have  moved  into  place.  Such  too  are  the  exquisite 
bas-reliefs  on  the  cornices  of  Grecian  temples ;  as  well  as  the  rich 
ornamental  works  upon  more  modern  structures  of  architectural 
magnificence. 

Among  the  objects  selected  by  sculptors  in  all  ages  upon  which  to 
display  the  beauty  and  grandeur  possible  in  artistic  design,  three 
may  be  mentioned  as  those  which  have  excited  the  world's  admira- 
tion. They  are  the  lamps  and  candelabras  wrought  for  temples  of 
worship  for  the  living,  vases  moulded  to  hold  the  ashes  of  the  dead, 
and  statues  of  real  men  who  were  heroes  and  of  ideal  men  who  were 
demigods. 

Among  the  former  are  found  the  most  elaborate  and  graceful  com- 
binations of  forms ;  one  of  the  finest  specimens  of  which,  as  artists 
universally  agree,  is  the  seven-pronged  candelabra,  the  candlestick 
of  the  Jewish  temple.  Originally  moulded  by  an  Egyptian  hand  it 
was  sculptured  by  an  artist  of  truly  Grecian  taste  upon  the  triumphal 
arch  of  Titus  reared  in  the  Forum  of  Rome  to  commemorate  his  vic- 
tory over  Jerusalem.  The  work  is  most  interesting  to  the  Christian 
traveler  as  presenting  at  once  one  of  the  finest  relics  of  Grecian  sculp- 
ture, and  also  a  permanent  memorial  of  the  ancient  carved  work 
given  to  the  Jewish  law-giver  as  a  model  on  the  Mount  of  Old  Tes- 
tament Revelation. 

The  Etruscan  vase,  a  product  of  mingled  Grecian  and  Roman 


276  ART  CRITICISM. 

taste,  is  the  master-piece  of  simple  and  chaste  beauty,  upon  which 
admirers  of  art  have  exhausted  the  vocabulary  of  words  expressive 
of  grace.  The  vase  seems  to  have  been  designed  for  three  purposes; 
for  private  and  domestic  use,  as  holders  of  flowers ;  for  public  and 
civic  uses,  as  the  urn  that  received  lots  and  ballots ;  and  finally  and 
chiefly,  as  receptacles  for  the  ashes  of  the  burnt  dead.  The  forms  of 
manly  grace  and  female  beauty  traced  in  miniature  upon  their  sur- 
face and  then  painted  in  simple  black,  or  in  dark  red,  have  been 
copied  and  published  in  volumes  in  every  country  of  Western 
Europe.  Yet  the  general  outlines  of  the  vase  itself  have  been  most 
admired.  Of  these  there  are  several  forms,  though  all  founded  on 
one  leading  idea;  one  class  open  at  top,  some  broad  and  bulging  like 
a  modern  punch  bowl,  others  of  the  shape  of  a  modern  silver 
drinking  or  presentation  cup,  and  others  of  the  dimensions  and  shape 
of  a  flower  vase ;  a  second  class  with  closed  tops,  like  urns,  and  of 
the  same  variety  of  shapes  as  the  former  class;  and  a  third  class 
especially  devoted  to  funereal  purposes  of  slender  form,  tapering  as 
the  female  figure  with  a  small  open  orifice  at  top.  A  careful  ob- 
server cannot  fail  to  notice  that  the  lines  of  this  latter  class  so 
admired,  approach  nearly  to  a  perfect  copy  of  those  which  make  the 
human  form  so  matchless  as  a  work  of  art.  There  is  in  the  lower 
part  the  same  gently  declining  inward  curve  to  the  foot,  and  in  the 
upper  portion  the  same  sharper  but  equally  graceful  slope  from  the 
shoulders  to  the  neck,  and  the  same  rounding  out  again  of  the  head 
at  the  summit.  The  art  of  design  in  the  sculptured  vase  reached  at 
once  its  climax  because  it  took  the  Creator's  most  perfect  work  in 
material  forms  for  its  model.  It  has  been  hallowed  indeed  in  the 
spiritual  rites  of  the  least  formal  Churches  of  a  pure  Christianity  in 
the  silver  ewer  and  cups  used  in  the  permanent  ordinance  of  the 
Lord's  Supper. 

Upon  this  point,  Winckelmann  has  the  following:  "The  forms 
of  a  beautiful  body  are  determined  by  lines  the  centre  of  which 
is  continually  changing;  and  which,  if  continued,  would  never 
describe  circles.  They  are  consequently  more  simple,  but  also 
more  complex  than  a  circle,  which,  however  large  or  small  it 
may  be,  always  has  the  same  centre,  and  either  includes  others, 
or  is  included  in  others.  This  diversity  was  sought  after  by  the 
Greeks  in  works  of  all  kinds ;  and  their  discernment  o"f  its  beauty 
led  them  to  introduce  the  same  system  into  the  form  of  their 
utensils  and  vases,  whose  easy  and  elegant  outline  is  drawn  after 
the  same  rule,  that  is  by  a  line  which  must  be  found  by  means 


ANALOGY   OF   THE   VASE   AND   HUMAN   STATUE.  277 

of  several  circles,  for  all  these  works  have  an  elliptical  figure,  and 
herein  consists  their  beauty.  The  greater  unity  there  is  in  the  junc- 
tion of  the  forms,  and  in  the  flowing  of  one  out  of  another,  so  much 
the  greater  is  the  beauty  of  the  whole."  It  is  not  strange  that  true 
men  of  genius  devoted  to  the  applications  of  the  pure  mathematics, 
like  Pythagoras  and  Newton,  should  be  perfect  enthusiasts  in  their 
admiration  of  the  lines  of  beauty ;  for  the  following  out  of  the  higher 
applications  of  the  Calculus  to  the  radii  of  curvature  of  the  involved 
curves  in  which  the  earth  and  moon  move,  as  they  go,  first  rolling  in 
circles  on  their  own  axes,  then  swinging  in  ellipses  around  their 
common  centres  of  gravity,  and  then  again  as  companies  whirling 
in  spirals  around  the  central  sun,  is  as  intricate  and  mazy  a  chase 
as  was  the  pursuit  of  Hogarth  after  the  Law  of  the  Line  of  Beauty. 

As  the  archetype  is  higher  than  the  type,  the  original  than  the 
copy  modelled  after  it,  so  the  human  form  itself  was  an  attempt  of 
the  sculptor's  design  superior  to  the  candelabra  and  vase.  Like  those 
branching  objects  standing  on  an  exquisitely  small  yet  manifestly 
secure  foot,  the  statue  of  the  human  figure  itself  is  the  most  perfect 
work  of  the  sculptor ;  our  impression  of  beauty  uniting  in  it  these 
two  elements;  that  lightness  which  belongs  to  grace  of  form,  and 
that  perfect  balance  which  takes  away  all  fear  as  to  its  strength  and 
firmness  of  support.  In  this  special  work  of  design,  the  distinction 
between  Asiatic  and  European  art  is  palpably  manifest.  The 
Hebrew  sculptor  cast  brazen  oxen  to  stand  underneath  that  gigantic 
vase,  the  brazen  sea  in  the  temple  of  Solomon;  for  the  ox  is  the 
embodiment  of  strength:  but  the  Greek  sculptor  surrounded  the 
more  elaborate  vases  with  female  figures  whose  graceful  forms  seem 
to  hold  up  in  pastime  the  bowl  of  the  vase  in  their  hands.  The 
Egyptian  Osiride  column  was  the  colossal  frame  of  a  Herculean 
warrior,  holding  up  the  crushing  burden  of  massive  blocks,  all  of 
whose  weight  is  apparent;  while  the  Greek  column  called  Caryati- 
des was  the  sylph-like  form  of  a  maiden  flower-vender,  sporting,  as 
if  it  were  a  wreathed  turban  of  which  she  was  proud,  the  foliated 
and  concealed  burden  of  stone  really  resting  upon  her  head.  The 
Hebrew  artist  carved  the  cherub  as  an  embodiment  of  physical  per- 
fection ;  but  that  people  chosen  to  show  the  moral  mission  of  man 
only  half  developed,  seem  not  to  have  attempted  to  mould  the  seraph 
the  type  of  intellectual  excellence;  while  the  Greek  artist,  though 
he  began  with  the  majestic  person  of  Jove  and  the  muscular  frame 
of  Hercules,  soon  aspired  to  the  higher  forms  of  spiritual  superiority 
conceived  in  the  Apollo  and  Minerva.     In  every  department  of 

24 


278  .  ART   CRITICISM. 

sculpture,  more  truly  than  in  architecture  and  painting,  the  power 
of  design  has  sought  to  show  itself  in  an  effort  to  master  that  chief 
study  among  God's  perfect  works,  the  matchless  symmetry  of  the 
human  form. 

Sect.  4.  Proportion  as  securing  symmetry  in  works  of  Sculpture. 

In  drawing,  proportion  requires  that  the  parts  of  an  object  repre- 
sented have  their  respective  size  as  compared  with  each  other;  so 
that  the  picture  shall  seem  to  be  like  the  natural  object.  Sculpture 
is  not  a  picture  of  an  object,  but  the  object  itself;  and  its  parts  must 
not  simply  seem,  but  actually  be  copies  of  the  object.  This  requires 
that  every  separate  portion  of  the  object  be  in  all  its  dimensions  of 
the  comparative  size  of  the  object;  and  especially  that  the  junctures 
and  articulations  of  the  parts  be  copied  after  nature's  perfect  models. 
This  idea,  as  already  noticed,  the  Greeks  expressed  by  their  word 
"symmetry,"  or  inter-measurement;  whose  special  signification  the 
Latin  word  "proportion"  but  inadequately  expressed. 

In  fixing  laws  of  symmetry,  the  Greeks  regarded  the  age  of  the 
person  selected,  as  well  as  the  particular  member  of  the  body  chosen 
for  comparison.  In  man,  as  in  the  lower  animals,  the  proportionate 
length,  already  noted  as  the  standard  one  of  the  three  dimensions  in 
organized  bodies  to  be  regarded,  as  well  as  the  breadth  and  thick- 
ness of  different  members  of  the  body,  is  greatly  varied  by  age.  In 
the  young  of  horses,  cows,  and  sheep,  which  suckle  standing,  the  legs 
are  disproportionately  long ;  while  in  the  cat,  dog,  and  other  animals 
suckled  by  the  mother  when  lying  down,  the  same  limbs  are  as  dis- 
proportionately short.  The  human  infant  has,  comparatively,  the 
body  long  and  the  limbs  short,  the  head  large  and  the  feet  small. 
The  Greeks  chose  for  a  Cupid  the  dimensions  of  a  child,  for  a  Her- 
cules, or  Jupiter,  the  proportions  of  a  man  mature  in  body  and  in 
mind ;  but  youth  was  the  age  chosen  for  the  expression  of  beauty 
and  grace.  So,  as  will  be  farther  noticed  in  its  place,  the  propor- 
tions of  a  robust  man  were  in  Architecture  the  measure  for  a  Doric 
column,  those  of  a  matron  for  an  Ionic  column,  and  those  of  a 
maiden  for  a  Corinthian  column. 

As  the  "summetron,"  the  "modulus,"  or  standard  of  proportion- 
ate measurement,  different  members  of  the  body  were  chosen.  Both 
the  head  and  the  foot  were  selected  as  ancient  standards ;  but  the 
latter  became  the  preferred  measure  in  sculpture,  as  it  was  the  only 
one  in  architecture.  It  is  interesting  to  observe  how  the  numerous 
standards  of  general  measurement  employed  in  all  ages,  such  as  a 


MODULUS   OF   INTERMEASUREMENT   IN   STATUES.  279 

nail,  a  digit,  a  palm,  a  foot,  a  cubit,  a  pace,  an  ell,  a  fathom,  have 
their  type  in  certain  portions  of  the  body.  In  its  relation  to  art  it 
is  more  important  to  observe  that  these  natural  measures  are  so  uni- 
versally of  the  same  fixed  proportions  that  they  have  claimed  to  be 
authoritative  standards  in  every  nation;  so  that  no  supposed  im- 
provements in  science  or  art,  and  no  legislation  like  that  of  the 
French  at  their  Kevolution,  can  dislodge  them  from  their  hold  on 
the  minds  of  the  people. 

Vitruvius,  though  writing  on  Architecture,  gives  the  fullest  state- 
ment extant  of  the  proportions  of  the  human  figure  as  it  was 
modelled  by  the  Grecian  statuary.  He  says :  "  Nature  in  the  com- 
position of  the  human  frame  has  so  ordained,  that  naturally  and 
ordinarily  there  should  be  such  a  proportion,  that  the  face,  from  the 
chin  to  the  top  of  the  forehead  or  roots  of  the  hair,  should  be  one- 
tenth  part  of  the  whole  stature;  while  the  same  proportion  is  pre- 
served in  the  hand  measured  from  the  bend  of  the  wrist  to  the  tip 
of  the  middle  finger.  The  measure  of  the  head  from  the  chin  to  the 
top  of  the  scalp  is  an  eighth  of  the  whole  body;  and  the  same, 
behind,  is  the  measure  from  the  bottom  of  the  neck  to  the  bottom  of 
the  scalp.  From  the  top  of  the  breast  to  the  roots  of  the  hair  is  a 
sixth  of  the  body's  height,  and  from  the  same  point  to  the  top  of  the 
scalp  is  a  fourth  of  the  stature.  If  the  distance  from  the  chin  to  the 
roots  of  the  hair  be  divided  into  three  parts,  one  of  these  terminates 
at  the  nostrils,  the  other  at  the  eyebrows."  "  The  foot  is  a  dxth  of 
the  stature ;  the  cubit,  or  distance  from  the  elbow  to  the  tip  of  the 
middle  finger,  and  also  the  breadth  of  the  chest,  is  a  fourth.  The 
height  of  the  Jiuman  frame  is  the  same  with  the  measure  from  one 
hand  to  the  other."  "The  other  members  have  certain  afiinities 
which  were  always  observed  by  the  most  celebrated  of  the  ancient 
painters  and  sculptors ;  and  we  must  look  for  them  in  those  produc- 
tions which  have  excited  universal  admiration."  He  adds,  showing 
the  purpose  for  which  he  has  introduced  this  law  of  symmetry,  "  In 
like  manner  the  component  parts  of  sacred  edifices  ought  to  be  com- 
mensurate with  each  other,  and  have  an  appropriate  relation  with 
the  whole  structure." 

The  more  particular  and  minute  proportions  of  the  body  fixed  by 
Greek  artists  were  the  following.  The  entire  stature  was  eight  heads 
or  ten  faces ;  and  one-half  the  stature  was  above  the  os  pubis.  The 
breadth  of  the  shoulders  was  two  heads ;  of  the  loins  one  head  and 
one  nose ;  of  the  thighs  one  head  and  two  noses.  The  length  of  the 
arm  was  three  heads,  one  and  a-half  from  the  shoulder  to  the  elbow, 


280 


ART   CRITICISM. 


and  one  and  a-half  from  the  elbow  to  the  first  knuckles.  From  the 
thigh  to  the  knee  was  two  heads,  and  the  same  from  the  knee  to  the 
ankle;  and  the  foot  was  one  head  and  one  nose.  The  depth  of  the 
chest  was  one  head  and  one-third  of  the  nose ;  of  the  loins  three  and 
one-third  noses.  The  breadth  of  the  upper  arm  was  one  and  a-half 
noses  front  view,  and  two  noses  side  view;  of  the  lower  arm  in 
the  thickest  part  one  and  a-half  noses ;  and  of  the  wrist  one  nose. 
The  depth  of  the  thigh  was  three  noses ;  of  the  calf  of  the  leg  two 
noses ;  and  of  the  ankle  one  nose.  In  the  rounding  of  the  figure  the 
head  is  egg-shaped  in  the  front  view,  and  circular  in  the  side  view ; 
the  nose  and  forehead  are  nearly  in  a  straight  line  in  the  Grecian 
profile;  the  neck  is  nearly  a  cylinder;  the  arms  and  legs  tapering 
cylinders;  and  the  thumb  extends  to  the  first  joint  of  the  first 
finger.  In  the  female  figure  the  height  is  about  one-tenth  less  than 
in  the  male;  the  shoulders  and  loins  are  proportionally  narrower, 
and  the  thighs  much  broader;  while  the  body,'limbs,  hands,  fingers, 
and  nails  are  less  flattened  and  more  perfectly  round  than  in  the 
male. 

Sect.  5.  Position  as  belated  to  Balance  in  Sculpture. 

Position,  a  subordinate  element  under  place,  has,  as  we  have  seen, 
a  relation  to  beauty  even  in  drawing ;  for  even  a  representation  of  a 
figure  not  balanced  gives  a  feeling  of  uneasiness  to  the  beholder. 
Sculpture  is  itself  an  object,  not  a  representation;  and  a  statue  must 
as  truly  as  the  man  of  whom  it  is  the  image,  be  accurately  balanced 
in  its  position. 

In  order  to  secure  balance,  the  centre  of  gravity  must  be  sought 
by  the  sculptor ;  and  all  the  parts  be  so  adjusted,  that  the  weight  be 
duly  distributed  around  and  above  the  point  of  support.  It  is  neces- 
sary, therefore,  to  study  the  object,  not  simply  from  one  point  of 
view,  as  in  drawing,  but  from  every  point  above,  below  and  around ; 
to  view  it  not  in  one  attitude,  but  in  every  conceivable  position  of 
its  parts ;  and  in  these  two  classes  of  observation,  first  of  its  general 
position  as  a  whole,  then  of  the  relative  position  of  its  parts,  it  is 
necessary  to  observe  the  point  of  support  in  each  view  of  each  atti- 
tude, and  the  relation  of  every  portion  of  the  object  as  lying  to  the 
right  or  the  left  of  the  line  perpendicular  to  that  point  of  rest. 

In  all  simple  and  regularly  formed  bodies,  as  spheres,  upright 
columns,  cubes,  etc.,  this  is  a  very  easy  study ;  but  it  becomes  a  very 
difficult  and  protracted  task  when  the  sculptor  is  to  execute  an 
animal  moving  upon  four  feet,  a  man  in  action  poised  upon  two  feet, 


STUDIES   IN    POSTTTTJE    AND    BALANCE.  281 

and  yet  more  a  horse  rearing  and  sustaining  his  rider  balanced  upon 
his  hind  hoofs.  The  difficulty  increases,  according  to  the  mechani- 
cal laws  of  stable  equilibrium,  in  the  ratio  of  these  three  conditions ; 
first,  the  narrowness  of  the  base ;  second,  the  height  of  the  centre  of 
gravity  above  the  base;  and  third,  the  projection  of  the  parts  from 
the  line  perpendicular  to  the  centre.  A  beer-mug  stands  firmer  than 
a  coffee-cup,  because  its  base  is  broader ;  a  rope-walker  stands  securely 
with  his  balancing  pole,  because  the  centre  of  his  entire  weight  is 
made  lower,  and  the  movements  of  the  pole  readily  throw  a  larger 
weight  when  required  to  the  one  side  or  the  other ;  and  it  is  more 
difficult  to  execute  the  statue  of  a  rearing  horse  than  of  a  man 
standing,  because  the  base  of  the  former  is  so  small  compared  with 
his  breadth,  and  also,  because  it  is  easier  to  obtain  the  straight  line 
of  a  man's  natural  and  constant  position  than  the  involved  curve 
of  the  unnatural  and  momentary  position  of  a  rearing  horse. 

The  representations  of  the  work  of  the  sculptor  on  the  monuments 
of  Egypt,  among  other  varied  scenes  of  human  employ  to  be  alluded 
to  in  another  chapter,  show  that  that  primitive  race  of  artists  had 
learned  the  necessity  of  guiding  the  eye  and  hand  in  cutting  their 
granite  statues  by  fixed  measures,  in  order  to  preserve  its  balance  as 
well  as  its  proportions.  Around  the  immense  block  of  granite,  from 
which  a  statue  with  a  base  twelve  feet  broad  and  sixty  feet  high  was 
to  be  cut,  stages  of  wood  were  erected,  whose  corner  posts  and  cross 
boards  were  on  all  sides  and  at  every  elevation  fixed  points  of  mea- 
surement for  the  scores  of  workmen  with  their  chisels  covering  the 
stages ;  and  from  these  fixed  lines  and  points  each  hewer  knew  how 
many  inches  he  was  to  cut  into  the  stone  in  forming  the  head,  neck, 
breast,  and  other  parts  of  the  statue,  with  their  varied  projections 
and  depressions. 

The  Greek  artists  at  a  very  early  day  had  shown  great  skill  and 
ingenuity  in  studying  the  human  frame  in  all  its  varied  attitudes; 
as  is  witnessed  by  the  allusions  made  to  the  teaching  of  Socrates  by 
Xenophon.  The  scientific  Vitruvius  who  wrote  in  the  Augustan 
age  of  Rome,  has  given  when  speaking  of  the  proportions  of  columns 
in  architecture  the  method  of  the  Grecian  sculptor  in  studying  his 
model ;  as  well  as  the  special  laws  of  proportion  in  the  human  frame 
as  they  were  fixed  in  the  earliest  times.  Applying  the  principles  of 
geometry  they  supposed  the  human  form  with  the  arms  and  limbs 
extended  to  be  first  enclosed  in  a  square  or  in  a  circle  and  then  in  a 
cube  or  sphere.  Standing  erect  with  the  arms  extended  at  right 
angles,  the  height  of  the  body  from  head  to  foot,  and  its  breadth 

24  «-  2  L 


282  ART  CRITICISM. 

from  finger  end  to  finger  end  being  the  same,  they  inscribed  it  within 
a  square ;  while  with  the  limbs  extended  obliquely  but  symmetrically 
they  drew  the  human  frame  with  the  hands  and  feet  in  the  circum- 
ference of  a  circle  w^hose  centre  was  the  navel.  Every  posture  of 
action,  as  in  walking,  running,  wrestling,  boxing  was  then  mathe- 
matically studied,  and  the  line  of  the  centre  of  gravity  was  carefully 
marked;  when  the  position  of  each  limb  and  the  breadth  of  each 
portion  of  the  whole  frame,  first  conceived  to  be  located  in  a  circum- 
scribed circle  or  square,  and  then  in  an  enclosing  cube  or  sphere, 
were  measured  with  the  greatest  accuracy. 

At  the  revival  of  Art,  near  the  close  of  the  Fifteenth  Century, 
Lionardo  da  Vinci  wrote  minute  directions  for  the  sculptor ;  accom- 
panying his  particular  instructions  with  drawings  presenting  the 
male  and  female  figure  in  every  variety  of  repose  and  action,  and 
showing  in  each  where  the  line  of  gravity  would  fall.  For  the 
sculptor  the  study  of  balance  in  living  forms,  both  animal  and  human, 
must  be  a  constant  employ. 

Sect.  6.  Perspective  as  Affected  by  Distance  and  Angular  Eleva- 
tion IN  Works  of  Sculpture. 

The  laws  of  proportion  and  symmetry  are  to  rule  the  artist  in 
executing  a  statue  or  other  work  of  sculpture  when  it  is  to  be  viewed 
on  a  level  with  the  eye  and  near  at  hand.  When,  however,  that 
work  is  to  be  seen  above  the  level  of  the  eye,  at  an  angle  oblique  to 
the  line  of  vision,  its  proportions  will  be  modified  in  the  perspective. 
In  drawing,  the  artist  sees  the  object  in  the  aspect  it  actually  presents 
in  the  distance,  or  at  an  angle  to  the  line  of  vision ;  and  he  simply 
copies  the  appearance  directly  presented  to  his  eye.  The  sculptor 
has  to  conceive  beforehand  the  efiect  which  distance  and  elevation 
will  produce;  and  keeping  this  before  his  mind  as  he  works,  he  has 
to  form  an  image,  which,  while  he  is  near  and  moulding  it  into  form 
looks  distorted,  but  which  when  elevated  to  its  place  will  present  a 
perfect  outline  and  just  proportions. 

The  sculptor  learns  that  there  are  two  aspects  of  perspective  which 
he  is  to  regard;  the  dimness  of  outline  produced  by  distance,  and 
the  shortening  of  dimensions  from  elevation  or  oblique  vision.  The 
great  sculptors  of  Greece  seem  to  have  been  masters  of  the  scientific 
principles  which  lie  at  the  foundation  of  the  law  of  perspective;  and 
from  these  principles  they  arrived  at  the  converse  of  the  law  and 
attained  the  power  of  imagining  how  this  distortion  of  the  perfect 


EX AGOE RATION   OF   FEATURES   IN   PERSPECfTIVE.  283 

figure  produced  by  the  laws  of  perspective  could  be  counteracted,  so 
that  a  distorted  figure  should  be  resolved  into  a  perfect  one. 

It  is  a  principle  of  our  nature,  arrived  at  by  experience,  that  the 
slight  exaggerations  of  the  fictitious  lead  us  most  fully  to  the  truth. 
Thus  the  high  wrought  pictures  of  the  heroic  age  of  Greece  given  us 
by  Homer  present  the  real  characteristics  of  the  men  of  that  day 
more  perfectly  than  the  tamer  statements  of  Xenophon,  or  even  than 
the  graphic  sketches  of  Thucydides ;  English  History  is  more  truly 
opened  to  us  by  the  fictions  of  Scott  than  by  the  annals  of  Hume ; 
and  Dickens'  slightly  exaggerated  pictures  of  cockney  life  in  London 
give  a  clearer  and  truer  idea  of  the  reality  than  if  we  were  accus- 
tomed to  pass  the  very  men  he  describes,  and  to  view  them  as  ordi- 
nary men  met  in  society.  So  in  portrait  painting  the  artist  must 
over-draw  a  little  the  marked  features  of  his  subject  in  order  that 
friends  may  be  assured  that  it  is  an  admirable  likeness.  The  law  of 
our  nature  demanding  this  exaggeration  of  what  is  to  be  marked  as 
characteristic  probably  springs  from  the  fact  that  ordinarily  we  do 
not  concentrate  our  minds  sufficiently  to  observe  the  minute  details 
in  any  object  or  scene;  and  it  is  only  the  salient  points  that  strike 
us  and  really  give  us  vivid  impressions.  Hence  when  the  poet  or 
prose  writer  of  fiction  gives  us  these  marked  characteristics  alone, 
combining  in  a  single  graphic  picture  facts  as  to  a  man  that  spread 
over  a  lifetime,  or  features  of  a  people  developed  in  an  age,  they 
strike  us  more  in  their  combined  force  than  they  could  even  were  we 
living  for  years  with  the  men  described,  and  dwelling  in  the  very 
land  and  age  depicted.  The  history  of  a  man  or  age  cannot  be  so 
comprehended  as  to  be  written,  till  all  the  points  have  come  out;  for 
then  only  do  the  chief  and  marked  features  loom  up  and  stand  dis- 
tinct in  the  distance,  like  the  prominent  features  in  the  landscape  of 
a  country  passed  over,  while  all  the  intermediate  and  less  character- 
istic points  are  lost  in  dimness.  So  too  even  an  intimate  friend  is 
characterized  in  our  mind  by  some  marked  feature  of  mind  or  of 
person;  and  when  that  characteristic  feature  is  brought  out  alone, 
we  recognize  its  truth  the  more  from  its  being  singly  presented. 

It  is  related  of  Phidias  that  the  Athenians  desired  both  him  and 
his  pupil  Alcamenes,  more  admired  than  his  master  by  many  of  the 
people  for  the  extreme  grace  and  polish  of  his  workmanship,  to  pre- 
pare a  statue  of  Minerva  of  colossal  dimensions,  and  for  an  elevated 
pedestal.  When  completed,  that  of  Alcamenes  seemed  perfect  in 
proportion  and  finish ;  while  that  of  Phidias  appeared  to  distort  the 
principal  features,  and  to  make  the  whole  countenance  rude  and 


284  ART   CRITICISM. 

even  hideous.  But  the  master  had  studied  the  science  of  his  art ; 
and  when  the  two  statues  were  elevated  to  their  pedestals  the  grand  and 
impressive  beauty  of  the  work  of  Phidias  stood  out,  and  every  feature 
was  softened  into  grace;  while  the  polish  of  Alcamenes  was  lost  in 
dimness,  and  no  feature  indicating  life  or  beauty  could  be  traced. 
To  this  same  general  principle  is  probably  to  be  referred  the  remark 
of  Pliny  as  to  Lycippus,  the  eminent  sculptor  of  the  days  of  Alex- 
ander the  Great;  "He  added  much  to  statuary  by  making  the  heads 
smaller  and  the  bodies  more  graceful  and  less  bloated ;  through  which 
the  height  of  statues  seemed  greater."  In  many  of  the  colossal 
statues  made  for  elevated  positions  in  later  times  this  idea  has  been 
lost  sight  of;  of  which  fact  even  such  works  as  the  columns  of  Paris, 
London  and  Baltimore,  on  which  the  colossal  Napoleon,  duke  of 
York  and  Washington  stand,  give  an  intimation. 

In  correcting  the  impression  made  by  foreshortening,  the  sculptor 
has  a  yet  more  difficult  task.  The  law  of  perspective  is  that  we  judge 
of  dimensions  by  the  angle  of  vision  which  objects  fill ;  while  at  the 
same  time  we  correct  the  impression  thus  made  almost  entirely  in 
real  objects  of  known  dimensions,  and  also  partially  correct  it  in 
images  or  pictures  of  the  same  objects,  whose  dimensions  the  artist 
may  vary.  Thus  if  we  look  upon  the  form  of  a  friend  at  the  summit 
of  an  elevation  his  height  fills  no  larger  an  angle  of  vision  than 
would  a  much  shorter  man  seem  on  a  level  with  the  eye.  We  cor- 
rect, however,  almost  entirely  this  impression;  though  we  can  hardly 
make  the  correction,  when,  looking  from  a  tall  spire  immediately 
down  on  the  heads  of  passing  men,  they  seem  like  turtles,  without 
stature,  thrusting  out  their  limbs  from  beneath  their  backs.  This 
correction  instinctively  made  in  the  perspective  proportions  of  living 
persons  is  not  so  readily  made  in  the  statue.  Yet  to  a  considerable 
extent  it  is  made  even  in  statues ;  and  that  artist  would  greatly  err 
who  should  suppose  that  all  the  difference  of  height  which  the  mathe- 
matical law  indicates  is  to  be  introduced  into  his  work  in  sculpture. 
All  that  is  necessary  for  the  sculptor  is  to  give  that  slight  exaggera- 
tion of  the  height  of  his  figure  which  he  is  obliged  to  give  to  any 
marked  feature  in  a  portrait  or  bust  in  order  to  secure  the  effect. 

As  the  proneness  of  even  a  people  educated  in  art  like  the  Athe- 
nians to  forget  this  law  of  perspective  was  illustrated  in  Phidias' 
statue  of  Minerva,  so  in  the  Athens  of  America  when  the  noble 
bronze  statue  of  New  England's  Magnus  Apollo,  the  immortal 
Webster,  executed  by  one  of  the  most  truly  classic  sculptors  of  the 
age,  was  taken  from  its  case,  and  for  a  time  exposed  without  its 


ANATOMY   AS   STUDIED   BY   ANCIENT   SCULPTORS.  285 

pedestal  on  a  level  with  the  eye,  the  general  Athenian  cry  was  that 
the  stature  was  too  great,  the  form  too  lank,  and  the  features  dis- 
torted ;  and  no  after  impression,  when  the  statue  was  placed  in  posi- 
tion, could  do  away  the  powder  of  the  first  impression  in  some  minds. 
The  artist  of  the  bronze  equestrian  statues  in  the  National  Capital 
has  shown  his  tact  in  keeping  his  works  screened  from  the  public  eye 
during  the  process  of  erection ;  and  only  allowing  them  to  be  revealed 
when  in  position  to  be  rightly  viewed. 

Sect.  7.  Anatomy  as  it  relates  to  Action  and  Expression  in 
Sculpture. 

The  study  of  proportion  leads  to  a  general  estimate,  from  the  out- 
side appearance,  of  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  several  parts  of  the 
human  figure.  Anatomy,  as  the  name  implies,  is  the  cutting  up 
and  dissecting  of  the  human  frame,  that  each  joint  with  its  knops 
and  sockets,  and  each  muscle  with  its  attachments  and  the  taper  of 
its  bulge  may  be  separately  considered.  The  study  of  Anatomy  by 
the  sculptor  leads  him  to  scrutinize  with  care  the  contractions  and 
swellings  of  the  muscles,  and  the  pressing  out  of  the  bone  joints  when 
men  are  putting  forth  their  strength  in  action ;  and  also  to  scan  the 
minuter  workings  of  the  muscles  of  the  face,  which  give  to  the  coun- 
tenance its  varied  expression. 

The  Egyptians,  as  we  shall  see,  utterly  ignored  the  expression  of 
muscular  action  in  their  statues;  a  religious  superstition  compelling 
the  physician  and  the  artist  to  abstain  from  anatomical  dissections 
of  the  human  frame.  The  Greeks,  on  the  other  hand,  made  great 
attainments  in  the  practical  knowledge  of  anatomy;  accomplishing 
this,  however,  more  by  observation  of  the  living,  than  by  dissection 
of  the  deceased  subject.  For  this  purpose  their  artists  employed 
living  models;  whose  nude  forms  thrown  into  every  variety  of  pos- 
ture, and  subjected  to  every  kind  of  muscular  tension,  were  made  to 
serve  as  copies  from  which  to  model. 

To  what  an  extent  this  study  was  carried  by  the  ancient  Greeks 
before  the  days  of  Phidias,  the  following  incident  in  the  Memoirs  of 
Socrates,  given  by  Xenophon,^  is  an  instance:  "  To  Cleiton,  the  statu- 
ary, once  entering  his  studio  and  reasoning  with  him,  he  said :  '  That 
you,  Cleiton,  make  different  forms,  racers,  wrestlers,  boxers,  and 
experts  in  all  kinds  of  gymnastics,  I  see  and  understand ;  but  if  you 
wished  to  bring  out  the  soul  of  men  through  the  form,  so  that  it 
should  appear  a  living  thing,  how  would  you  work  this  into  a  statue?' 

'  See  Xenophon's  Memorabilia,  Lib.  III.  Chap.  10,  Sect.  6-8. 


286  ART   CRITICISM. 

Wlien  Cleiton  looking  away,  was  slow  in  replying,  he  said:  ^ Would 
you  not,  now,  make  your  work  a  copy  from  the  aspects  of  living 
men  ?'  *  Certainly  so,'  he  said.  *  Then  by  copying  under  their  forms 
the  parts  drawn  down  and  drawn  up,  those  contracted  and  those 
expanded,  those  strained  and  those  loosened,  would  you  not  make 
them  appear  more  like  to  the  true,  and  thus  more  natural?'  'With- 
out doubt,'  said  he.  'Well,  then,  to  imitate  the  emotions  of  those 
doing  any  particular  thing,  does  it  not  give  pleasure  to  the  be- 
holders?' 'Evidently  so,'  said  he.  'Moreover,  also,'  he  added,  'must 
not  one  copy  the  threatening  eyes  of  those  fighting,  and  must  not 
the  beaming  countenance  of  those  having  conquered  be  imitated?' 
'Unquestionably  so,'  said  he.  'Then,'  said  Socrates,  'it  is  necessary 
to  represent  in  the  form  the  workings  of  the  soul.' " 

At  a  later  period,  when  in  the  days  of  Roman  supremacy  the  dis- 
section and  even  the  burning  to  ashes  of  dead  bodies  was  approved 
as  religious,  Galen  wrote  at  length  on  anatomy ;  minutely  describing 
not  only  the  bones  and  muscles  of  the  outward  frame,  but  the  inter- 
nal organs,  blood-vessels,  and  nerves.  In  his  extensive  work  he 
avows  that  his  purpose  in  his  treatise  was  to  promote  "the  arts,"^  as 
well  as  to  make  it  subsidiary  to  the  profession  of  the  physician ;  and 
he  also  announced  his  purpose  to  write  a  treatise  on  anatomy  espe- 
cially for  artists. 

The  ideas  of  anatomical  expression  entertained  by  the  ancients 
are  laboriously  collated  by  Dalloway,  and  are  commented  upon  with 
great  learning  by  Winckelmann.  The  parts  which  show  beauty  in 
design  are  the  head,  hands,  and  feet.  In  the  head,  the  chief  beauty 
is  in  the  profile;  particularly  the  line  of  the  forehead  and  nose. 
When  this  is  a  straight  line,  it  indicates  majesty  in  man  and  loveli- 
ness in  woman.  The  ancient  Grecian  artists  differed  from  moderns 
in  deeming  a  low  forehead  indicative  of  intelligence  and  beauty. 
Their  axiom  as  to  this  was  founded  on  the  supposed  perfection  of  the 
tripartite  division  of  the  head,  and  of  the  whole  form.  In  this  mea- 
surement the  nose  was  one  third,  and  the  forehead  another;  and  in 
order  to  make  the  forehead  conform  to  this  measurement,  a  fillet  or 
band,  about  the  roots  of  the  hair  on  the  forehead  was  worn  by  Gre- 
cian maidens,  to  raise  or  bring  down  the  hair  to  the  proportion  of 
beauty.  This  idea  of  the  beauty  of  a  "low  forehead"  is  alluded  to 
by  Horace^  in  his  description  of  Lycoris. 


*  Galeni  et  Hippocratis  Opera  Anatomica,  Lib.  II.  Sect.  1. 
»  Odes,  Lib.  I.  carm.  33. 


287 

The  eye  was  another  feature  studied  by  the  Greeks  for  its  expres- 
sion. In  colossal  statues  it  was  deep  set  and  darkly  shaded  by  the 
brow  in  order  the  better  to  be  seen  from  afar.  In  Jupiter,  Apollo, 
and  Juno,  the  eyelids  are  arched  high  in  the  centre,  indicative 
of  the  boldness  instinctively  assumed  by  superiority  in  position;  in 
Minerva,  they  droop  more,  indicative  of  modesty;  while  in  Venus 
the  lower  lid  is  raised,  giving  that  languishing  expression  captivating 
to  lovers.  In  the  old  masters  the  pupil  was  never  marked ;  for  this 
is  an  indication  of  color  rather  than  of  form,  and  belonged,  they 
judged,  only  to  painting.  Winckelmann  has  remarked  that  the  eye 
of  Venus,  flattened  above  as  if  turned  upward,  adds  a  fascinating 
roll  to  its  appearance.  Pindar^  remarks  the  beauty  of  the  thin  arch 
of  the  eyebrow  as  depicted  in  Grecian  statues;  seen  in  the  Niobe, 
and  now  having  its  living  representative  in  the  women  of  the  Greek 
Isles,  particularly  of  Scio.  Another  peculiarity  of  the  Greeks  was 
that  they  regarded  it  a  beauty  when  the  hair  of  the  two  brows  met, 
forming  a  single  arch;  to  which  Theocritus  alludes  in  his  Idylls.^ 
The  Turks  also  now  regard  it  a  rare  beauty  in  their  women.  The 
Romans  on  the  other  hand  regarded  it  a  blemish ;  and  when  it  was 
natural,  as  in  Augustus  Caesar,  the  Roman  sculptor  removed  it  as  a 
blemish ;  as  is  seen  in  the  busts  of  Augustus. 

The  hair  was  a  portion  of  the  head  which  the  Greek  sculptor 
specially  studied  and  wrought  with  care.  Eercules  was  represented 
with  short  thick  hair  coming  down  low  on  his  forehead;  and  even 
Jupiter  has  a  low  forehead.  In  woman  the  hair  was  wrought  into 
curled  tresses,  or  deep  wavy  lines  giving  shade  and  softness ;  while 
no  single  statue  of  a  Greek  female  having  straight  hair  is  found. 
Generally,  the  fillet  held  the  side  curls  so  that  they  formed  an  arch 
on  the  brow ;  the  Ionic  column  in  architecture  copying  this  feature. 
Behind,  the  tresses  were  gathered  and  tied  in  a  double  knot  in  that 
admirable  simplicity,  celebrated  by  the  Latin  poets  Ovid^  and 
Horace;  as  in  this  verse 

"  Crinis  erat  simplex,  nodum  collectus  in  unum." 

It  is  worthy  of  note  that  the  Greek  female  head  is  in  this  respect 
a  perfect  model  for  all  time.  In  this  the  distinction  between  nature, 
and  custom  or  fashion,  is  strikingly  seen.  A  flaunting  head-dress  on 
an  Indian  squaw,  Georgian  houri,  Italian  danseuse,  or  a  French, 


'  Pindar  Nemea,  viii.  8.  **  Theocritus  Idyll,  viii.  72. 

«  Ovid's  Metaph.,  Lib.  VIII.,  v.  320.  Hor.  Od.  11.  xix.  19,  III.  xiv.  22. 


288  AET   CRITICISM. 

English  or  American  coquette,  or  belle,  may  be  striking  for  its 
novelty ;  and  with  thoughtless  usage  of  language,  common  parlance 
may  style  it  beautiful.  But  Art  impresses  us  with  principles  which 
we  fail  to  remark  in  Nature;  for  while  the  flaunting  head-dresses 
sometimes  paraded  in  old  English  portraits  are  supremely  ridiculous 
as  soon  as  "the  fashion"  changes,  the  simple  hair-tie  of  the  Greek 
female  will  always  be  beautiful. 

There  is  discussion  in  modern  times  whether  an  unshaven  beard  is 
a  natural  appendage  to  the  face  of  man,  and  therefore  a  beauty;  or, 
an  encumbrance  to  the  vocal  organs,  and  especially  an  annoying 
toll-exactor  upon  whatever  would  gain  entrance  or  exit  at  the  two 
door-ways  before  which  it  stands  guard,  and  thus  a  sworn  foe  to 
cleanliness ;  an  excrescence  which  the  refinement  of  a  higher  civili- 
zation will  always  remove  when  favored  with  the  requisite  conve- 
niences. History  seems  to  attest  that  neglect  to  shave  the  beard  has 
prevailed  only  among  rude  tribes  and  classes  of  men  as  soldiers  and 
sailors  destitute  of  the  means  of  removing  it.  The  Egyptians,  the 
most  cultured  of  ancient  nations,  were  a  close  shaven  people ;  as  the 
countless  bas-reliefs  and  statues  of  this  land,  exuberant  in  examples, 
without  exception  show;  a  custom  of  Egyptian  etiquette  to  which  as 
Moses  mentions,  Joseph,  when  called  to  stand  before  Pharaoh,  though 
a  Hebrew,  conformed.^  Herodotus^  notes  that  even  the  priests  of 
Egypt  were  close  shaven ;  perhaps  another  indication  that  they  were 
of  Japhetic,  not  Shemitic  origin.  Grecian  and  Roman,  as  well  as 
Egyptian  statues,  almost  universally  discard  the  beard.  Homer,^ 
indeed,  pictures  Jupiter  as  bearded;  but  Virgil  makes  no  mention 
of  this  feature.  The  sculpture  of  Phidias,  who  followed  Homer,  gave 
Jupiter  a  beard;  both  in  the  majestic  colossal  statue  he  made  for 
the  temple  of  Olympia,  and  in  the  central  figure  of  the  group 
standing  in  the  tympanum  of  the  Parthenon :  but  in  all  the  finer 
and  later  works,  especially  in  the  head  of  Apollo  and  of  intellectual 
men,  the  beard  is  omitted.  That  it  was  the  general  impression  of 
their  age  which  controlled  the  Grecian  sculptor  in  this  is  evident 
from  the  allusions  of  Ovid,  Horace  and  Juvenal'^  to  the  beard  as  a 
rude  and  unbecoming  relic  of  their  uncultured  ancestral  age,  worn 
among  cultivated  nations  only  by  weak  and  pedantic  men  who  had  no 


'  Gen.  xli.  14.  "  Herod.  II.  36.  ^  Homer,  Iliad,  I.  528. 

-•Ovid  Fast.  II.  v.  28;  Horat.  L.  II.,  Sat.  3,  v.  35;  Juven.  Sat.  16,  v.  32. 
See  also  Ovid  Art.  Am.  I.  v.  108,  and  Juven.  Sat.  4,  v.  103. 


FEATURES  OF  MAN  AND  ANIMALS  HAVING  EXPRESSION.    289 

Other  attribute  than  the  beard  to  mark  them  out  as  belonging  to  the 
class  of  the  reflective  and  philosophic. 

Among  minor  anatomical  features  studied  by  the  Greeks  these  are 
worthy  to  be  noticed.  The  swelling  of  the  nostrils  indicated  simple 
energy,  not  necessarily  a  ruffled  temper;  the  Apollo  Belvidere  show- 
ing this  grace,  while  the  brow  is  calm  and  dignified.  The  beauty  of 
the  chin  is  in  general  indicated  by  simple  roundness  of  form ;  yet 
the  chin  of  the  Venus-  de  Medici  is  slightly  depressed.  A  dimple 
either  in  the  cheek  or  chin  is  not  a  beauty  in  a  statue.  The  mouth 
is  a  centre  of  grace  or  deformity ;  the  small  exquisitely  curved  lips 
of  the  Venus  de  Medici  being  one  of  its  chief  charms.  The  ear  is 
another  mark  of  the  exquisite  taste  and  finished  workmanship  of  the 
Greek  sculptor.  Indeed  Winckelmann  has  hazarded  the  adoption  of 
this  rule  for  judging  of  the  genuine  antique;  that  an  ancient  frag- 
ment can  always  be  known  if  it  has  "an  ear  upon  it.  Even  the 
breast,  knees,  and  other  subordinate  parts  of  the  body  are  discussed 
by  art  critics.  The  foot  however,  and  the  hand,  next  to  the  head, 
are  features  that  show  the  master  in  sculpture. 

In  the  revival  of  art  after  the  Middle  Ages,  Lionardo  da  Vinci 
wrote  largely  on  the  subject  of  Anatomy  as  it  relates  to  action  and 
expression ;  and  in  his  work  the  completest  collection  of  studies  in  atti- 
tude and  expression  is  to  be  found.  In  quite  modern  times  Bell  has 
ably  treated  of  expression  as  taught  by  the  study  of  Anatomy.  In 
this  discussion  he  has  done  for  art  something  of  what  Cuvier  did  for 
science;  having  laid  the  foundation  of  a  system  of  Comparative 
Anatomy  for  artists,  especially  as  it  relates  to  muscular  contractions 
of  the  visage  as  expressive  of  emotion.  He  thinks  that  no  emotion 
but  that  of  rage  is  fully  expressed  by  the  features  of  animals ;  and 
this  is  expressed,  chiefly  among  carnivorous  quadrupeds,  by  the  cor- 
rugations of  the  lips  and  muscles  around  the  mouth.  The  horse 
expresses  the  same  with  his  ears ;  which  in  rage  are  turned  back 
because  his  defence  is  in  his  hind  feet.  The  horse  also  expresses 
courage  to  a  certain  extent  with  his  eye  and  nostrils,  as  well  as  by 
his  ears  pricked  forward.  The  attitudes  of  animals  are  far  more 
expressive  than  their  features. 

Sect.  8.  ^Esthetic  Proportion;  or  the  Law  of  Analogous  Proportions 
IN  Pleasing  Tones  and  Lines,  as  Illustrated  in  Sculpture. 

In  treating  of  impressions  made  upon  the  ear  and  eye,  we  have 
considered  the  analogy  existing  between  the  length  of  vibrating  cords 
whose  tones  striking  on  the  ear  together  are  in  accord,  and  of  the 

25  2  M 


290 


ART  CRITICISM. 


proportionate  lengths  of  lines  in  architectural  forms  which  are  agree- 
able to  the  eye.^  After  a  notice  of  the  ancient  and  modern  authority 
on  which  this  theory  rests,  allusion  was  made  to  the  applications 
of  its  principles  suggested  by  Hay  in  forms,  and  by  linger  in  color. 
The  elaborate  work  of  Hay  has  a  practical  value  in  the  study  of  the 
art  of  sculpture. 

In  Grecian  architecture,  Hay  finds  that  the  three  leading  angles 
of  harmony  employed  are  the  tonic,  dominant  and  mediant.  In 
their  sculptures  of  the  human  figure  however  he  discovers  two  other 
principles  introduced ;  while  the  number  of  angles  employed  is  eleven 
in  all.  The  size  of  the  angles  he  first  assumes,  as  theoretically  those 
the  length  of  whose  sines,  or  tangents,  are  harmonious  or  pleasing 
when  associated.  Then,  with  most  elaborate  care,  he  proceeds  to  the 
actual  measurement  of  every  portion  of  the  male  and  female  figures, 
calculating  the  angles  of  which  these  lengths  are  the  sines.  The 
female  figure  as  the  most  perfect  work  of  the  Creator  in  its  symmetry 
and  beauty  he  imagined  to  have  its  angular  proportions  founded 
upon  the  right  angle;  which,  as  Pythagoras  and  Plato  argued,  is  the 
perfect  angle.  The  angles  then  which  on  this  supposition  he  finds 
entering  its  composition  are  the  following. 

Scale  of  Angular  Proportions  giving  Beauty  to  the  Female  Form. 


flhar.  of  Angle. 

Tonics. 

Dominants. 

Mediants. 

Angles  of  7th  Deg. 

Angle  of  2d  Deg. 

No.  of  Angle 

Size  of  Angle 

8th 
14  or  45° 

12th 
y^  or  30° 

17th 
}  or  18° 

Bet.  20th  and  2l8t 
J  or  12°  51' 26" 

23d 
I  or  10° 

No.  of  Angle 

Size  of  Angle 

15th 

14  or  22°  Sy 

19th 
%  or  15° 

24th 
i^or9° 

Bet.  27th  and  28th 
1I4  or  6°  25'  43" 

No.  of  Angle 

Size  of  Angle 

22d 
%  or  11°  15' 

26  th 
^  or  7°  30' 

It  will  be  observed  that  these  eleven  angles  are  successive  divisions 
of  1  by  2,  3,  4,  5,  6,  7,  8,  9,  10,  12,  and  14;  that  they  are  all  har- 
monics; that  all  follow  each  other  in  progressive  order  except  the: 
last  two;  and  that  two  of  these,  the  one-seventh  and  its  multiple  the 
one-fourteenth,  belong  to  the  discordant  numbers,  which,  however,  in 


'  B.  I.,  ch.  iv.  sect.  5. 


SCALE   OF   FEMALE   AND   MALE   BEAUTY   IN   FORM.       291 


composition,  or  combination  with  the  harmonics,  give  grandeur  and 
inspire  admiration. 

The  study  of  the  proportion  of  the  male  figure  leads  to  a  new 
order  of  angles ;  obtained  by  a  chromatic  transposition  of  the  scale 
of  angular  proportions  corresponding  to  the  chromatic  transposition 
of  the  musical  scale.  Between  each  two  successive  angles,  as  num- 
bered in  the  scale  before  given,  two  intermediate  divisions  are  intro- 
duced. Thus  between  90°  or  1,  and  80°  or  f,  there  intervene  84° 
22'  30"  or  ff,  and  81°  or  ^.  This  chromatic  division  is  extended  to 
the  obtuse  angles  as  well  as  the  acute,  found  to  be  the  multiples  of 
each  other  in  the  measurement;  the  same  division  being  made  of 
angles  from  180°  to  90°,  as  is  made  of  angles  from  90°  to  0. 

The  "  First  Scale,"  or  scale  of  obtuse  angles,  commences  with  (^) 
or  168°  45',  and  ends  with  the  right  angle  or  90°.  The  last  seven 
of  this  series  of  obtuse  angles  are  f  or  108°;  -^  or  105°;  -f-  or  102° 
51'  28";  ^  or  101°  15';  |  or  100°;  ^  or  96°;  J  or  90°.  As  the 
author  had  taken  the  last  of  this  series,  or  90°  as  the  angle  of  per- 
fect or  female  beauty,  he  determined  to  take  the  first  of  this  series, 
namely,  the  angle  of  f  or  108°  for  man's  proportions.  The  eleven 
angles  of  man's  proportions  are  then  the  following:  as  established 
by  direct  measurement  in  confirmation  of  his  theory. 

Scale  of  Angular  Proportions  giving  Majesty  to  the  Male  Form. 


Char,  of  Angle. 

Tonics. 

Dominants. 

Mediants. 

Angle  of  7th  Dog. 

Angle  of  2d  Deg. 

No.  of  Angle 

Size  of  Angle 

8th 
K  or  54" 

12th 
Ys  or  36° 

17th 
I  or  21°  36' 

Bet.  20th  and  2l8t 
}  or  15°  25'  43" 

23d 
J  or  12° 

No.  of  Angle 

Size  of  Angle 

15th 
}4  or  27« 

19th 
%  or  18° 

24th 
^  or  10°  48' 

Bet.  27th  and  28th 
^4  or  7°  42'  51^" 

No.  of  Angle 

Size  of  Angle 

22d 
]4  or  13°  30' 

26th 
1^2  or  9° 

As  remarked  at  the  conclusion  of  our  general  consideration  of  the 
theory  of  ancient  philosophers  that  there  is  a  correspondent  law  of 
harmony  in  tones  pleasing  to  the  ear  and  of  lines  grateful  to  the 
eye,  and  that  ancient  sculptors  were  governed  by  it,  the  conviction 
of  such  men  as  Newton,  in  science,  and  of  Winckelmann,  in  anti- 
quarian research,  is  worthy  of  consideration.  To  obtain  a  full 
understanding  of  its  application,  the  detail  of  a  special  volume  is 


292 


ART   CRITICISM. 


necessary;  that  of  tlay  being  a  master  work.  For  the  ordinary 
student  it  is  enough,  in  Art  as  in  Science,  to  have  learned  the  prin- 
ciples which  guide  men  of  genius  in  their  elaborate  works. 

Sect.  9.  Practical  methods  of  executing  Sculpture. 

The  sculptor's  first  work  is  the  study  of  his  design,  with  the  aid 
of  drawings  taken  for  different  views.  The  exact  scale  of  projection 
in  front  and  laterally  is  thus  fixed  in  the  pencil  drawings.  The 
study  of  the  design,  and  the  working  up  of  the  details  of  the  varied 
drawings  required,  is  a  large  share  of  the  positive  labor  of  the  sculp- 
tor ;  while  the  exertion  of  the  higher  power  of  genius  in  the  artist  is 
chiefly  brought  out  in  the  preliminary  drawings  required.  To  attain 
successful  execution  in  this  and  the  succeeding  portion  of  his  work, 
the  power  of  a  naturally  gifted  eye  and  hand  may  be  adequate ;  but 
the  artist  of  scientific  education  calls  into  requisition  the  highest 
principles  of  Mathematical  Science,  and  the  most  difiicult  applica- 
tions of  Descriptive  Geometry.  Every  portion  of  the  rounded  form, 
head,  body,  arms,  hands,  legs,  and  feet,  is  conceived  as  bounded  by, 
and  included  within  tangent  planes ;  whose  horizontal  and  vertical 
slopes  are  carefully  observed  and  the  angles  of  their  interfacial 
junctions  noted. 

The  second  work  is  the  moulding  into  form  in  a  clay  model  of  the 
image  pictured  by  the  drawing.  For  this  purpose  a  frame-work  of 
wood  and  iron,  with  arms  reaching  in  the  direction  and  to  the  extent 
of  the  projecting  parts  of  the  designed  form,  is  erected  on  a  wooden 
stand.  This  frame-work  is  then  covered  with  a  dark  clay  of 
easy-moulding  properties,  which  is  kneaded  with  the  hand  into  the 
general  outline;  when  with  a  small  scraper  of  wood,  and  another  of 
ivory  for  nicer  portions,  the  form  is  completely  rounded  by  days  and 
even  months  of  labor.  When  finished  and  thoroughly  hardened  by 
drying,  this  clay  model  is  used  as  a  pattern  from  w^hich  a  mould  is 
made  for  the  casting  of  working  models  in  plaster. 

The  block  of  marble  is  now  to  be  cut  down  to  the  exact  propor- 
tions of  the  plaster  niodel.  For  this  purpose  an  upright  post  of 
wood  is  fastened  upon  a  wooden  stand,  the  upright  rising  somewhat 
above  the  height  of  the  model ;  sliding  arms  are  inserted  into  this 
post  at  distances  of  one,  two,  or  three  inches  from  each  other.  These 
arms  are  graduated  into  inches  and  minute  divisions  of  an  inch.  A 
square  may  be  marked  on  the  floor  of  the  studio  sufficiently  large  to 
allow  perpendiculars  touching  the  extremities  of  the  figure  in  plaster 
to  fall  within  its  limit*;  and  another  of  the  same  dimensions  may  be 


MECHANICAL   AIDS   IN  CUTTING   STATUES.  293 

traced  in  which  the  marble  block  is  placed.  If  now  the  gauge  be 
placed  on  the  line  of  the  square  in  which  the  model  stands,  and  the 
sliding  arms  be  pushed  towards  the  model  till  they  touch  its  extreme 
points,  and  then  the  arms  be  clamped  so  as  to  be  stationary,  the 
gauge  may  be  next  placed  before  the  block  of  marble  and  the  stone 
where  the  arms  touch  be  cut  away  until  the  gauge  can  be  brought 
up  to  the  line  of  the  square  within  which  the  marble  block  stands. 
By  repeating  the  process,  upon  one  side  and  anotlier,  first  the  extreme 
points  as  the  tips  of  fingers,  the  nose,  etc.,  then  the  more  receding 
as  the  knees,  the  lips,  etc.,  may  be  marked  on  the  chipped  block  ; 
and  thus  in  succession  every  point  of  the  entire  figure,  as  the  stone 
is  cut  down,  may  be  brought  out  to  its  required  proportions. 

Lionardo  da  Vinci  gives  the  following  statement  of  the  simpler 
method  used  by  himself  and  by  sculptors  in  his  time.  "To  execute 
a  figure  in  marble,  you  must  first  make  a  model  of  it  in  clay,  or 
plaster,  and  when  it  is  finished,  place  it  in  a  square  case,  equally 
capable  of  receiving  the  block  of  marble  intended  to  be  shaped  like 
it.  Have  some  peg-like  sticks  to  pass  through  holes  made  in  the 
sides,  and  all  round  the  case;  push  them  in  till  every  one  touches 
the  model,  marking  what  remains  of  the  sticks  outwards  with  ink, 
and  making  a  countermark  to  every  stick  and  its  hole,  so  that  you 
may  at  pleasure  replace  them  again.  Then  having  taken  out  the 
model,  and  placed  the  block  of  marble  in  its  stead,  take  so  much 
out  of  it,  till  all  the  pegs  go  in  at  the  same  holes  to  the  marks  you 
had  made." 

We  have  already  noticed  how  the  Egyptian  artists  employed  the 
lines  of  the  staging  built  up  around  the  lofty  granite  block  as  the 
fixed  standard  from  which  to  lay  off  the  distances  of  the  several 
parts  of  their  work  for  the  common  workmen,  who  with  the  chisel 
cut  the  stone.  "We  have  observed  with  more  particularity  how  the 
Greek  artist  conceived  the  position,  balance  and  varied  proportions 
of  the  work  he  had  designed  to  sculpture  as  lying  in  the  cubical  or 
spherical  block  from  which  the  statue  was  to  be  cut ;  so  that  the 
workman  who  used  the  chisel  was  guided  like  any  other  mechanic 
by  fixed  lines  and  points  marked  out  for  him  to  follow.  We  see  the 
same  mechanical  contrivances  now  used  in  the  studio  of  the  great 
sculptor  as  he  directs  the  numerous  workmen  chipping  at  his  marble. 
This  important  principle  now  is  to  be  observed  in  the  practical  work 
of  the  sculptor.  The  genius  of  the  artist  is  to  be  at  first,  indeed, 
exercised  upon  the  preliminary  study  of  the  ideal  he  has  conceived, 
in  the  giving  of  form  to  this  ideal,  in  the  drawings  made  with  his 

25  * 


294  ART   CRITICISM. 

pencil,  and  in  the  moulding  of  the  clay  into  the  rounded  model. 
The  mere  mechanical  labor  of  cutting  down  the  rough  stone  may  be 
performed  by  the  common  workman;  since  it  is  purely  hand-work, 
or  manual  labor.  Yet,  as  is  seen  in  the  studio  of  a  great  artist,  this 
work  of  the  mere  mechanic  must  be  daily  and  hourly  presided  over 
by  the  genius  that  conceived  the  ideal ;  for  nothing  but  the  science 
that  in  conception  wrought  the  image  first  without  the  stone,  can 
make  that  form  conie  out  of  the  shapeless  block.  No  man  can  be  a 
great  artist  who  is  not  a  man  of  practical  science.  The  common 
workmen  of  the  sculptor,  though  he  have  scores  of  them  in  his 
employ,  are  literally  his  "hands"  guided  by  his  one  mind;  and  the 
finished  work,  therefore,  is  as  truly  his,  as  is  that  of  the  painter,  who 
must  do  all  his  work  alone,  putting  on  every  single  touch  of  the 
brush  with  his  own  hand. 


CHAPTER    II. 

PRIMITIVE  sculpture;   illustrated   in   the   EGYPTIAN. 

The  history  of  sculpture  dates  back  to  the  earliest  records  of  the 
human  race.  Tubalcain  the  seventh  in  descent  from  Adam  is  not 
only  an  artist,  but  even  sets  up  a  school  for  sculpture ;  for  we  are 
told  that  he  was  "an  instructor  of  every  artificer  in  brass  and  iron."^ 
In  the  earliest  ages  of  Egypt  every  form  of  sculpture  was  known  and 
executed;  as  is  witnessed  by  the  hieroglyphics  in  intaglio,  by  the 
coins  and  the  sculptured  walls  in  basso  relievo,  by  the  rock-hewn 
temple-fronts  presenting  forms  in  complete  relief,  and  by  the  gigantic 
complete  statues  still  seen  in  that  land.  The  books  of  Moses  are  full 
of  allusions  to  the  various  departments  of  this  art,  moulding  in  clay, 
carving  on  wood,  graving  on  stone,  casting  in  metal,  and  sculpturing 
images  of  men  and  of  animals;  and  they  describe  the  connected  pro- 
cesses of  the  art  as  they  may  now  be  seen  in  the  artists'  studio  and 
laboratory ;  first  the  conceiving  and  executing  of  the  model  in  clay ; 
second  the  forming  of  the  mould  from  the  model ;  third  the  casting 
of  the  rough  image  of  molten  metal ;  and  fourth  the  fashioning  and 
polishing  of  the  unshapen  casting  with  the  graver's  tool.^     The  pro- 


Gen,  iv.  22.  "  Exod.  xxxii.  4,  24. 


VARIED   FORMS   OF   EGYPTIAN  SCULPTURE.  295 

cesses  of  preparing  images  of  gods,  the  more  costly  cast  of  metal  and 
gilded  or  plated  with  gold,  the  cheaper  of  wrought  metal  beaten  out 
by  the  hammer  of  the  smith,  and  the  cheapest,  the  poor  man's 
"stock,"  carved  of  wood,  are  described  by  the  Hebrew  prophet  fami- 
liar with  Assyrian  sculpture  800  years  before  Christ.^ 

Sect.  1.  DirPERENT  Forms  of  Egyptian  Sculpture, 

The  Egyptians  have  left  behind  massive  specimens  of  this  art  in  its 
various  forms.  The  figures  used  as  hieroglyphics  are  cut  into  the 
obelisks  of  granite  in  deep  intaglio.  It  is  interesting  to  observe  that, 
though  these  mere  outline  figures,  thus  depressed  and  without  any 
rounding  or  shading  whatever,  have  in  themselves  no  merit  as  speci- 
mens of  sculpture,  yet  they  are  in  their  main  design  and  real  effect 
highly  artistic.  Being  designed  to  be  seen  at  a  great  distance  and 
from  below  upon  the  face  of  the  lofty  obelisk,  the  figure,  necessarily 
small  from  the  slenderness  of  the  obelisk,  would  be  lost  to  the 
beholder,  however  bold  the  relief,  and  however  full  and  finished  the 
contour,  did  not  the  deep-cut  intaglio,  with  its  sharp  and  clear  side 
lines  make  the  figure  of  the  smallest  size  perfectly  distinct  and  even 
beautiful  in  its  darkness  of  shade. 

The  sculptures  in  low-relief  of  animated  battle-scenes  on  land  and 
water  upon  the  walls  of  temples  are  cut  in  sand-stone,  a  material 
which  allowed  relief;  while  their  position  on  a  level  with  the  eye 
renders  that  relief  artistic.  The  immense  surface  occupied  by  these 
carvings  is  their  great  wonder ;  for,  when  the  entire  walls  of  the  vast 
city  of  "hundred-gated  Thebes"  are  seen  to  be  covered  throughout 
almost  their  whole  extent  with  these  sculptures,  it  makes  the 
proud  patrons  of  art  in  modern  Tuscany  seem  ignoble,  who  treated  as 
a  visionary  the  artist  that  proposed  to  paint  the  entire  circuit  of  the 
walls  of  Florence  in  fresco.  The  sculpture  in  the  tombs  is  upon  a 
hard  stucco  with  which  their  walls  cut  in  the  side  of  the  limestone 
mountain  were  coated  and  polished ;  a  material  mentioned  by  Moses^ 
as  employed  by  himself,  but  whose  composition  has  not  fully  re- 
vealed its  secret  to  modern  analyzers.  This  stucco  or  "plaster" 
allowed  a  relief  proportioned  to  the  ease  with  which  the  material 
was  cut. 

The  Capitols  of  the  columns  in  their  temples  called  Osiride  present 
a  perfect  relief  in  front,  forming  really  half  statues.  This  was  a  spe- 
cially favorite  style  with  the  Egyptians;  of  which  the  temple  of 


'  Isa.xl.  19,  20,  and  xliv.  10—15.  ""  Deut.  xxvii.  2,  4. 


290  ART  CRITICISM. 

Aboo  Simbel  in  Nubia,  above  Syene,  is  a  fine  specimen.  It  was  tins 
style  also  which  was  afterwards  mingled  so  largely  with  the  Grecian 
by  the  Romans;  as  is  seen  in  the  projecting  rock-hewn  fronts  of 
Petra,  and  in  the  monuments  about  Jerusalem.  Their  statues,  made  of 
the  red  granite  called  syenite -and  of  a  grayish  porphyritic  limestone, 
have  a  massiveness  beyond  conception  w^onderful.  The  single  re- 
maining one  at  ancient  Memphis,  sixty  feet  high  in  a  standing  pos- 
ture, now  lies  on  its  face  in  the  sand ;  while  several  similar  statues 
are  yet  standing  at  the  entrances  of  temples  at  Thebes.  The  vaster 
works  are  the  seated  statues ;  of  which  the  vocal  Memnon  and  its 
brother  of  grayish  limestone,  and  a  kindred  statue  of  red  granite  now- 
thrown  down  and  broken,  are  sixty  feet  high  in  a  sitting  posture,  and 
well  proportioned.  The  latter  of  these  colossi  is  calculated  by  Sir 
Gardner  Wilkinson  to  have  weighed  over  eleven  hundred  tons,  and 
to  have  had  in  its  mass  six  times  the  amount  of  material  of  the  obe- 
lisks in  front  of  the  temple  of  Luxor  at  Thebes ;  one  of  which  was 
given  about  A.  D.  1840  to  Louis  Philippe  of  France,  to  be  removed  to 
Paris,  and  which  required  six  months'  time  of  the  ablest  engineers  of 
France  with  all  the  appliances  of  modem  machinery  simply  to  lower 
it  to  the  ground. 

Sect.  2.  The  Processes  of  the  Egyptian  Sculptor. 

The  work  of  executing  the  immense  granite  colossal  statues  found 
at  Thebes  is  illustrated  by  the  sculptures  representing  every  variety 
of  human  employ  covering  the  walls  of  the  tombs.  Those  back  of 
Dayr-en-Nakl,  the  ancient  Antinoe,  give  a  fine  example  of  the  sculp- 
tor's methods.  The  stone,  first  quarried  in  the  granite  ledges  of 
Syene,  was  set  up  on  its  lower  end  already  squared  as  a  base.  Stages 
were  erected  for  the  stone-cutters  about  seven  feet  above  each  other 
quite  to  the  summit  of  the  block.  The  principal  artist  guided  the 
hundreds  of  men  employed  in  cutting  away  the  hard  rock  to  the 
requisite  dimensions.  Rough  hewers,  with  large  picks  and  heavy 
mallets  began  at  the  head  and  worked  downwards,  reducing  the  rock 
to  a  rough  surface  in  the  form  of  the  statue.  Passing  then  to  the 
stage  next  below  to  continue  their  work,  a  second  class  of  workmen 
succeeded  them  on  the  upper  stage,  who  smoothed  the  rough  surface 
with  chisels  instead  of  picks.  After  them,  again,  succeeded  the 
scrapers  and  rubbers,  smoothing  and  polishing  the  work ;  following 
their  predecessors  downward  from  the  top. 

The  work  being  thus  completed,  the  next  great  business  was  the 
removal  of  the  finished  statue  to  its  appointed  site.     For  this  pur- 


ANATOMICAL   KNOWLEDGE   OF   EGYPTIAN   ARTISTS.        297 

pose  it  was  placed  on  a  strong  wooden  sledge,  to  which  it  was  securely 
fastened ;  and  this  sledge  was  made  to  slide  on  a  wooden  railway. 
Drag-ropes  were  fastened  around  the  bottom  of  the  statue;  and 
thousands  of  men  pulled  at  these  ropes  directed  by  a  superintendent 
perched  in  the  lap  of  the  statue.  Men  with  oil,  or  water,  in  pots, 
went  before  the  sledge  pouring  the  lubricating  fluid  on  the  rails  to 
give  an  easier  movement  to  the  massive  load.  The  minute  processes 
of  the  sculptor,  even  in  the  later  and  more  classic  ages,  is  forgotten 
in  the  grand  array  of  force  employed  in  Egyptian  art. 

Sect.  3.  The  Anatomicax,  skill  displayed  in  Egyptian  Sculpture. 

In  Egypt,  where  there  were,  as  Herodotus^  states,  physicians  for 
the  eye,  ear,  teeth,  and  for  special  diseases,  the  study  of  human 
anatomy  must  have  been  carried  to  a  considerable  degree  of  perfec- 
tion. The  character  of  the  anatomical  knowledge  displayed  in  the 
sculpture,  as  in  the  drawing  of  the  Egyptian  artists  has  probably 
been  over-estimated  by  some,  and  underrated  by  other  critics.  Many 
Egyptian  explorers  have  noticed  the  accurate  proportions  preserved 
in  the  features  and  stature  of  the  figure;  the  whole  stature  being 
made  seven  and  one-third  measures  of  the  height  of  the  head,  and 
the  hips  occupying  the  centre  of  the  stature ;  while  there  is  a  perfect 
regularity  and  a  mild  sweetness  everywhere  seen  in  the  features. 
There  is,  however,  often  apparent,  a  great  disproportion  in  the  length 
of  the  arms,  and  in  the  breadth  of  the  chest,  as  compared  with  the 
loins.  When,  too,  the  finely  rounded  features  and  placid  expression 
of  the  countenance  is  found  to  be  universal  and  unvaried  in  the 
sphynx  at  Memphis  and  in  the  Memnon  at  Thebes,  in  all  statues 
standing  before  pylons  and  in  every  relief  on  the  walls  of  temples 
and  tombs,  the  aspect  of  the  king  on  his  throne  and  of  the  warrior 
in  battle,  of  the  mourner  at  a  funeral  and  of  the  laborer  at  his  toil, 
it  is  manifest  that  the  knowledge  of  the  Egyptian  physician  was 
either  not  found  in  the  artist's  studio,  or  was  not  allowed  in  his  exe- 
cution. 

As  there  was  no  contraction  of  the  muscles  of  the  face  giving 
expression  to  emotion  in  the  Egyptian  statue,  so  there  was  no  varia- 
tion of  posture  in  the  head,  such  as  would  give  any  occasion  for 
different  expression.  In  every  sculpture  in  relief  on  the  walls  of 
temples  and  tombs,  whether  it  be  laborers  with  their  overseers  at 
their  toil,  or  armies  in  combat  in  the  field,  or  groups  of  guests  seated 


Herodot.  II.  84. 

2  N 


298  ART  CRITICISM. 

at  a  banquet,  all  the  figures  are  turned  with  their  side  to  the  beholder 
so  that  every  head  is  seen  in  the  same  full  and  uniform  profile  view. 
In  statues,  also,  there  is  no  turning  of  the  head,  or  bending  of  the 
neck.  This  profile  representation  does  not  itself,  indeed,  show  a 
want  of  artistic  skill ;  since,  as  we  shall  see,  the  best  ancient  and 
modern  sculptors  have  resorted  to  the  same  method  in  bas-reliefs  to 
avoid  the  difficulty  and  unnaturalness  of  foreshortening  in  this 
department  of  sculpture.  In  true  art,  however,  there  is  variety,  life, 
and  expression  even  in  profile  reliefs ;  while  in  statues  the  earliest 
Greek  sculptors  sought  ease  in  the  carriage  of  the  head. 

The  same  general  aspect  is  given  to  every  portion  of  the  body  and 
limbs  wdiich  is  remarked  in  the  countenances  of  men  and  women  in 
Egyptian  Sculpture.  The  proportionate  breadth  of  the  chest  and 
hips  of  male  and  female  figures  is  not  observed;  the  only  indication 
of  sex  being  the  long  hair,  or  the  projecting  breasts  of  women.  In 
general,  the  contraction  of  the  loins  and  the  taper  of  the  chest  is 
exaggerated.  The  shoulders,  too,  are  set  off*  from  the  body  as  if 
they  were  appendages  to  the  frame ;  the  very  opposite  of  the  picture 
given  by  the  Christian  apostle  of  the  Grecian  statue,  as  a  "whole 
body,  fitly  joined,  knit  together,  and  compacted  by  that  which  every 
joint  supplieth."^ 

The  most  striking  fault  in  the  anatomical  character  of  Egyptian 
sculpture  is  the  utter  extinction  of  life  in  the  figures.  The  erect 
colossal  statues,  all  have  the  hands  and  feet  straightened  down  like 
a  corpse  laid  out  for  burial.  The  seated  statues  have  both  arms 
stretched  out  by  the  side  of  the  leg  as  motionless  as  those  of  an  old 
man  asleep  in  his  arm-chair.  In  the  bas-relief  sculptures  this  life- 
lessness  takes  its  own  peculiar  form ;  the  arms,  bodies,  and  legs  and 
feet  of  men  engaged  in  every  form  of  employ,  even  the  most  ener- 
getic,- whether  hurling  javelins,  or  wielding  whips,  hammers,  or 
swords,  whether  walking,  marching,  running,  or  leaping,  all  have 
throughout  their  entire  outline  and  contour  the  same  stiff*,  motionless, 
petrified  attitude  and  aspect.  There  is  no  bending  of  the  neck,  no 
contraction  of  the  muscles,  and  no  rounding  of  the  joints,  or  project- 
ing of  the  joint  bones  from  the  strain  of  the  muscles.  As  the 
Egyptian  statue  is  always  a  mummy,  so  the  Egyptian  bas-reliefs  of 
the  primitive  age  are  lifeless,  like  the  machine-like  puppets  of  children, 
only  called  men  and  women.  The  fine  proportions,  therefore,  of  the 
limbs,  and  the  accurate  representation  of  features  in  Asiatic  and 


'Eph.  iv.  16;  Col.  ii.  19. 


MORAL   FEATURES   OF   EGYPTIAN   SCULPTURE.  299 

Egyptian  sculpture,  so  often  quoted,  is  simply  the  mechanical  copying 
of  one  fixed  model.  There  certainly  was  no  study  of  living  models 
among  the  Egyptian  sculptors ;  as  we  have  seen  that  in  their  draw- 
ings, destitute  of  perspective,  there  was  no  true  study  of  the  natural 
landscape  among  Egyptian  painters. 

As  there  is  no  life,  no  elasticity  of  bodily  frame,  so  of  course  there 
is  no  thinking  soul  animating  the  body  in  Egyptian  sculpture. 
Winckelmann  has  well  suggested  that  the  aim  of  the  Egyptian 
sculptor  was  to  impress  by  magnitude,  not  by  expression  in  his 
figures.  The  same  general  fault  is  observed  in  their  sculptures  of 
animals ;  the  artist  being  satisfied  to  have  it  said  by  the  looker-on, 
"  this  is  an  ox ;"  while  nothing  in  the  nice  bend  of  the  neck  or  knee, 
or  in  the  rounding  of  the  haunches,  indicates  that  he  is  straining  at 
the  yoke  as  he  pulls  the  plough. 

The  characteristics  thus  enumerated  hold  true  not  simply  of  the 
early  and  primitive  Egyptian  sculpture.  As  we  shall  see,  ages  of 
genuine  development  and  progress  are  to  be  marked  in  this  art  in 
the  history  of  Egypt.  This  is  especially  to  be  observed  in  the  spi- 
rited battle-scenes  upon  the  walls  of  the  newer  portion  of  the  Temple 
of  Karnac  at  Thebes;  in  which  the  men  and  horses  have  a  life  and 
vigor  if  not  a  grace  worthy  of  even  the  Grecian  chisel.  This  im- 
proved taste  however  was  but  limited  in  its  field,  and  did  not  mate- 
rially modify  old  Egyptian  anatomical  features. 

Sect.  4.  The  Moral  Tone  characterizing  Egyptian  Sculpture. 

The  apparent  absence  of  anatomical  accuracy,  or  rather  vivacity, 
characterizing  Egyptian  sculpture,  which  seems  so  inconsistent  with 
the  knowledge  Egyptian  "wise  men"  must  have  possessed,  is  doubt- 
less mainly  attributable  to  a  moral  spirit  controlling  the  artist  and 
repressing  his  genius.  As  in  the  early  Christian  ages  the  rude  images 
of  the  Redeemer  on  crucifixes,  and  crude  paintings  of  Madonnas, 
became  a  popular  standard  of  truth  from  which  the  artist  of  superior 
taste  and  culture  could  not  depart  and  hope  to  secure  the  patronage 
of  the  orthodox,  so  in  Egypt  the  rude  conceptions  and  rough  execu- 
tions of  the  earlier  ages  became  a  standard  of  orthodoxy  which  later 
artists  were  compelled  to  copy.  Synesius,  a  native  Egyptian,  a  pupil 
of  the  famed  Hypatia,  after  he  became  a  Christian,  made  the  follow- 
ing statement;  "Among  the  Egyptians  the  prophets  did  not  allow 
metal  founders  or  statuaries  to  represent  the  gods  for  fear  that  they 
would  deviate  from  the  rule."  This  controlled  the  shaping  of  the 
statues  of  kings,  who,  as  deified,  were  supposed  to  assume  forms  and 


300  ART   CRITICISM. 

features  like  to  each  other,  as  they  were  kindred  to  a  common  celes- 
tial model ;  and  this  too  gave  shape  even  to  the  bas-reliefs  of  men 
and  animals,  since  the  people  refuse  to  allow  their  old  favorites  to 
be  displaced  by  novices,  either  in  art,  philosophy,  or  religion.  The 
superstitious  horror  of  marring  the  body  of  the  dead  by  dissection, 
which,  even  in  Greece  at  the  time  of  Demosthenes,  compelled  the 
student  of  anatomy  to  hide  his  dissecting-room  in  caves  of  the  moun- 
tains, had  a  still  greater  influence  in  the  land  where  the  preservation 
of  the  body  at  the  heavy  cost  of  Egyptian  embalming  was  incurred. 

Another  feature  of  moral  obliquity  led  the  Egyptian  sculptor  into 
error  in  the  spiritual  as  well  as  physical  development  of  nature  in 
his  works.  It  is  a  principle  of  correct  taste  in  art,  as  well  as  of  sound 
reason  in  mental  philosophy,  that  to  represent  the  Deity  by  any  of 
his  creatures,  or  to  add  any  feature  of  a  lower  creature  to  a  being  of 
a  higher  order,  degrades  instead  of  elevating  our  conceptions.  Ex- 
perience echoes  the  teaching  of  Old  Testament  prophets  and  of  New 
Testament  apostles,^  that  makers  and  worshippers  of  material  images 
of  God  become  "like  unto  their  idols,"  when  in  moral  and  intellectual 
degeneracy  they  "  change  the  glory  of  the  incorruptible  God  into  an 
image  like  to  corruptible  man  and  four-footed  beasts  and  creeping 
things."  The  natural  and  necessary  tendency  of  likening  God  to  man, 
or  man  to  brutes,  is  to  lead  the  mind  downwards  instead  of  upwards. 
The  suggestion  of  Agassiz  is  of  kindred  import ;  that  to  add  the  wings  of 
a  bird  to  an  etherial  image  of  man  detracts  from,  instead  of  adding  to, 
our  conception  of  the  exaltation  of  angels.  In  this  latter  statement 
there  is  an  important  truth ;  but  this  truth  may  be  perverted  so  as 
to  be  an  error.  The  truth  is  that  such  conceptions  belong  to  half- 
formed  metaphor,  rather  than  to  complete  figure.  We  admire  the 
metaphors  in  words :  "  He  has  a  lion's  courage,  the  strength  of  an  ox 
and  the  wings  of  an  eagle."  The  Divinely  suggested  model  of  the 
winged  cherubim  was  hidden  behind  the  vail ;  Raphael  in  painting 
Ezekiel's  vision  left  out  the  wheels ;  and  true  art  pictures  angels  as 
floating  in  the  air  without  wings.  The  remark  of  Agassiz  would  be 
an  error  if  it  excluded  from  the  field  of  art  symbolic  representation 
of  spiritual  attributes,  which  were  sanctioned  in  Hebrew  art.  It  was 
the  fault  of  ancient  Egyptian  as  of  Assyrian  and  Indian  sculptors 
that  the  line  of  discrimination  between  metaphor  and  figure,  between 
symbol  and  actual  combination  of  inconsistent  elements,  was  not 
recognized.     The  enormous  sphynx,  with  a  human  head  thirty  feet 


Psalm  cxv.  8 ;  Isa.  xliv.  9;  Kom.  i.  21 — 26. 


STAGES  OF   ADVANCE   IN   EGYPTIAN   SCULPTURES.         301 

in  altitude,  and  a  lion's  body  couchant  163  feet  long,  is  a  monstro- 
sity ;  as  are  the  images  of  divinities  with  a  human  body  and  a  hawk's 
or  crocodile's  head.  Like  to  these  is  the  human  head  upon  a  bull's 
body  and  eagle's  wings  found  among  the  finest  of  Assyrian  statuary. 
As  the  violation  of  this  principle  by  the  Egyptian  sculptor  is  the  first 
in  the  mind  of  Horace  in  the  very  opening  of  his  Ars  Poetica,  so  to 
all  thoughtful  critics  of  subsequent  ages  it  has  seemed  the  fatal  error 
in  the  art  of  that  people  who  were  leaders  and  teachers  for  subse- 
quent generations. 

Sect.  5.  The  History  of  Egyptian  Sculpture;  its  rude  Native  ori- 
ginals; ITS  ENNOBLEMENT  BY  SUPERIOR  ArTISTS  FROM  AsiA;  ITS 
REFINEMENT  FROM  GRECIAN  INFLUENCE;  AND  ITS  DECLINE  UNDER  THE 
KOMAN  SWAY. 

As  no  country  has  so  long  and  so  open  a  record  of  history  in  art 
as  has  Egypt,  so  on  careful  inspection  none  presents  more  distinct 
stages  of  progress  and  decline.  The  observing  tourist  on  the  Nile, 
and  even  the  thoughtful  reader  of  such  a  compend  as  Sir  Gardner 
Wilkinson  has  prepared,  can  readily  trace  the  more  prominent  foot- 
prints that  indicate  marked  features  of  that  advancing  and  retro- 
grading development ;  as,  Wornum,  Secretary  of  the  National  Gal- 
lery of  London,  has  to  a  commendable  extent  illustrated  by  a  chro- 
nological arrangement  of  the  British  Museum  collection  in  the 
department  of  Egyptian  Archaeology. 

The  age  of  primitive  native  Art  in  Egypt  dates  back  to  a  period 
two  or  three  centuries  prior  to  the  era  of  the  Hebrew  patriarchs ;  Sir 
Gardner  Wilkinson's  carefully  prepared  chronology  fixing  the  found- 
ing of  Memphis  at  about  B.  C.  2320,  and  the  building  of  the  Pyra- 
mid of  Cheops  at  B.  C.  2123,  while  the  visit  of  Abraham  to  Egypt 
occurred  B.  C.  1921.  The  monuments  preserving  memorials  of  these 
four  centuries  of  rude  native  art  are  the  pyramids  and  tombs  back 
of  Memphis,  the  most  ancient  capital  of  the  world.  As  the  granite 
sarcophagus  and  chamber  facings  in  the  great  pyramid  are  without 
sculpture,  and  perfectly  plain,  it  is  inferred  that  the  art  had  not  then 
attempted  carving  on  this  hard  material.  The  name  of  the  king, 
painted  in  red  ochre  on  the  limestone  blocks  of  which  the  pyramid 
was  constructed  show,  however,  that  knowledge  of  writing  then 
existed ;  while  the  sculptures  of  tombs  bearing  the  name  of  this  early 
king  indicate  that  this  art  was  already  practised,  though  in  a  style 
rude  and  simple.  The  figures  are  in  low  relief,  cut  in  outline  rather 
than  in  full  rounded  contour;  and  embrace  little  variety  of  subjects. 

26 


302  ART   CRITICISM. 

It  is  like  a  transition  to  a  new  world  to  pass  from  these  rude  origi- 
nals to  the  life-like  scenes  in  the  tombs  of  Beni  Hassan,  to  the  Grand 
Hall  of  Karnac  and  the  spirited  battle-scenes  on  the  outer  walls  of 
that  vast  structure,  and  to  the  rich  and  varied  devices  covering  the 
walls  of  the  Kemesium  and  the  temple  called  Medinet  Aboo  at  Thebes. 
Beginning  with  Osirtasen  I.  the  Pharaoh  of  Joseph's  day  about  B. 
C.  1740,  continuing  through  the  reigns  of  Amosis,  Thothmes  I,  II, 
and  III,  who  were  on  the  throne  from  Moses'  birth  B.  C.  1571  to  the 
Hebrew  Exodus  B.  C.  1491,  and  thence  under  Kemeses  II.,  the  Great 
conqueror  called  by  the  Greeks  Sesostris,  who  flourished  about  B.  C. 
1355,  and  his  successors  for  two  generations,  this  era,  lasting  five 
centuries,  closes  a  century  before  the  Conquest  of  Troy.  In  the  early 
portion  of  this  period  shepherd  kings  from  Asia  had  for  a  time  been 
masters  in  Egypt;  yet  later  the  king  and  priests  were  a  separate 
caste  who  employed  foreign  ofiicers;  later  still  a  line  of  foreign  kings, 
whose  hieroglyphic  titles  Wilkinson  has  collected,  occupied  the 
throne ;  and  still  yet  later,  the  conqueror  Remeses  brought  foreign 
arts  and  artists  into  the  land.  During  all  this  long  period  there  is 
evidence  that  the  ruling  class  in  Egypt  was  of  the  same  stock  with 
the  Persian,  Grecian,  and  Roman,  which  succeeded  to  the  same 
domain;  and  identical  with  the  races  at  that  very  age  ruling  in 
India  and  Assyria.  In  this  age,  as  the  names  of  Pharaohs  on  them 
show,  originated  those  transcendant  works,  in  blocks  of  stone  more 
massive  than  those  of  the  earlier  age  and  wrought  with  true  artistic 
skill,  the  sphynx  near  Memphis,  the  colossal  statues  standing  and 
seated  at  Thebes,  as  well  as  the  exquisitely  cut  reliefs  of  the  richest 
tombs  between  Memphis  and  Thebes.  Though  compelled  evidently 
by  the  resistless  limit  of  the  popular  taste  to  the  old  line  of  subjects 
and  to  the  fixed  methods  of  native  artists,  these  superior  masters 
threw  a  dignity  as  well  as  variety  into  their  designs  and  execution 
which  is  as  marked  as  the  transition  in  Greece  from  Dsedalus  to 
Phidias. 

The  Greeks  under  Alexander  came  too  late  into  Greece  to  become 
special  renovators  in  art;  for  among  themselves  the  decline  had 
already  begun.  At  Ombos  and  the  Isle  of  Philse,  in  the  extreme  of 
Upper  Egypt,  however,  relics  of  true  Grecian  taste,  radiant  as  with 
the  beams  of  the  setting  sun,  still  shine  in  the  temples  then  reared, 
truly  Egyptian  in  architecture,  yet  Grecian  in  mythological  symbols 
and  sculptural  finish.  Yet  later,  in  the  temples  lower  down  the 
river  at  Esneh  and  Dendera,  the  most  magnificent  remains  of  Egyp- 
tian architecture,  after  the  grand  hall  of  Karnac,  tower  in  their  rare 


LIKENESS  OF  EGYPTIAN  TO  INDIAN  AND  CHINESE  ART.      303 

perfection,  reared  by  the  Ciesars  while  lords  of  Egypt.  The  exces- 
sive profusion  of  their  sculptured  decorations,  as  well  as  the  gor- 
geousness  of  their  coloring,  bespeak  the  Roman  spirit ;  which  sacri- 
ficed sculpture  and  painting  as  ornamental,  and  therefore  subordinate 
arts,  to  architecture  the  more  useful.  Under  their  Roman  masters, 
the  art  of  Egypt  died  out,  and  under  succeeding  Muhammedan 
rulers  disappeared ;  because,  as  we  have  had  occasion  to  conclude,  it 
was  not  so  much  native  Egyptians  as  superior  lords  ruling  among 
them  who  presided  over  their  works. 

Sect.  6.  The  Sculpture  of  Eastern  Asia;  the  descending  scale  of 
PRIMITIVE  Sculpture  ;  including  that  of  India,  China,  Polynesia  and 
Central  and  Southern  America. 

The  observing  traveler  in  Egypt  is  constantly  struck  with  resem- 
blances to  modern  China  and  India  in  the  arts  and  sciences  both  of 
the  ancient  and  the  modern  Egyptians.  The  jugglers  of  Cairo  use 
Hindoo  characters  in  writing  their  charms.  In  the  old  tombs,  old 
tablets  printed  from  a  stereotyped  wooden  plate,  the  perfect  counter- 
part of  those  used  in  ancient  and  modern  China,  are  found  in  great 
abundance.  The  ancient  Egyptians,  like  the  Chinese,  were  a  jealous 
and  exclusive  people,  shutting  out  foreigners  from  their  ports  and 
allowing  the  merchant  ships  of  the  Phoenicians  and  Greeks  to  enter 
only  the  Port  of  Rhacotis,  their  Macao,  a  small  town  on  the  site 
where  Alexandria  was  afterwards  built.  In  art  these  two  people 
were  yet  more  alike.  In  tracing  eastward  from  Egypt  the  links  of  a 
chain  of  sculptured  works  true  to  their  central  type,  w^e  are  passing 
down  a  descending  scale ;  going  back  in  fact  to  the  rude  original 
from  which  the  Egyptian  Sculpture  advanced  to  its  perfection. 

The  ancient  sculpture  of  India  belongs  to  the  Egyptian  style, 
though  ruder  in  conception  and  inferior  in  execution.  The  two  chief 
centres  of  its  existing  remains  are  found  in  two  rock-hewn  temples 
of  immense  extent ;  one  at  Elephanta,  a  small  island  in  the  harbor 
of  Bombay,  the  other  at  EUora,  an  old  town  about  150  miles  to 
the  northeast  of  Bombay.  The  sculptures  at  Elephanta  relate  chiefly 
to  idol  superstitions;  consisting  of  colossal  statues  of  deities  and 
bas-reliefs  upon  the  walls  and  columns  of  the  temple.  One  of  these 
statues  is  the  celebrated  three-headed  deity  Brahma,  Vishnoo  and 
Seeva,  or  the  Creator,  Destroyer  and  Redeemer,  united  in  one  har- 
monized being ;  in  which  the  heads  are  at  least  six  feet  in  height. 
The  rock-hewn  tombs  of  Ellora,  however,  are  the  grand  repository 
of  ancient  Hindoo  sculpture;   extending,  as  they  do,  a  mile  and 


304  ART   CRITICISM. 

a  half  along  a  rocky  hill-side.  In  these  there  seems  to  be  a  shrine 
for  every  Hindoo  deity ;  so  that  the  whole  forms  a  Pantheon  of  their 
religion.  Obelisks  sixty  feet  high,  colossal  elephants  and  gigantic 
statues,  are  cut  in  the  solid  rock.  The  walls  are  covered  with  bas- 
reliefs  representing  every  variety  of  scene,  domestic,  religious,  and 
military.  Warriors  and  priests,  lions  and  tigers,  figures  grotesque 
and  symbolical,  and  in  one  tomb  a  complete  allegorical  representa- 
tion of  the  Hindoo  paradise,  furnish  a  range  of  subjects  bringing  out 
the  varied  merit  of  the  ancient  artists.  The  age  when  these  sculp- 
tures were  executed  is  not  known ;  but  in  all  important  respects  they 
belong  to  the  Egyptian  type. 

The  art  of  sculpture  in  China,  in  some  respects  quite  unlike  that 
of  Egypt,  is  yet  in  its  main  characteristics  after  the  same  style, 
though  of  a  grade  below  that  of  India.  The  mountains  of  China 
furnish  the  same  granite  found  in  Egypt;  and  the  Chinese  are  as 
fond  of  this  material  for  ornamental  sculpture  as  were  the  Egyptians. 
Their  miniature  groups,  cut  in  a  dark  flinty  rock,  having  the  fore- 
ground in  a  light  vein,  show  much  artistic  skill.  The  soil  of  Egypt 
furnished  a  fine  clay,  and  the  desert  adjoining  a  sharp  quartz  sand; 
and  from  these  materials  the  Egyptians  moulded,  baked,  and  fused 
the  finest  pottery,  glazed  ware  and  glass.  In  two  provinces  of  China 
the  best  clay  for  porcelain  in  the  known  world  is  found  in  inexhaust- 
ible beds ;  and  China  is  to  this  day  in  advance  of  all  the  world  in 
the  manufacture  of  glazed  pottery  and  of  porcelain  vases  and  urns. 
All  the  principal  metals,  gold,  silver,  lead,  iron,  quicksilver,  etc., 
seem  to  abound  in  China,  and  its  people  have  from  the  earliest  days 
understood  working  in  alloys  as  well  as  in  the  pure  metals ;  their 
gold  being  all  wrought,  not  into  coin,  but  into  jewelry.  In  one 
respect  the  taste  of  the  Chinese  in  sculpture  appears  to  be  the  oppo- 
site of  that  of  the  ancient  Egyptians ;  the  diminutive  being  preferred 
to  the  massive,  gigantic  and  majestic;  a  feature  seen  in  their  paint- 
ings on  vases,  in  their  sculptured  ornaments  of  stone,  in  the  statuary 
of  their  gardens,  and  in  the  idol  shrines  of  their  deities.  This,  how- 
ever, is  only  an  apparent,  not  a  real  exception.  In  Egypt,  miniature 
sculptured  objects  deposited  in  the  tombs  and  carved  on  their  walls, 
even  after  ages  of  plunder  by  later  nations,  are  innumerable;  among 
these  sculptures  the  grotesque  and  humorous  are  occasionally  inter- 
spersed ;  and  were  the  Egyptians  now  an  existing  people,  they,  like 
the  Chinese,  would  probably  be  regarded  as  fond  of  the  diminutive 
in  sculpture. 

Leaving   China  comprehensive   explorers   like   Humboldt   have 


f 


SCULPTURE   OF   PACIFIC   ISLES   AND    ANCIENT    AMERICA.    e305 

traced  a  tide  of  emigration  from  the  overstocked  shores  of  Eastern 
Asia  by  different  routes  past  the  Pacific  isles  to  the  Western  coast 
of  the  American  continent.  Kelics  of  historic  traditions,  of  language, 
of  religious  ideas,  and  especially  of  works  of  art  constitute  the  con- 
necting links  in  the  chain  of  testimony.  Humboldt  makes  these 
relics  of  art  the  most  important ;  his  words  being  "  A  small  number 
of  nations,  far  distant  from  each  other,  the  Etruscans,  the  Egyptians, 
the  people  of  Thibet  and  the  Aztecs,  or  Mexicans,  exhibit  striking 
analogies  in  their  buildings,  their  religious  institutions,  their  divisions 
of  time,  their  cycles  of  generation,  and  their  mystic  notions."^  The 
structure  of  these  buildings  will  be  considered  under  the  subject  of 
architecture;  their  adornments  furnish  interesting  specimens  of 
sculpture.  Ellis  dwells  on  the  likeness  between  the  idol  images  met 
in  the  Pacific  isles  and  those  of  the  Burman  people.^  In  the  South 
Sea  Islands  beautiful  carvings  are  executed  on  the  blocks  of  coral 
built  into  the  ancient  pyramids.  In  the  Hawaian  group  are  found 
hieroglyphics  similar  to  those  of  Egypt  and  Assyria,  many  of  which 
are  elaborately  cut.  In  the  same  isles  are  found  colossal  statues  of 
deities  sixteen  feet  high ;  the  forms  of  which  are  hideous,  in  accord- 
ance with  the  prevailing  superstition,  while  the  workmanship  shows 
genuine  skill  in  the  sculptor.  Among  the  relics  of  Aztec,  or  of  ear- 
lier Tolteck  sculpture  in  Mexico,  Humboldt  found  many  that  called 
forth  his  high  encomiums.  Of  the  "  carvings  on  the  walls  of  the 
palace  of  Mitla,"  he  says,  "  they  offer  striking  analogy  with  those  of 
the  vases  of  lower  Italy,  and  with  others  which  we  find  spread  over 
the  surface  of  almost  the  whole  of  the  old  Continent."  The  pen  of 
Stevens  and  the  pencil  of  Catherwood  have  more  carefully  preserved 
the  sculptured  relics  of  the  ancient  cities  whose  remains  furnished 
the  analogies  referred  to.  At  Copan,  Quiriga,  Utatlan,  and  other 
ancient  cities  of  Honduras  these  explorers  have  copied  sketches  of 
most  richly  sculptured  pillars,  generally  quadrangular  in  shape,  vary- 
ing from  fourteen  to  twenty-three  feet  in  height  and  from  three  to 
five  feet  in  breadth,  whose  faces  are  covered  with  figures  of  gods  and 
warriors  carved  in  high  relief  and  bordered  with  deep  and  elabo- 
rately cut  arabesques.  They  give  drawings  of  altars  carved  with 
rows  of  figures  seated  cross-legged  cut  in  high  relief.  The  features 
f  these  figures  have  generally  the  round  plumpness  and  blank  inex- 


'  Humboldt  "  Researches  concerning  the  institutions,  monuments  and  ancient 
inhabitants  of  America,"  Vol.  I. 

Polynesian  Researches.     By  William  Ellis,  London,  1840. 
26  *  2  0 


306  ART   CRITICISM. 

pressiveness  peculiar  to  Chinese  sculpture;  while  however  some  of 
the  warrior  deities  have  a  stern  and  life-like  aspect.  The  groups, 
apparently  of  busts  having  death's-heads,  often  six  feet  high,  ranged 
in  lines  along  the  bases  of  pyramidal  structures,  joined  in  their  rear 
to  the  bodies  of  dogs  or  monkeys  scarcely  perceptible  from  below, 
reminded  Stevens  of  the  cynocephalse,  or  sphynxes,  in  front  of  the 
temple  of  Luxor  at  Thebes,  in  Egypt.  The  whole  chain  of  speci- 
mens, half  round  the  globe  westward,  is  the  degenerate  phase  of  that 
order  of  sculpture  which  has  the  Egyptian  as  its  most  studied  type. 

Sect.  7.  The  Sculpture  of  Western  Asia,  the  ascending  Scale  of 
Primitive  Sculpture;  including  the  Arabian,  Hebrew,  Assyrian, 
AND  Persian. 

The  student  of  art,  who  in  Egypt  has  observed  the  advanced  phase 
of  primitive  sculpture  when  Greeks  and  Komans  succeeded  native 
artists  as  sculptors  of  Egyptian  bas-reliefs,  leaving  that  land  and 
passing  the  Red  Sea,  finds  the  desert  of  Sinai  stored  with  sculptured 
relics  which  form  the  first  steps  in  the  ascending  scale  of  Egyptian 
art.  Crossing  the  level  limestone  desert,  after  three  days  he  is  pass- 
ing within  the  deep  fissures  of  sandstone  rock,  whose  perpendicular 
faces  are  naturally  adapted  for  the  sculptor's  chisel.  In  retired  val- 
leys he  sees  elegantly  wrought  facades  of  tombs,  with  columns  and 
entablatures  cut  in  high-relief,  whose  pyramidal  pediments  and  hiero- 
glyphics show  them  to  be  of  Egyptian  origin.  About  three  days 
journey  from  Suez,  in  a  south-easterly  direction,  he  passes  a  conical 
hill  whose  abrupt  sides  almost  forbid  ascent,  and  on  whose  top  a 
grove  of  monumental  slabs  are  grouped.  Ascending  by  a  zig-zag 
path  these  monuments  are  found  to  be  of  sandstone,  from  five  to  nine 
feet  in  height,  from  one  and  a-half  to  tAvo  feet  in  breadth,  and  from 
ten  to  fifteen  inches  in  thickness,  rounded  at  the  top  like  common 
grave-stones,  and  standing  in  rows  before  a  small  Egyptian  temple. 
Each  of  their  faces  is  covered  with  sculpture  in  low-relief;  at  the  top 
a  globe  with  wings,  below  this  the  cartouche  of  a  king  and  his  like- 
ness, and  still  below  these  several  lines  of  hieroglyphics.  Thus  far 
the  sculpture  met  is  true  Egyptian. 

Passing  the  desert  of  Sinai,  a  journey  of  eight  or  ten  days  in  a 
north-easterly  direction  from  Suez,  brings  him  to  the  rarest  store- 
house of  the  ancient  Sculpture  of  Arabia  Deserta,  treasured  in  the 
rock-hewn  city  called  "Selah"  in  the  Hebrew,  and  "Petra"  in  the 
Greek  and  Latin;  both  meaning  Rock  City.  The  lofty  sandstone 
cliffs,  of  a  general  red  cast  varying  from  orange-red  and  pink  to  the 


HEBREW   SCULPTURE   UNDER  MOSES.  307 

darkest  purple,  are  covered  with  sculptures  whose  artistic  elegance 
of  form  is  admirably  set  off  by  the  beauty  of  the  native  colors  in  the 
rock.  Though  of  Egyptian  type,  these  sculptures  were  cut  by  a 
hand  of  superior  skill,  and  designed  by  genius  of  superior  refinement. 
The  sculpture  of  the  rock-hewn  city,  whose  beauty  has  enraptured 
the  scientific  tourist  of  Germany,  France,  England  and  America, 
and  whose  strange  location  have  made  many  regard  it  a  city  of  tombs 
rather  than  of  palaces,  a  rest  for  the  dead  rather  than  a  mart  for  the 
living,  is  the  first  link  in  a  chain  that  goes  winding  on  through 
Palestine  and  Syria,  till,  circling  about,  it  meets  the  artistic  advance- 
ment of  the  Greek  colonies  on  the  west  coast  of  Asia  Minor,  and 
fades  into  the  highest  forms  of  sculpture  ever  executed  by  the  chisel 
or  conceived  by  human  genius.  It  is  the  first  meeting  of  two  waves 
of  influence  in  art,  one  emanating  from  Egypt,  the  other  from 
Greece. 

Of  Hebrew  sculpture,  the  next  link  in  the  chain  mentioned,  no 
remains  are  extant;  it  is  only  from  the  descriptions  in  the  Hebrew 
Scriptures,  and  from  the  single  bas-relief  on  the  arch  of  Titus  at 
Rome  of  some  vessels  of  the  Jewish  temple  captured  by  Titus,  that 
the  forms  and  dimensions  of  their  sculptured  works  can  be  definitely 
reproduced.  The  connection  of  the  Hebrew  people  with  the  Egyp- 
tian, and  their  employ  of  Egyptian  artists,  aid  the  effort  to  recon- 
struct the  general  character  of  Hebrew  art;  which  flourished  chiefly 
in  the  ages  of  Moses  and  Solomon.  Under  Moses,  the  Hebrews  first 
became  a  nation;  all  their  arrangements  for  formal  worship  were 
divinely  appointed;  and  the  minute  description  of  their  sculptured 
works  is  preserved.  They  originated  during  the  second  and  most 
advanced  development  of  Egyptian  art;  and  of  one  of  the  artists 
employed,  it  is  said  that  he  was  gifted  both  "to  devise  curious  work," 
and  to  work  in  gold  and  in  the  cutting  and  setting  of  stones  and  in 
the  carving  of  every  manner  of  cunning  work.  The  two  chief 
specimens  of  "beaten  work  in  gold,"  designed  and  executed  by  these 
artists,  were  the  two  images  called  "Cherubs,"  and  the  Candlestick 
or  Candelabra.  At  a  later  period,  the  processes  of  modeling,  cast- 
ing, and  then  moulding  the  statue  of  the  Golden  Calf,  an  Egyptian 
image,  are  described.  Of  the  Cherubs,  we  are  told,  that  they  stood 
upon  the  lid  of  the  ark,  or  chest,  one  at  each  end,  about  three  feet 
apart,  with  their  faces  turned  inward  towards  each  other,  with  eyes 
bent  downwards  upon  the  lid,  also  called  the  mercy-seat ;  and  that 
they  had  wings  which  were  stretched  forth  on  high,  so  as  to  over- 
shadow the  mercy-seat.     Of  the  Candlestick  of  which  the  represen- 


308  ART   CRITICISM. 

tation  on  the  arch  of  Titus  is  doubtless  a  true  copy,  we  are  told  it 
was  of  "pure  gold,  of  beaten  work,  both  its  shaft  and  its  branches, 
its  bowls,  its  knops,  and  its  flowers;"  while  in  addition  to  the  central 
shaft,  there  were  three  branches  projecting  from  each  side,  giving 
support  for  seven  lamps  in  all,  the  bowls  of  which  lamps  were  carved 
after  the  pattern  of  the  branches  "with  almonds,  knops,  and  flowers."^ 
Of  these  early  works  of  Hebrew  sculpture,  Josephus,  who  must  have 
been  familiar  with  their  forms,  says,  referring  to  the  ark,  "Upon  its 
cover  were  two  images  which  the  Hebrews  called  cherubim.  They 
are  flying;  but  their  form  is  not  like  that  of  any  of  the  creatures 
which  men  have  seen;  though  Moses  said  that  he  had  seen  such 
beings  near  the  throne  of  God."  Of  the  Candelabra,  he  says:  "It 
was  made  with  its  knops  and  lilies,  and  pomegranates,  and  bowls ; 
which  ornaments  amounted  to  seventy  in  all,  in  such  manner,  that 
the  shaft  elevated  itself  on  high  from  a  single  base,  and  spread 
itself  into  as  many  branches  as  there  are  planets,  including  the  sun 
among  them.  It  terminated  in  seven  heads  in  one  row,  all  standing 
parallel  to  one  another;  and  these  branches  carried  seven  lamps, 
each  having  one  in  imitation  of  the  number  of  the  planets."^ 

Under  Solomon,  more  massive  and  elaborate  castings  and  carvings 
were  executed  for  the  Hebrew  temple,  at  a  period  six  centuries  subse- 
quent to  Moses.  The  carvers  in  wood  and  marble,  as  well  as  the 
founders  in  brass,  were,  as  we  learn,  Phoenicians  either  by  birth,  or 
education;  the  city  of  Tyre  having  at  this  era,  a  little  after  the 
Trojan  war,  become  the  mistress  in  art,  as  well  as  of  commerce  on  the 
shores  of  the  Mediterranean.  In  his  message  sent  to  Hiram,  king 
of  Tyre,  Solomon  says,  "  Thou  knowest  there  is  none  among  us  that 
can  skill  to  carve  wood  like  unto  the  Sidonians."  Besides  the  ordi- 
nary carvers  of  wood,  and  hewers  of  stone,  brought  from  Tyre,  we 
read,  that,  as  a  master-artist,  "Solomon  sent  and  fetched  Hiram  out 
of  Tyre.  He  was  a  widow's  son  of  the  tribe  of  Napthali,  and  his 
father,  a  man  of  Tyre,  a  worker  in  brass;  and  he  was  filled  with 
wisdom  and  understanding,  and  cunning  to  work  all  works  in 
brass."^  It  is  evident  since  the  old  vessels  of  the  tabernacle  were 
still  preserved,  and  the  master-artist  had  an  Egyptian  training,  that 


»  Exod.  XXV.  18-37;  xxxii.  4,  24;  xxxv.  32,  33,  Cherubim  is  the  Hebrew 
plural. 

=  Josephus  Antiq.  B.  III.,  Chap.  6,  Sects.  5  and  7. 

=  1  Kings,  V.  6  and  vii.  14.  The  word  "wood"  is  Sanscrit;  indicating  that  the 
commerce  of  Tyre  had  brought  in  the  higher  arts,  if  not  the  superior  artists 
of  India. 


HEBREW   SCULPTURE   UNDER  SOLOMON.  309 

the  new  works  in  Sculpture  of  Solomon's  day  were  of  the  same  type 
as  those  of  the  earlier  days  of  Moses. 

The  chief  new  works  of  Solomon  were  the  following.  Two  colossal 
cherubs,  each  fifteen  feet  high,  and  stretching  fifteen  feet  to  the  tip 
of  their  wings,  carved  of  olive  wood,  and  overlaid  with  gold,  stood 
in  the  inner  shrine,  or  "Holy  of  Holies,"  their  wings  touching  each 
other  in  the  centre,  and  reaching  on  either  side  to  the  wall.  The 
shrine  itself,  which  was  of  marble  outside,  was  ceiled  within  with 
cedar  wood,  "  carved  with  knops  and  flowers ;"  and  the  doors  of  the 
"Holy  Place,"  or  main  temple,  were  of  olive  wood,  carved  with 
figures  of  palm  trees,  cherubim  and  open  flowers,  and  overlaid  with 
gold.  The  works  in  brass,  cast  in  the  clay  ground  by  the  river 
Jordan,  were  these.  Two  monumental  pillars,  about  thirty-three 
feet  high,  and  six  feet  in  diameter,  rose  in  front  of  the  temple ;  the 
shaft  about  twenty-seven  feet  in  height  being  a  solid  mass,  while  the 
capitols  seven  and  a-half  feet  in  height  were  decorated  in  the  most 
profuse  manner,  with  wreaths  of  lilies  and  pomegranates.  A  brazen 
"sea,"  or  immense  vase  of  circular  form,  cast  in  one  mass,  fifteen 
feet  in  diameter,  with  ornamental  borders,  rested  upon  the  backs  of 
twelve  oxen  with  their  heads  facing  outwards,  and  having  their  feet 
elevated  on  pedestals,  which  were  decorated  with  cherubs,  lions,  oxen, 
and  palm  trees.  Ten  lavers,  or  smaller  vases,  six  feet  high,  and 
ornamented  like  the  other  works,  stood  in  the  court  before  the  shrine, 
five  on  one  side,  and  five  on  the  other.^  Josephus,  as  well  as  Solo- 
mon, minutely  describes  the  pedestals  on  which  these  ten  lavers 
rested.  "The  bases  were  quadrangular,"  each  supported  by  "four 
small  quadrangular  columns,  one  at  each  corner,"  over  which  the 
base  projected  as  an  entablature.  On  each  face  of  this  entablature 
there  were  "  three  compartments,  in  each  of  which  were  figures  in 
high  relief  of  a*  lion,  a  bull,  and  an  eagle ;"  while  on  the  corner  pillars 
"were  the  same  animals  in  low-relief"  The  pedestals  thus  con- 
structed, rested  each  upon  wheels  so  attached  as  to  seem  part  of 
itself;  their  diameter  being  a  foot  and  a-half,  and  their  spokes  fanci- 
fully carved,  terminating  in  hands  that  clasped  the  felloes,  while 
between  them  were  palm  trees ;  the  whole  work  being  cast  of  the 
same  metal.'* 

Besides  their  sacred  sculpture  the  Hebrew  people  from  the  earliest 
days  had  among  them  images  of  idol  deities.  Rachel  the  favorite 
wife  of  Jacob  is  represented  as  purloining  the  "images  of  her  father, 


See  1  Kings,  vi.,  vii.  »  Josephus  Antiq.,  B.  VIII.  Chap.  iii.  Sect.  6. 


310  ART   CRITICISM. 

Laban ;"  which  Jacob  afterwards  buried  under  an  oak  at  Shechem.^ 
Even  under  Moses,  similar  images  enclosed  in  a  portable  shrine  were 
brought  as  valuables  out  of  Egypt;  a  fact  mentioned  by  a  late  pro- 
phet and  by  the  first  Christian  martyr.  Under  the  Judges  of  Israel 
similar  images  of  gold  and  silver  existed ;  and  yet  later  under  their 
kings  the  brazen  serpent  of  Moses  became  an  object  of  religious  reve- 
rence.'  Such  a  record  among  a  people  so  strictly  cautioned  shows 
how  prone  is  human  nature,  made  to  admire  art,  and  not  only  allowed 
but  enjoined  to  fill  their  temple  with  its  purest  models,  to  abuse 
instead  of  rightly  using  the  best  gifts  of  the  Divine  Benefactor. 

Assyria,  in  whose  city  of  Babylon,  architecture  and  other  arts 
aspired  to  even  an  irreverent  grandeur,  as  seen  in  the  tower  which 
was  to  reach  unto  heaven,  has  been  from  the  earliest  days  of  authentic 
history  a  renowned  leader  in  the  art  of  sculpture.  The  patriarch 
Job,  whose  long  life  indicates  that  he  was  contemporary  with  the 
builders  of  the  pyramids  of  Egypt,  mentions  as  practised  in  his  day 
that  elaborate  method  of  sculpture  which  consists  in  cutting  a  deeply 
grooved  outline  in  the  sides  of  the  mountain  rock,  and  either  filling  it 
with  molten  lead,  or  more  commonly  painting  it  with  the  mineral  lead 
pigment  to  make  the  impression  distinct.^  Daniel's*  mention  of  the 
golden  statue  of  the  Assyrian  king,  ninety  feet  high,  links  the  Chal- 
dean sculpture  to  that  colossal  style  of  which  the  Egyptian  was  the 
type.  The  recent  researches  of  Layard  have  exhumed  treasures  of 
sculpture  in  the  ancient  cities  on  the  Euphrates.  At  the  entrances 
of  palaces  stood  statues,  often  cut  in  alabaster,  of  colossal  lions  and 
bulls,  having  human  heads  and  eagle's  wings.  The  walls  and  door- 
ways of  inner  apartments  were  profusely  covered  with  sculptures  in 
relief;  and  pavements,  sometimes  a  mile  in  length,  were  indented 
with  figures  in  intaglio,  representing  state  pageants  and  battle-scenes. 
In  the  execution  of  these  sculptures  there  is  the  Egyptian  stiffness  of 
attitude  in  warriors  hurling  javelins  and  arrows,  and  want  of  per- 
spective in  representing  rows  of  figures.     While,  however,  the  Egyp- 


'  Gen.  xxxi.  19,  and  xxxv.  4. 

"  Amos  V.  25,  26,  and  Acts  vii.  43;  Judg.  xvii.  5;  2  Kings  xviii.  4. 

^  Job  xix.  24.  The  term  "graver  of  iron"  is  Chaldee;  the  word  "lead"  is 
derived  from  the  adjective  "white;"  the  designation  "rock"  means  properly 
"  mountain  ledge."  The  structure  of  the  Hebrew  expression  compels  this  ren- 
dering, "  With  a  graver  of  iron  and  in  lead  in  permanence  on  the  mountain 
ledge  may  they  be  inscribed."  The  common  custom  in  ancient  Egypt,  about 
Sinai,  in  Arabia  and  Syria,  seems  to  indicate  the  style  of  art  referred  to. 

■*  Dan.  iii.  1. 


ASSYRIAN   AND   PERSIAN   SCULPTURE.  311 

tian  figures  had  an  excessive  slenderness,  the  Assyrians  gave  to  theirs 
an  exaggerated  plumpness  of  the  muscles;  which,  were  it  not  for 
their  short  limbs  and  squat  stature,  would  make  the  heroes  repre- 
sented, rival  the  rugged  Hercules  of  Dsedalus.  There  is,  moreover, 
in  the  countenances  a  life,  and  in  the  postures  an  action,  entirely  un- 
like that  seen  in  Egyptian  sculptures.  Layard  remarks,  "The  prin- 
cipal distinction  between  Assyrian  and  Egyptian  art  appears  to  be, 
that  in  the  one,  conventional  forms  were  much  more  strictly  adhered 
to  than  in  the  other.  The  angular  mode  of  treatment  so  conspicuous 
on  Egyptian  monuments  in  the  delineation  of  every  object  is  not 
observable  in  those  of  Assyria.  .  .  .  The  Assyrians,  less  fettered, 
sought  to  imitate  nature  more  closely,  however  rude  and  unsuccessful 
their  attempts  may  have  been;  and  this  is  proved  by  the  constant 
endeavor  to  show  the  muscles,  veins  and  anatomical  proportions  of 
the  human  figure."  It  was  evidently  a  higher  advance  in  art  as 
well  as  an  improved  material  which  gave  the  Assyrian  sculptor  a 
superiority  over  the  Egyptian. 

In  Persia,  the  distinction  between  ancient  and  modern  sculpture 
is  as  marked  as  it  is  in  India  or  China;  for  it  should  be  remembered 
that  while  sculpture  is  discarded  as  a  relic  of  an  idolatrous  age 
among  the  Muhammedan  sectaries  now  occupying  Egypt,  Syria, 
Assyria,  Persia  and  India,  the  art  yet  lives  among  the  rude  car- 
vers of  imagery.  The  modern  Persians,  descendants  of  that  superior 
race  to  which  the  Brahmins  of  India,  the  ancient  Persians,  the 
Greeks  and  Europeans  generally,  have  belonged,  are  the  Protestants 
of  Muhammedism ;  and  as  such  retain  the  higher  idea  belonging  to 
their  lineage  both  of  religious  truth  and  of  the  relation  of  art  to 
religion.  The  style  of  architecture  found  in  the  ruins  of  ancient 
Persepolis,  the  old  seat  of  the  Persian  power,  was,  as  we  shall  see  in 
its  place,  much  nearer  in  style  to  the  Grecian  than  to  the  Egyptian ; 
partly  perhaps  from  physical  causes  requiring  the  roof-slant  of  the 
Grecian  temple ;  but  much  more,  doubtless,  from  the  refining  influ- 
ence of  the  culture  naturally  belonging  to  the  noble  Arian  stock 
peopling  still  Persia,  Armenia,  Circassia  and  Georgia.  The  same 
fine  muscular  development  observed  in  the  statuary  of  Assyria, 
united  to  a  nicer  delicacy  in  proportions  and  greater  ease  and  grace 

I  of  form  and  action,  characterizes  the  relics  of  sculpture  found  at 
Persepolis.  The  men  are  all  bearded,  contrary  to  the  Egyptian 
custom;  the  features  of  kings  are  stern,  and  their  profiles  almost 
Roman  in  prominence;  they  all  wear  the  slouched  sugar-loaf  or 


312  ART   CRITICISM. 

well-fitted  military  coats,  with  capes  over  the  shoulders,  indicate  at 
once  a  colder  climate  and  greater  skill  in  the  artist.  Their  horses, 
however,  are  generally  clumsy,  ill-proportioned  and  stiff.  Their 
sculptors  also  introduced  the  Oriental  absurdity  of  mixed  animal 
natures  such  as  winged  bulls  and  lions.  As  to  the  connection  between 
the  sculpture  of  Persepolis  and  of  Assyria,  Layard  says,  "They  ex- 
hibit precisely  the  same  mode  of  treatment,  the  same  forms,  the  same 
peculiarities  in  the  arrangement  of  the  bas-reliefs  against  the  walls, 
the  same  entrances  formed  by  gigantic  winged  animals  with  human 
heads,  and  finally,  the  same  religious  emblems.  There  was  no 
attempt  even  in  later  Persian  sculpture,  found  in  Asia  Minor,  to 
impart  sentiment  to  the  features  or  even  to  give  more  than  the  side 
view  to  the  face ;  though  there  was  a  manifest  improvement  in  the 
disposition  of  draperies  and  in  the  delineation  of  the  human  fea- 
tures." 

In  reference  to  the  monuments  of  Asia  Minor  executed  during  the 
Persian  dominion  Layard  says;  "The  Xanthian  marbles  acquired 
for  this  country  by  Sir  Charles  Fellows,  and  now  in  the  British  Mu- 
seum, are  remarkable  illustrations  of  the  three-fold  connection 
between  Assyria  and  Persia,  Persia  and  Asia  Minor,  and  Asia  Minor 
and  Greece.  Were  those  marbles  properly  arranged,  and  placed  in 
chronological  order,  they  would  enable  even  the  most  superficial 
observer  to  trace  the  gradual  progress  of  art  from  its  primitive  rude- 
ness to  the  most  classic  conceptions  of  the  Greek  sculptor.  Not  that 
he  would  find  either  style,  the  pure  Assyrian,  or  the  Greek  in  its 
greatest  perfection ;  but  he  would  be  able  to  see  how  a  closer  imita- 
tion of  nature,  a  gradual  refinement  of  taste  and  additional  study 
had  converted  the  hard  and  rigid  lines  of  the  Assyrians  into  the 
flowing  draperies  and  classic  forms  of  the  highest  order  of  art." 

In  general,  then,  it  may  be  observed;  that  the  sculpture  of  West- 
ern and  Southwestern  Asia,  belongs  to  the  same  school  with  that  of 
Egypt ;  its  style  improving  and  taking  on  more  the  characteristics  of 
classic  Greece,  as  Asia  approaches  that  land  of  art  both  in  geo- 
graphical location,  and  in  the  advancement  of  its  people.  The 
Egyptian  is  the  true  central  representative  of  the  whole  Asiatic  field 
of  sculpture;  that  of  Eastern  Asia  being  the  descending,  and  that 
of  Western  Asia  the  ascending  scale,  proceeding  from  the  same 
original  seat. 


THE   TRUE   IDEAL   OF   ART   IN   GREECE.  313 

CHAPTER    III. 

CLASSIC   SCULPTURE   EMBODIED   IN   THE   GRECIAN. 

The  language  of  art  given  by  the  Greeks  to  the  world  indicates 
their  special  pre-eminence  in  sculpture.  As  the  Greek  tongue  gave 
the  designation  poietes,  or  "  Creator,"  to  the  man  who  seems  to  approach 
the  "Father  of  Spirits/'  in  beauty  and  sublimity  of  thought  and 
expression  in  words,  so  that  tongue  gave  the  name  of  glyptes,  or 
"sculptor,"  to  one  versed  in  that  complete  art  whose  works  approach 
nearest  in  perfection  to  the  material  hand-work  of  the  great  Author 
of  Nature.  From  the  latter  word  terms  of  art,  consecrated  in  all 
subsequent  time,  have  been  derived  to  express  the  more  finished  por- 
tions of  architecture,  as  well  as  the  finer  carvings ;  the  very  name  of 
this  branch  of  art  being  a  memorial  that  the  Greeks  were  the  origi- 
nators of  Classic  Sculpture.  How  very  early  this  art  originated 
among  that  people  is  intimated  by  Homer's  descriptions  of  the  shield 
of  Achilles,  of  the  bowl  of  Helen,  and  of  the  belt  of  Hercules.^ 

Winckelmann,  the  special  student  of  Grecian  Sculpture,  has 
divided  its  history  into  four  ages;  the  rude  style  prevailing  till 
Phidias ;  the  grand  style  inaugurated  by  Phidias ;  the  graceful  style 
of  the  polished  successors  of  Phidias;  and,  finally,  the  imitative 
style,  which  began  with  the  period  when  Greece  was  declining,  and 
her  sculptors  became  mere  copyists  of  the  great  artists  that  had 
preceded  them.  The  attentive  student  of  ancient  Greek  and  Latin 
authorities,  especially  of  Pliny,  and  of  modern  critics  like  Winckel- 
mann, aided  by  a  careful  comparison  of  relics  of  Grecian  Sculpture 
preserved  chiefly  in  the  galleries  of  Italy  and  in  Athens,  will  be  able 
to  extend  this  classification;  suggesting  additional  styles,  which 
Winckelmann  has  recognized  as  distinct,  though  he  has  not  given 
them  a  separate  designation.  The  consideration  of  these  different 
ages  with  their  peculiarities  may  be  appropriately  preceded  by  a 
brief  notice  of  some  general  features  of  this  truly  Grecian  art. 

Sect.  1.  General  Characteristics  or  Grecian  Sculpture. 

The  characteristics  of  a  people  have  their  origin  to  a  certain 
extent,  doubtless,  in  the  climate  and  the  face  of  the  country  which 


'  Homer,  Iliad,  XVIII.  476,  and  Odyssey,  III. 
27  2  P 


314  ART  CRITICISM. 

they  inhabit ;  as  also  in  their  native  cast  of  mind.  The  Egyptians 
dwelling  on  a  level  river  bottom  where  massiveness  and  elevation 
was  necessary  to  make  their  works  conspicuous,  built  and  carved 
every  work  in  colossal  proportions ;  and  living,  too,  in  a  climate  where 
there  was  no  rain,  they  covered  the  exterior  of  their  edifices  with 
minute  and  delicate  sculptures  which  the  storms  of  a  Grecian  winter 
would  have  soon  obliterated.  The  Greeks,  on  the  other  hand,  in- 
habiting a  land  varied  in  climate  and  surface,  its  breezes  now  stimu- 
lating and  now  relaxing,  and  the  face  of  their  country  now  towering 
into  mountains  now  spreading  into  broad  and  level  plains,  could 
give  sufficient  prominence  to  their  works  with  less  elevation,  and  a 
rarer,  as  well  as  more  enduring  beauty  by  greater  chasteness.  The 
Egyptians,  again,  like  all  Orientals,  counted  repose  and  impassive 
stolidity  the  highest  attribute  of  man  and  of  the  Deity;  and  nature 
gave  them  along  their  river  banks  the  inexpressive  granite  and  sand- 
stone in  which  to  stereotype  their  stiff  heroes  and  deities.  The 
Greeks  were  all  life  and  animation ;  and  nature  furnished  them  the 
almost  breathing  marble,  whose  fine  texture  and  pure  white  surface 
seemed  made  to  be  polished  into  forms  of  beauty;  while  also  from 
traffic  they  abounded  in  brass,  from  which  statues  and  other  works 
of  sculpture  were  early  cast.  It  was  the  meeting  of  these  external 
and  internal  causes  that  made  the  art  of  these  two  peoples  such 
counterparts  to  each  other. 

Pliny's  familiar,  epistolary  statement,  though  discursive,  embodies 
much  of  the  criticism,  as  well  as  the  history  of  Grecian  sculpture, 
which  has  reached  our  time.  He  speaks  of  the  objects  first  executed 
in  sculpture,  as  vases,  candelabras,  and  table  utensils ;  also  capitals 
of  columns,  and  other  ornaments  of  monumental  structures;  and 
even  of  the  sides  of  the  triclinium,  or  dining  lounge  skirting  the 
table  on  three  sides,  as  adorned  with  sculptured  work.  After  this 
came  works  called  irnagines,  or  likenesses;  which  the  Greeks 
entitled  eicones,  because  their  deities  were  but  ideal  men;  while 
the  practical  Romans  named  them  statues^  because  their  Csesars 
when  granted  a  statue  were  but  men  "  standing." 

The  spirit  of  religious  devotion  among  the  Greeks  led  sculptors 
first  to  form  deified  beings ;  though  as  these  were  but  heroic  men  of 
past  ages  there  was  an  easy  transition  to  heroic  men  of  the  present ; 
eicones  being  granted  to  those  having  three  times  been  victors  in 
athletic  contests.  At  first  their  deities  were  so  little  characterized 
that  only  their  einbletiis  distinguished  one  from  another;  Jupiter 
being  known  by  his  thunderbolt  of  forked  arrows ;  Neptune  by  his 


GRECIAN   STUDY   OF   MALE   AND   FEMALE   FORMS.  315 

trident  or  fish  spear;  and  Apollo  by  his  archer's  bow;  while,  also, 
the  various  athletes  were  marked  by  the  implements  or  positions  of 
their  several  contests. 

In  the  advance  of  the  art,  posture,  dress,  sex,  and  aesthetic  ideas 
came  to  be  studied.  The  natural  and  easy  posture  for  a  sculptured 
figure  was  that  of  standing.  Seated  statues,  however,  were  after- 
wards executed ;  especially  in  groups  where  either  the  subject,  or  the 
elevation  of  their  position,  as  in  the  tympanum  or  gable  of  a  temple, 
required.  Equestrian  statues,  also,  were  early  introduced ;  the  sculp- 
tured Centaurs  being  of  this  class.  Yet,  again,  in  bas-reliefs,  and 
even  in  full  form,  two,  and  even  four  horse  chariots,  with  their  victo- 
rious rider,  were  cut  in  stone,  or  cast  in  brass. 

Yet  later  higher  conceptions  of  manly  proportions  were  designed 
and  put  in  form ;  of  which  the  grand  style  of  Phidias  was  the  culmi- 
nation. To  bring  out  truly  the  strength  and  beauty  of  the  human 
form  nude  models  were  sought  by  Greek  artists,  which  became  so 
characteristic  as  to  occasion  Pliny's  remark,  "The  Greek  method  is 
to  veil  nothing."  Phidias,  however,  to  realize  his  design  draped  his 
Minerva  in  the  toga  of  peace,  over  which  glittered  the  insignia  of 
war;  and  to  his  general  remark  about  the  Greeks  just  quoted  Pliny 
added,  "but  on  the  contrary  the  Roman  and  military  style  is  to  add 
breast-plates :"  a  fact  which  Cicero^  makes  the  hinge  of  this  moral  sen- 
timent; "The  fondness  of  the  Romans  for  military  glory  is  observed 
in  the  fact  that  we  generally  see  their  statues  robed  in  military 
array." 

Then,  again,  the  female  form  began  to  be  studied  and  brought  out, 
as  the  model  of  beauty  at  once  fascinating  and  chastened.  First,  Venus 
the  goddess  of  love,  then  the  Graces  were  the  chosen  study:  the 
peculiar  eclectic  spirit  of  the  Greeks,  prompting  them,  also,  to  select 
youth  as  the  period  of  special  beauty  of  form ;  both  their  Venus  and 
Apollo  being  of  the  age  of  early  maturity.  Proceeding  yet  farther 
in  this  eclectic  study,  after  Venus,  the  Greek  artists  conceived  the 
form  of  the  Amazon,  or  masculine  woman ;  thus  adding  the  robust- 
ness of  the  male  to  the  grace  of  the  female  form,  of  which  the  Minerva 
and  Diana  are  stated  to  be  specimens  f  while,  also,  the  Hermaphro- 
dite,  the  very  name  implying  a  union  of  Mercury  and  Venus,  and 
indicating  the  union  of  female  grace  to  manly  proportions,  became, 


»  Cicero  de  Officiis,  I.  19. 

^  This  idea  is  very  generally  overlooked  by  lexicographers ;  but  Pliny  calls 
the  Minerva  of  Phidias,  an  Amazon.     Nat.  Hist.  Lib.  xxxiv.  cap.  8,  sect.  19. 


316  ART   CRITICISM. 

as  Pliny's  record  and  as  the  specimens  yet  remaining  attest,  a  spe- 
cially favorite  subject  for  the  Grecian  chisel. 

Yet  other  subordinate  features  of  beauty  and  power  were  subse- 
quently made  special  studies  by  Grecian  sculptors.  The  eras  in  the 
history  of  this  art  among  this  imaginative  race  are  made  prominent 
by  the  predominance  for  a  time  of  men  of  genius  devoted  to  some 
one  leading  characteristic.  This  overshadowing  spirit  of  the  day 
makes  it  essential  to  group  this  history  under  different  styles  in  Gre- 
cian sculpture;  which  styles,  though  successively  culminating,  have 
germs  to  be  traced  in  eras  long  prior  to  their  pre-eminence. 

The  importance  of  classification  in  the  works  of  Grecian  sculpture 
is  indicated  by  their  number.  During  certain  periods  of  their  his- 
tory the  whole  genius  of  the  Greek  people  seemed  devoted  to  this 
art ;  the  number  of  men  employed  on  its  works  must  have  absorbed 
a  large  population ;  and  the  accumulations  of  generations  were  fabu 
lous  in  amount.  The  student  of  art  is  appalled  at  the  formidable 
lists  of  statues  executed  by  each  one  of  some  scores  of  sculptors,  such 
as  Phidias  and  Praxiteles,  which  he  finds  in  the  catalogues  of  anti- 
quaries. Pliny  says  that  Lycippus  alone  was  the  author  of  1500 
works  in  sculpture;  though  he  doubtless  employed,  as  do  modern 
sculptors,  numerous  workmen  as  carvers.  In  Greece  itself  there 
were  two  great  centres  for  the  execution  of  the  art,  Athens  and 
Sicyon;  among  the  Grecian  isles  two  others,  Egina  and  Rhodes; 
and  in  the  colonies  yet  two  more,  Sicily  and  Etruria.  There  were, 
yet  more,  centres  for  the  collection  of  these  works ;  of  which  Pliny 
states,  "Mucianus,  three  times  consul,  reported  that  there  were  no 
less  than  3000  statues  at  Rhodes ;  and  there  are  believed  to  have 
been  a  no  less  number  at  Athens,  Olympus,  and  Delphi."  If  in  the 
narrow  limits  of  four  cities  there  w^ere  12,000  statues,  conception  fails 
in  the  effort  to  number  all  in  the  country,  as  well  as  the  cities,  on  the 
main  land,  in  the  isles  and  among  the  extended  provinces  of  Greece. 
We  are  ready  for  Pliny's  statements  that  the  Romans  bore  ofiT  3000 
statues,  including  100  of  colossal  size,  from  the  Isle  of  Rhodes;  and 
that  M.  Scaurus  adorned  a  single  theatre  at  Rome  with  3000  statues 
and  statuettes  of  brass.  When  then  we  find  the  special  names  of  no 
less  than  500  statues,  particularly  described  by  Pliny,  the  necessity 
for  a  discriminating  classification  of  works  of  Grecian  sculpture 
becomes  apparent. 


EARLY   GRECIAN   SCULPTURE   CALLED   DiEDALIAN.        317 


Sect.  2.  The  bold  style  of  Grecian  Sculpture  ;  beginning  with 

D^DALUS. 

As  the  fabled  originator  in  Greece  of  arts  addressing  the  ear  was 
Orpheus,  who  charme'd  trees  and  wild  beasts  by  his  lyre,  so  the  fabled 
origin  of  arts  addressing  the  eye  began  with  that  Daedalus  whom 
school-boys  remember  as  the  rash  experimenter  with  waxen  wings. 
Daedalus,  lived  contemporary  with  Theseus,  during  the  reign  of  the 
Judges  of  Israel;  and  the  age  of  primitive  Grecian  sculpture,  pro- 
perly called  the  Bold  Style,  began  about  B.  C.  1230,  and  extended 
to  about  B.  C.  580,  a  period  of  650  years. 

Daidalus  is  universally  recognized  by  Grecian  and  Rom.an  writers 
as  the  leading  early  Greek  sculptor  and  architect.  Before  Hesiod 
wrote,  his  name  had  become  a  synonym  for  works  of  sculptured 
beauty ;  Homer  using  the  word  daidalia  for  fine  carvings.  Diodorus 
and  Pausanias  give  a  list  of  the  relics  of  his  works  in  the  days  of  the 
Roman  Emperor  Augustus,  about  the  time  of  Christ's  birth ;  when  in 
Greece  itself  no  less  than  nine  famed  monuments  of  his  genius  in 
sculpture  were  still  admired  even  by  the  side  of  the  works  of  Phidias. 
One  of  these,  a  naked  Hercules  of  wood,  is  the  early  type  and  model 
of  Grecian  sculpture,  as  the  embodiment  of  living  being;  the  form, 
whether  of  wood,  stone,  or  metal,  showing  the  indwelling  spirit,  in 
posture,  strain  of  muscles,  and  contortions  of  the  whole  frame,  as  well 
as  in  the  cast  and  expression  of  the  features.  The  original  has  been 
lost  to  the  world  in  the  destruction  that  accompanied  the  fall  of  the 
Roman  Empire ;  yet  it  is  supposed  that  the  small  bronze  statues  of 
the  naked  Hercules  so  numerously  preserved  in  collections  of  art  on 
the  continent  of  Europe,  and  in  the  British  Museum,  are  copies  of 
this  original  work  of  Daedalus.  The  figure  is  naked  to  show  the 
muscular  development;  it  is  in  an  attitude  of  bold  advance;  the 
right  arm  wields  a  club,  while  the  left  has  a  lion's  skin  thrown  over 
it  as  a  shield ;  and  the  wrinkled  savageness  of  the  countenance,  with 
the  swollen  chest  and  contracted  loins,  with  the  strained  sinews  and 
bulging  muscles,  all  indicate  the  work  of  a  rare  student  of  Nature 
living  in  an  age  of  bold  conception  and  of  rude  execution  in  art. 
Pausanias,  besides  referring  often  to  this  wooden  statue  of  Hercules, 
mentions  also  a  chorus  or  dancing  group  executed  in  white  marble 
for  the  Gnossians  and  alluded  to  by  Homer.^ 

Daedalus  had  numerous  followers ;  and  soon  two  distinct  styles  of 
the  art,  then  called  "Daedalian,"  appeared.     One  class  were  slavish 


I 


'  Homer  Iliad,  B.,  vf.  590-2. 

27* 


318  ART   CRITICISM. 

copiers  of  the  themes  and  manner  of  the  great  master ;  while  another 
catching  his  idea  and  his  spirit  went  beyond  their  master,  attempting 
the  female  as  well  as  the  male  figure,  and  seeking  robustness  of 
frame  and  frankness  of  bearing  in  varied  subjects.  To  the  inferior 
class  belonged  that  Epeus,  the  fabricator  of  the  famed  colossal 
wooden  horse,  described  by  Grecian  and  Koman  poets;  which,  as  it 
was  mistaken  for  a  deity  by  the  Trojans,  and  as  such  brought  into 
their  city,  must  have  been  one  of  a  class  of  kindred  works  known  to 
the  Greek  and  Trojan  races.  This  artist,  Plato  and  Pausanias  state, 
wrought  in  wood,  and  produced  many  statues,  among  which  were  a 
Mercury  and  a  Venus ;  the  latter  indicating  that  the  finer  sensibili- 
ties were  not  entirely  uncultured  even  by  the  ruder  early  sculptors 
of  Greece.  It  is  to  this  class  of  sculptors  also  that  were  due  those 
characteristics  so  finely  illustrated  by  Winckelmann's  diagrams; 
which  show  that  the  brow  of  Jupiter,  cut  ofi"  from  the  face  below  at 
the  eyebrows,  is  in  the  curl  of  its  shaggy  locks  precisely  that  of  the 
lion;  and  that  the  neck  of  Hercules,  separately  viewed,  is  just  that 
of  the  bull. 

From  the  first,  however,  a  superior  order  of  genius  caught  more 
fully  the  spirit  of  the  first  great  master.  Smilis,  a  contemporary  of 
Daedalus  carved  a  Juno  of  wood,  w^hich  in  after  times  the  sweet 
poet  Callimachus  admired.  At  a  later  day  Endseus,  called  a  pupil 
of  Daedalus,  made  a  Minerva,  which  Pausanias  says  he  had  seen  in 
the  Acropolis  at  Athens.  Both  the  female  and  male  deities  were 
represented  in  the  same  active,  advancing,  bold  attitude,  and  with 
the  same  muscular  development ;  the  female  figures  however  being 
clothed  in  robes  hanging  in  a  few  straight  folds,  having  a  light, 
graceful  and  ever  varying  flow  of  drapery;  all  the  characteristics 
being  in  contrast  with  the  rigid  features  and  stifi"  attitude  of  the  Egyp- 
tian models.  Moreover,  as  from  the  first  sculpture  of  Daedalus  the 
true  Grecian  idea  was  the  complete  study  of  the  human  form,  it 
became  more  and  more  customary  to  leave  the  figure  unencumbered 
by  drapery.  To  this  class  must  also  be  referred  the  Hercules  of 
Glyco ;  the  celebrated  Farnese,  so  called  from  the  palace  of  Modern 
Rome  in  which  it  was  deposited  when  first  dug  from  the  ruins  of  thai 
old  city.  It  was  this,  and  kindred  works,  Horace  had  in  his  eye,  when 
he  satirized  the  stolidity  which  made  no  discrimination  between  the 
muscular  "limbs  of  the  matchless  Glyco,"  and  a  "body  knotted  with 
the  gout."^     The  line  of  more  refined  followers  of  Dcedalus  is  closed 


\ 


'  Hor.  Epist.  I.  i.  30. 


THE   SCULPTURE   OF   ATHLETE   VICTORS.  319 

by  Dipceiius  and  Scyllis  who  flourished  in  the  50th  Olympiad  or 
580  B.  C;  whom  Pliny  mentions,  as  "the  first  of  all  in  sculpturing 
marble;"  first  not  only  in  using  this  finer  material,  but  also  in  select- 
ing the  best  variety;  since  Pliny  adds,  "they  used  only  the  white 
marble  from  the  Isle  of  Pares."  Their  chief  works  mentioned  were 
all  deities ;  as  Apollo,  Diana,  Minerva,  and  Hercules.  This  class  of 
sculptors  naturally  introduced  the  next  or  second  style,  the  athletic, 
only  a  little  prior  in  point  of  time  to  the  third  or  grand  style. 

Sect.  3.  The  ATHiiETic  style,  matured  by  Ageladas  ;  Statues  or  Vic- 
tors IN  Feats  of  Strength  ;  illustrated  uy  the  Boxer  and  Quoit- 
Thrower. 

As  already  mentioned,  Pliny  states  that  "statues  were  first  made 
of  gods  only,  not  of  men."  It  is  in  keeping  with  the  ideal  cast  of 
mind  of  the  Greeks  to  observe  that  the  first  statues  of  men  were  not 
likenesses  of  individuals  but  ideals  of  a  class.  The  same  spirit  which 
led  Homer  to  select  as  models  heroes  in  war  like  Hector  and  Achilles, 
prompted  the  first  sculptors,  who,  leaving  the  gods,  dared  to  picture 
men,  to  choose  that  class  nearest  the  deified  Hercules,  men  of  phy- 
sical prowess  as  representative  ideals. 

The  establishment  of  the  Olympic  games  in  Greece,  itself  a  fruit 
of  the  heroic  age,  tended,  doubtless,  to  originate  and  establish  the 
athletic  style  in  sculpture.  These  games  were  instituted  through 
Spartan  influence ;  and  date  from  the  year  B.  C.  776 ;  each  succeed- 
ing Olympiad  comprising  a  period  of  four  years.  The  general 
design  of  these  festivals  was  to  encourage  the  cultivation  of  muscu- 
lar vigor  and  of  emulation  for  superiority  in  feats  of  strength.  At 
the  first  celebration  running  was  the  only  contest;  at  the  seventh 
crowns  were  first  bestow^ed  on  the  victors;  at  the  eighteenth  the 
pentathlon,  or  contest  in  five  difierent  athletic  exercises,  was  intro- " 
duced;  at  the  thirty-third  the  pancration,  or  trial  of  all  kinds  of 
strength ;  and  at  the  sixty-fifth  the  running  of  men  girt  with  com- 
plete armor. 

At  what  era  the  granting  of  statues  to  victors  was  established,  is 
unknown ;  but  at  this  sixty-fifth  celebration  the  athletic  style  in  sculp- 
ture had  already  reached  its  climax  of  perfection  under  Ageladas, 
|jthe  instructor  of  Phidias.     His  statue  for  a  victor,  made  at  that  era, 

nked  him  as  the  first  master  in  sculpture,  and  gathered  to  him 
pupils  of  special  genius.  Even  Phidias  himself,  at  the  sixty-sixth 
Olympiad,  four  years  later,  made  the  statue  of  a  victor  in  a  chariot 
race.     Alcamenes,  also,  the  favorite  pupil  and  rival  of  Phidias,  did 


320  AET   CEITICISM. 

not  regard  it  beneath  his  genius  to  execute  statues  of  the  same  class ; 
and  down  to  the  latest  period  of  the  art  in  Greece  we  find  some  of 
the  ablest  sculptors  either  wholly  devoted  to,  or  occasionally  design- 
ing statues  of  athletes. 

The  aim  of  the  athletic  style  was  to  bring  out  the  perfect  anatomy 
of  the  human  form,  when  every  joint  and  muscle  and  feature 
was  strained  to  the  utmost  tension  in  every  variety  of  gymnastic 
exercise.  The  figures  were  evidently  ideal,  not  likenesses  of  the 
victors;  they  were  perfectly  nude,  showing  every  portion  of  the 
frame ;  the  beard  was  either  entirely  removed,  or  cropped  short ;  and 
every  variety  of  position  and  expression  was  studied  and  copied. 
Famed  master-pieces  of  the  athletic  style  still  exist  in  the  Gladiator, 
called  the  Borghese  Hero  from  the  villa  at  Rome  where  it  was  found 
buried,  the  work  of  Agasias  of  Ephesus,  who  lived,  perhaps,  a  cen- 
tury later  than  Ageladas;  also  in  the  Boxer  and  the  Quoit-thrower, 
and  in  many  less  celebrated  works. 

Sect.  4.  The  Grand  style  ennobled  by  Phidias;  majestic  ideals  of 

HERO- WORSHIP  IN  THE  AGE  OF  GrEEK  CULTURE;  ILLUSTRATED  IN  THE 

Minerva  and  Jove  of  Phidias. 

Phidias,  the  great  master  of  this  and  of  all  the  Grecian  ages  in 
sculpture,  was  born  B.  C.  500 ;  his  instructor  was  Ageladas ;  Socrates 
was  teaching  philosophy  at  Athens  during  his  mature  manhood; 
Pericles  was  rebuilding  Athens  when  his  genius  was  at  the  height  of 
power;  and  thus  everything  around  conspired  to  bring  forward  the 
master  of  the  grand  style  in  sculpture.  The  grand  is  the  beau- 
tiful and  the  vast  in  one,  the  union  of  grace  to  boldness ;  and  to  its 
attainment  an  age  of  intellectual  culture  is  essential.  About  B.  C. 
550,  a  century  nearly  before  the  maturity  of  Phidias  and  the  age  of 
Pericles,  Sicyon  had  led  the  way  in  introducing  into  the  common 
schools  of  Greece  the  study  of  plastic  art,  and  the  training  of  all 
the  youth  to  personal  practice  in  modeling.  Athens  was  not  long 
in  following  the  example;  and  all  her  people,  therefore,  thus  edu- 
cated, were  prepared  to  appreciate  and  patronize  the  true  artist. 
The  age  that  matured  a  Sophocles,  a  Themistocles,  a  Pericles, 
and  a  Plato,  the  climactic  period  of  the  philosophic,  literary,  civil, 
and  military  glory  of  Greece,  produced  Phidias.  It  required  a  cen- 
tury of  art  training  of  the  whole  Grecian  people  and  the  contem- 
porary influence  of  a  spiritual  philosophy  to  develop  such  a  genius. 

Phidias  was  truly  and  purely  original  in  his  studies  and  work;  yet 
he  doubtless  owed  much  to  his  teacher  and  his  contemporaries,  as 


I 


CHARACTERISTICS   OF   PHIDIAS   AS   AN   ARTIST.  321 

well  as  to  the  people,  whose  criticisms  he  invited.  Cicero  thus  hints 
his  effort,  like  Plato,  to  attain  ideal  excellence  in  art;  "Phidias, 
when  he  would  make  a  form  of  Jupiter,  or  Minerva,  did  not  con- 
template anything  from  which  he  should  draw  the  likeness ;  but  in 
his  own  mind  there  was  a  certain  species  of  select  beauty,  gazing  on 
which,  and  fixed  upon  it,  he  directed  his  art  and  hand  to  execute  its 
likeness."  His  success  in  ideal,  rather  than  real  studies,  is  intimated 
by  the  statement  of  Quinctilian  the  great  Roman  critic ;  "  Phidias, 
however,  has  the  reputation  of  having  been  a  better  artificer  in 
executing  statues  of  Gods  than  of  men."^ 

The  greatness  of  Phidias  was  enhanced  by  his  magnanimity 
towards  other  artists.  His  most  eminent  pupils  were  Agoracritus, 
Alcamenes,  and  Colotes.  The  former  was  favorite  with  his  master 
because  he  so  closely  copied  his  works  and  depended  on  him  for  aid 
in  executing  his  own.  Alcamenes  w^as  more  of  a  rival  than  a  pupil ; 
of  whom  Pliny  says,  "Phidias  taught  the  Athenian  Alcamenes  to 
be  noble  among  the  first  artists;"  and  yet  though  a  rival,  Pliny 
says  Phidias  aided  him,  and  "is  said  to  have  put  his  own  hand 
to  his  pupil's  chief  work."  Colotes,  Pliny  mentions  as  having 
been  the  "aid,"  or  assistant  of  his  master,  in  making  his  Olym- 
pian Jove.  Besides  this  magnanimity  towards  his  pupils  Phidias 
showed  generosity  to  his  master  Ageladas,  who  excelled  in  the  ath- 
letic style;  and  to  Calamis,  his  contemporary,  who  was  unequalled 
in  equestrian  statuary,  or  in  executing  horses  and  chariots  in 
bronze. 

The  peculiar  characteristic  of  Phidias  and  of  the  school  of  which 
he  was  the  head,  was  the  grandeur,  the  high  intellectual  sentiment 
breathed  into  the  bold  style  of  the  first  great  sculptor.  This  charac- 
teristic shows  itself  not  simply  in  his  single  figures,  but  even  more  in 
his  combinations,  and  groupings  of  several  harmonious  figures,  each 
with  their  appropriate  emblems  and  accompaniments.  He  was  in 
fact  to  Greece  what  Michel  Angelo  afterwards  was  to  Italy,  "the 
grand  artist;"  the  leading  mind  at  once  in  architecture,  sculpture, 
and  painting.  Pliny,  speaking  of  the  two  arts  of  painting  and 
statuary,  throws  in  this  clause,  "both  of  which  began  with  Phidias;" 
and  he  adds,  "That  Phidias  was  the  most  illustrious  artist  among 
all  nations,  no  one  that  knows  the  fame  of  the  Olympian  Jove 
doubts." 


'  Quinctil.  Lib.  XII.     "  Phidias  tamen  diis  quara  horainibus  efficiendis  me- 
lior  artifex  traditur." 

2Q 


322  ART  CRITICISM. 

The  greatest  of  his  single  works  in  sculpture,  was  his  Jove; 
of  which  Pliny  remarks:  "Before  all  artists  is  Phidias  in  his 
Olympian  Jove  made  of  ivory  and  gold."  The  idea  was  conceived 
by  Phidias  after  the  description  given  by  Homer/  when  one  day 
passing  a  school-room  he  heard  a  boy  reading  the  great  poet.  It 
was  made  for  the  temple  of  Elis.  The  image  was  forty-six  feet  high, 
seated  upon  a  throne;  his  face  was  bearded,  and  his  head  crowned 
with  olive ;  his  person  was  bare  down  to  the  cincture,  below  which 
hung  his  pallium  or  robe  in  graceful  folds.  In  his  right  hand  he  held 
a  standing  figure  of  Victory,  carved  in  ivory  and  gold,  with  her  head 
bound  with  a  fillet  and  surmounted  by  a  crown ;  and  his  left  hand 
rested  upon  a  sceptre  surmounted  by  an  eagle.  The  entire  statue  was 
of  ivory  and  gold ;  the  body,  arms,  and  robe  chiefly  of  ivory ;  the 
hair  of  beaten  gold,  as  also  the  lily  work  and  figures  of  animals 
which  embossed  the  skirt  of  the  robe.  The  pedestal  and  throne  were 
of  ivory,  ebony  and  gold ;  its  sides  were  surrounded  with  bas-reliefs ; 
and  its  corners  were  supported  by  four  dancing  victories,  each  stand- 
ing upon  a  sphynx  tearing  in  pieces  a  Theban  youth.  The  aweing 
majesty  of  this  figure,  overpowering  men  of  the  noblest  and  sternest 
mind,  can  scarcely  have  found  a  parallel  in  the  history  of  ancient 
art. 

The  great  work  of  Phidias  was  the  adorning  of  the  Parthenon ; 
committed  to  his  care,  as  Plutarch  records,  by  Pericles.  The  chief 
works  of  sculpture  were  the  colossal  Minerva  standing  within  the 
open  or  hypsethral  cells  of  the  Parthenon ;  the  half  colossal  groups 
in  the  Eastern  and  Western  tympana  of  the  temple;  the  life-size 
high  reliefs  in  the  metopes,  or  depressions  under  the  cornice;  and 
the  line  of  half  size  low-reliefs  running  completely  round  the  temple 
upon  the  frieze  inside  of  the  columns. 

The  -colossal  Minerva,  twenty-six  cubits  or  about  thirty-five  feet 
in  height,  was  of  polished  ivory  and  gold ;  the  ivory  forming  the 
flesh-colored  parts  of  the  work,  the  robe  being  of  gold,  and  the  eyes 
of  precious  stones.  Her  helmet  had  a  sphynx  on  the  crest  and  a 
griffin  on  either  side;  and  her  tunic,  open  about  the  neck,  showing 
the  ivory  bosom  beneath,  flowed  to  her  feet  in  graceful  golden  folds. 
On  her  breast-plate,  which  was  of  gold,  a  Medusa's  head  of  ivory 
was  wrought;  at  her  side,  resting  on  the  ground,  was  her  shield  with 
the  contest  of  the  Amazons  on  the  front,  and  that  of  the  gods  and 
giants  on  the  back ;  and  on  her  sandals  was  embossed  the  battle  of 


'Homer  Iliad,  I.  528-30. 


WOEKS   OF   PHIDIAS   IN   THE   PARTHENON.  323 

the  Centaurs  and  Lapithse.  Upon  the  side  of  the  pedestal  was 
inscribed  Pandora's  history  with* thirty  figures  introduced;  and  on 
its  top  at  Minerva's  feet  a  serpent  crawled.  This  master-piece  of 
Phidias  was  struck  by  lightning  in  the  times  of  Julius  Csesar,  and 
afterwards  carried  to  Constantinople,  where  it  perished  by  fire.  It 
is  to  be  carefully  distinguished  from  the  larger  Minerva  of  brass, 
made  from  the  spoils  taken  from  the  Persians  in  the  battle  of  Mara- 
thon, and  placed  outside  and  in  front  of  the  Parthenon  towards  the 
Propylsea.  It  was  this  latter  Minerva  of  which  Pausanias  says  that 
the  point  of  her  spear  and  the  crest  of  her  helmet  were  visible  to 
mariners  as  soon  as  they  doubled  the  promontory  of  Sunium.  It  is 
to  this, too, that  Demosthenes^  refers;  since  this  stood  in  full  view  from 
the  Pynx  where  he  spoke ;  while  the  statue  within  the  temple  was 
almost  entirely  hidden  by  its  walls  and  roof. 

The  subject  of  the  group  in  the  tympanum  of  the  "Western  or  prin- 
cipal front,  now  sadly  mutilated,  is  apparently  the  introduction  by 
Jupiter,  the  supreme  god,  of  Minerva  as  the  future  ruler  of  Athens 
succeeding  Neptune.  Jove  stands  under  the  peak  of  the  roof  on  a 
slight  pedestal  with  the  eagle  at  his  feet,  and  his  head  rising  to  the 
apex.  On  his  right  is  Neptune,  ruler  of  Greece  in  her  early  days, 
when,  like  modern  England,  she  was  warlike  and  mistress  of  the  sea ; 
and  behind  him  are  grouped  Mars  and  the  deities  of  rougher  mould. 
On  Jove's  left  is  Minerva,  in  a  chariot  and  helmeted,  the  embodiment 
of  chastened  culture  and  feminine  refinement  united  with  military 
prowess ;  preceded  by  Mercury,  winged  and  bearing  a  palm-branch ; 
and  followed  by  a  train  of  the  more  intellectual  deities.  The  figures 
are  so  arranged  as  to  fill  up  the  gradually  diminishing  height  under 
the  eaves ;  Jove  colossal,  standing  in  the  centre  upon  a  pedestal ; 
Neptune  and  Mars,  Mercury  and  Minerva  half  colossal  and  standing 
upon  the  ground ;  the  next  on  either  side  seated ;  and  the  last  reclin- 
ing with  feet  extended  under  the  eaves. 

The  subject  of  the  !East  front  is  unknown ;  as  the  group  was  almost 
entirely  destroyed  by  a  Venetian  bombshell,  which  was  thrown  into 
the  centre  of  the  temple  during  an  attack  upon  the  city  some  two  or 

iree  centuries  ago.  The  subject  of  the  life-sized  group  on  the 
letopes  is  the  contest  of  the  Centaurs  and  the  Lapithse ;  emblematic 
the  rough  aboriginal  tribes  subdued  by  a  more  cultured  race ;  the 

mtaurs  being  represented  according  to  the  ancient  legend  with  a 
lan  head,  breast  and  arms,  united  to  the  body  and  legs  of  a  horse. 


'  Pausanias  I.  28,  2.  Demos.  Orat.  on  the  Embassy  of  iEschines. 


324 


ART  CRITICISM. 


The  long  line  of  sculpture  in  low-relief  running  quite  around  the 
temple  within  the  colonnade,  and  on  the  back  of  the  frieze,  is  a  pro- 
cession, apparently  in  honor  of  Minerva's  entrance  upon  the  sov- 
ereignty of  the  city. 

In  the  sculpture  of  the  Parthenon,  the  most  perfect  of  that  or  of 
any  age,  these  great  principles  are  observed.  The  fully  sculptured 
figures,  and  those  of  colossal  size,  are  all  deities ;  the  human  figures 
are  of  life,  or  half  size,  and  in  relief.  In  the  sculpture  of  that  age,  the 
perversion  of  mingling  animal  attributes  with  human  to  create  a 
superior  being,  was  rejected;  these  relics  of  Egyptian  taste,  with  the 
single  exception  of  Mercury  modeled  like  a  modern  angel  wdth 
wings,  being  confined  to  the  parts  of  the  works  represented  as  not 
living,  but  embossed  images.  The  Minerva  is,  of  course,  supposed 
to  be  a  living  existence :  but  the  sphynx,  with  human  head  and  lion's 
body,  and  the  griffins  with  eagle's  head  and  wings  and  lion's  body 
wrought  upon  the  helmet  of  Minerva,  are  designed  to  be  only  copies 
of  Egyptian  ideas ;  while,  too,  the  Centaurs  with  a  human  head  and 
body  united  at  the  neck  to  the  body  of  the  horse,  are  designed  to  be 
only  an  embodiment  of  an  ancient  fable.  The  physical,  as  well  as 
the  moral  cast  given  to  the  sculpture  of  this  age,  is  of  the  highest 
order  of  excellence;  the  life  and  grace  of  the  human  figure  is  as 
perfect  as  man's  work  can  well  be ;  and  the  horses,  lions,  oxen  and 
even  the  serpents,  in  all  their  parts  and  postures,  are  as  complete  a 
study  of  nature  as  human  art  has  ever  attained. 

Sect.  5.  The  Graceful  Style;  pebfected  by  Praxiteles;   ideals  of 

PHYSICAL  beauty  ILLUSTRATED  IN  THE  VeNUS   DE    MeDICI,    OF   INTELLEC- 
TUAL GRACE   IN   THE  ApOLLO    BeLVIDERE,  AND    OF   COMPOSITE   SYMMETRY 

IN  THE  Amazon  and  Hermaphrodite. 

The  perfection  of  manly  nobleness,  the  early  ideal  of  the  Grecian 
sculptor  was  reached  by  Phidias;  and  there  was  left  no  field  for 
improvement  except  it  were  in  a  more  delicate  grace  of  outline  and 
a  more  elaborate  finish  of  detail,  belonging  to  female  loveliness. 
The  pupils  of  Phidias  who  shared  his  genius,  instead  of  being  mere 
imitators  of  their  master,  sought  original  excellence  in  this  par- 
ticular. 

It  should  be  observed  here,  however,  as  in  all  the  history  of  art, 
that  different  styles  are  not  to  be  separated  from  one  another  by 
fixed  chronological  lines.  Myron,  whose  works  preceded  those  of 
Phidias  by  a  few  years,  seems  to  have  been  the  earliest  who  attained 
excellence  in  the  graceful  style ;  and  from  him,  as  well  as  from  their 


MODEL   THE   BEAUTIFUL   PHRYNE.  325 

immediate  master,  the  pupils  of  Phidias  must  have  learned.  Of 
Myron,  Pliny  speaks  as  the  one  who  first  seemed  "to  have  multiplied 
truth ;"  which  he  seems  to  explain  by  the  statement  that  he  first 
made  practical  the  idea  that  true  beauty  in  the  human  form  consists 
in  the  accord  of  the  parts  with  their  natural  destination ;  and  that, 
therefore,  the  forms  of  the  racer  and  the  boxer  are  beautiful  when 
the  strained  muscles  of  the  legs  and  arms,  which  otherwise  would 
seem  distorted  and  cause  a  painful  impression,  are  in  keeping  with 
the  action  expressed.  In  farther  illustration  of  his  style,  Pliny 
speaks  of  Myron  as  "more  attentive  to  symmetry,"  than  preceding 
sculptors;  Quinctilian  characterizes  his  works  as  "more  delicately 
wrought  than  those  of  Calamis,"  and  other  artists  of  his  time ;  and 
Cicero  says,  "  although  the  works  of  Myron  had  not  yet  sufiiciently 
attained  to  truth,  yet  they  were  such  as  you  could  not  hesitate  to 
call  beautiful."^  Myron,  therefore,  the  predecessor  of  Phidias, 
though  not  a  perfect  master,  was  yet  a  leader  in  the  style  called 
beautiful  or  graceful. 

To  Praxiteles,  however,  the  pupil  of  Phidias,  the  honor  of  being 
chief  master  in  this  style  is  generally  attributed ;  though  it  is  in  the 
works  of  his  pupils  and  successors,  copied  from  their  master,  rather 
than  in  his  own,  that  his  fame  lives.  Praxiteles,  wrought  in  both 
marble  and  brass;  Pliny  stating,  "Praxiteles  was  more  successful  in 
marble,  and  for  this  reason  was  the  more  renowned.  He  made, 
nevertheless,  from  brass,  most  beautiful  works."  Phidias'  bolder 
conceptions  had  been  wrought  in  less  generous  material ;  but  Praxi- 
teles chose  marble  to  which  delicacy  of  finish  is  most  allied ;  while 
even  in  coarse  brass  he  had  the  touch  that  calls  forth  beauty.  So 
exalted  is  Pliny's  estimate  that  he  names  the  age  after  him,  saying, 
"  We  have  spoken  of  the  age  of  statuaries,  as  the  age  of  Praxiteles." 
His  works,  among  others,  were  statues  of  Mercury,  Bacchus,  Diana, 
Ceres,  and  other  gods  and  goddesses ;  but  pre-eminently  of  the  real 
living  female  beauty  "  Phryne,"  the  courtesan,  and  of  the  ideal  god- 
dess of  beauty  and  sensual  love,  Venus.  The  only  work  of  his  that 
now  exists,  probably  is  to  be  found  in  the  bas-reliefs  upon  the  frieze 
of  the  Parthenon. 

The  famed  Venuses  of  Praxiteles,  and  also  his  Phryne,  renowned 
as  the  most  matchless  forms  of  female  grace,  no  longer  exist ;  except 
in  the  copy  by  Scopas,  the  famed  Venus  de  Medici.  The  model, 
Phryne,  was  a  Grecian  female  of  rarest  grace  of  form,  who  lived  at 


Pliny,  xxxiv.  19;  Quinctilian,  xii.  10;  Cicero,  Brut,  xviii.  70. 
28 


326  ART  CRITICISM. 

Athens  in  the  days  of  Praxiteles ;  a  female  of  loose  morality,  yet  for 
a  time,  a  favorite  of  the  great  artist  on  account  of  her  beauty. 
Apelles,  the  painter,  saw  her  bathing  and  took  her  as  the  model  for 
his  Venus  Anadyomene.  Praxiteles  had  her  stand  nude  for  a  statue 
of  her  real  form ;  and  then  took  the  same  as  a  type  for  his  ideal 
Venus.  Pliny  characterizes  two  statues  of  Praxiteles  noted  in  his 
day  as  "expressing  different  affections;  one,  those  of  a  weeping 
matron,  the  other,  those  of  a  rejoicing  courtesan."  This  latter  he  sup- 
poses to  have  been  Phryne;  which,  he  says,  is  inferred  "both  from 
the  love  of  the  artist  for  her,  and  from  the  mercenary  expression  in 
her  countenance."  Like  other  votaries  of  beauty,  as  illustrated  in 
the  modern  American  Powers,  Praxiteles  had  one  chief  ideal  which 
gave  tone  to  all  his  works ;  his  Venuses  being  his  favorite  Phryne. 
"Before  all  works,"  says  Pliny,  "not  only  of  Praxiteles,  but  in  the 
whole  world,  is  the  Venus;  in  order  to  see  which,  many  have  made 
a  voyage  to  the  isle  of  Cnidus."  He  adds,  that  Praxiteles  made 
two  at  the  same  time,  and  offered  both  for  sale ;  one  veiled,  the  other 
nude.  The  islanders  of  Coos,  who  had  the  first  choice,  "preferred 
the  veiled  statue  as  severe  and  chaste.  The  Cnidians  bought  the 
rejected  one;  and  by  this  statue  Praxiteles  ennobled  Cnidus.  The 
little  temple  built  for  it  was  entirely  open,  so  that  the  effigy  of  the 
goddess  could  be  viewed  on  all  sides ;  nor  was  there  less  admiration 
upon  whatever  side  it  was  scanned."  No  statue  ever  called  forth 
such  universal  and  unqualified  plaudits  from  the  lovers  of  art  in 
ancient  times;  as  no  statue  in  modern  times  has  been  so  admired 
as  its  copy,  the  Venus  de  Medici.  Poets  and  orators,  Grecian  and 
Koman,  allude  to  it ;  and  critics  like  Lucian,^  analyze  the  elements 
of  its  grace,  as  seen  in  the  posture,  the  hands,  feet,  and  back,  and  in 
the  head,  hair,  eyebrows,  eye,  and  every  feature. 

After  Praxiteles,  Scopas  is  to  be  mentioned  as  eminent  in  the 
school  of  the  Beautiful.  There  has  come  down  to  our  day  a  peerless 
form,  called  the  Venus  de  Medici,  because  when  rescued  from  the 
ruins  of  Rome,  it  was  purchased  by  the  noble  family  of  the  Medici, 
and  placed  among  their  art  collections  at  Florence.  Scopas,  its 
probable  author,  living  a  little  later  than  Praxiteles,  was  engaged  in 
adorning  the  great  temple  of  Diana,  at  Ephesus,  and  other  archi- 
tectural works ;  but  his  great  glory  was  his  numerous  single  statues. 
Pliny  comparing  him  with  Praxiteles  and  other  sculptors,  says,  "  The 
fame  of  Scopas  vied  with  these."     In  mentioning  the  work  of  his 


Lucian  Amor,  xiii.  and  xiv. 


THE   VENUS   DI   MEDICI   THE   MODEL   OF   GEACE.  327 

supposed  to  live  in  the  Venus  de  Medici,  having  before  spoken  of 
several  of  the  statues  of  Scopas  which  adorned  the  Flaminian  Circus 
at  Rome,  Pliny  says,  "Moreover,  his  nude  Venus  in  the  Flaminian 
Circus,  surpassing  that  of  Praxiteles,  is  a  work  that  would  ennoble 
any  other  place."  Amid  the  ruins  of  fallen  Rome  the  arms  of  this 
peerless  statue  yet  lie  buried ;  the  right  from  the  shoulder  and  the 
left  from  the  elbow  were  restored  by  an  Italian  artist.  These  are  by 
some  critics  regarded  as  unworthy  of  the  matchless  form  to  which 
they  are  appended;  while  the  most  casual  observer  cannot  resist  the 
displeasing  impression  of  the  snowy  white  new  arms  pieced  upon  the 
sober  grey  of  the  soiled  antique,  which  they  seem  to  mar.  In  this 
work  Venus  is  represented  as  coming  from  the  bath;  and  as  if 
startled  by  the  approach  of  some  one,  she  is  turning  her  head 
slightly  to  one  side,  her  eye  is  cast  upward,  as  if  to  avoid  meeting 
the  gaze  of  the  intruder,  while  her  right  hand  is  thrown  forward  to 
.  veil  her  breast,  and  her  left  to  screen  her  middle.  The  artist's  ideal 
is  a  girl  just  matured,  of  sanguine  temperament,  perfectly  alive  with 
the  quick  sensibility  belonging  to  feminine  delicacy;  while  every 
gesture  is  radiant  with  the  grace  of  position  and  movement  that 
attends  chaste  impulses.  In  all  these  respects  the  Venus  de  Medici 
is  the  counterpart  of  the  sadly  reflecting,  the  subdued  and  shrinking 
being,  accustomed  to  be  scanned  by  vulgar  eyes,  yet  sorrowfully 
averting  her  face  from  sensual  gaze,  which  Powers  has  conceived 
and  executed  in  his  Greek  Slave. 

The  posture,  the  expression,  the  curve  of  every  limb,  and  the 
rounding  of  every  muscle  in  this  Venus,  has  in  ancient  and 
modern  times  alike  called  forth  a  lavish  expenditure  of  admi- 
ration such  as  no  work  of  art  has  ever  excited.  Ovid^  extols 
the  grace  into  which  shrinking  modesty  has  thrown  her  posture ;  and 
also  to  the  fascinating  roll  and  the  pinkish  lustre  of  the  eye  of  love 
in  Venus,  so  in  contrast  with  the  yellow  tinge  of  unimpassioned 
intellect  in  Minerva.  Terence  alludes  with  warmth  to  her  full  and 
gracefully  tapered  chest;  condemning  the  mothers  who,  in  his  day, 
sought  to  enhance  their  daughters'  beauty  by  "drooped  shoulders 
and  a  laced  waist;"  as  if  they  could  thus  improve  on  "Nature's 
good  work."  Winckelmann  and  other  modern  critics  have  devoted 
pages  to  separate   beauties  in  this  matchless   form.     In   speaking 

If  the  foot  and  of  the  head  as  the  modulus  for  other  parts  of 
ke  body,  Winckelmann  urges  that  it  is  an  approximate,  not  an 


328  ART  CRITICISM. 

arbitrary  rule  which  the  ancients  laid  down,  citing  as  proof  the 
proportions  of  the  Venus  de  Medici;  whose. form  is  uncommonly 
slender,  her  head  unusually  small,  and  her  foot  long;  her  height 
being  seven  and  a-half  heads  and  less  than  six  measures  of  her  foot ; 
which  is  a  palm  and  half  an  inch,  9.3  English  inches  long,  and  her 
height  six  and  one-half  palms,  or  4.76  English  feet. 

The  spirit  of  the  style  called  graceful*  exhibits  itself  in  the  selec- 
tion of  youth  as  models  for  deities  such  as  Bacchus  and  Apollo. 
Pliny  records  of  Praxiteles,  the  master  in  this  style,  that  he  made 
"puberem  Apollinem"  a  youthful  Apollo.  Several  sculptors  of  the 
same  school  are  mentioned  as  having  made  statues  of  Apollo ;  some 
nude,  and  others  more  or  less  draped.  To  this  age,  or  at  least  to 
this  class,  that  model  of  ancient  sculpture,  next  to  the  Venus  de  Me- 
dici, the  Apollo  Belvidere  belongs ;  though,  as  a  remarkable  instance 
of  the  uncertainty  of  fame  its  immediate  author  is  unknown.  Some, 
indeed,  have  regarded  it  as  the  "Apollo  Allexicacos,"  Apollo  the 
deliverer  from  evil,  which  was  the  work  of  Calamis,  the  contempo- 
rary of  Phidias,  mentioned  by  Pausanias,^  which  was  modelled  after 
the  Apollo  Toxeos,  or  archer,  of  Phidias ;  while  others  have  believed 
it  to  be  another  Apollo  of  Calamis  referred  to  by  Pliny  thus,  "In 
the  Servilian  gardens  I  meet  with  the  lauded  works  of  Calamis, 
especially  the  Apollo  of  that  sculptor." 

This  Apollo  was  called  Belvidere  from  the  Italian  belvidere, 
French  bellevue,  or  cupola  of  the  Vatican  palace,  where  it  was 
placed  by  Pope  Julian  II.,  when  found  amid  the  ruins  of  Antium 
and  purchased  by  that  Pope  in  the  Fifteenth  Century.  It  is  seven 
feet  in  stature ;  nude,  with  the  exception  of  the  pallium,  or  small 
cloak,  hanging  over  the  left  shoulder  and  arm.  The  god  stands 
with  a  quiver  hanging  over  his  right  shoulder,  a  bow  in  his  right 
hand  with  his  feet  and  arms  extended,  his  head  thrown  slightly  back, 
and  the  eye  distended,  indicating  that  he  has  just  hurled  his  arrow. 
The  brow  especially  of  this  Apollo  has  been  the  theme  of  admiration ; 
the  facial  angle  approaching  a  right  angle  and  being  expressive  of 
the  highest  order  of  intellect.  Winckelmann,  with  his  peculiar  pene- 
tration, has  noticed  the  fact  that  the  left  or  retired  leg  of  this  statue 
is  made  longer  by  two  inches,  and  larger  proportionately  than  the 
other;  and  as  he  finds  the  same  peculiarity  in  ancient  Egyptian 
statues  and  in  the  Laocoon,  he  deduces  from  it  a  principle  that 
ancient  sculptors  sought  to  compensate  for  the  apparent  diminution 


Pausanias  I.  iii.  2. 


THE  AMAZON  AND  HERMAPHRODITE  AS  COUNTERPARTS.     329 

of  a  retreating  or  foreshortened  limb  by  giving  it  an  increased  size. 
He  notices  also  the  measurements  of  the  Apollo  similar  in  prin- 
ciple to  those  of  the  Venus;  the  height  being  a  little  more  than 
seven  heads,  while  the  foot  upon  which  he  stands  is  one-quarter  of  a 
Roman  palm,  two  and  one-fifth  English  inches  longer  than  his  head. 
The  arms  of  the  Apollo,  as  those  of  the  Venus,  are  modern ;  the 
parts  below  the  elbow  having  been  broken  off  and  lost,  and  supplied 
in  the  revival  of  art  by  an  Italian  artist.  The  Apollo  Belvidere,  in 
features,  limbs  and  posture,,  is  modelled  after  the  graceful  style; 
while  the  exalted  brow  has  made  it  for  all  succeeding  ages  the  em- 
bodiment unequalled  of  the  beauty  which  superior  intellect  gives  to 
manly  proportion. 

The  next  natural  step,  in  the  advance  of  this  style,  was  the  effort 
to  graft  manly  grace  upon  a  female  form  in  the  person  of  the  Ama- 
zon. As  already  remarked,  the  Minervas  of  Phidias,  and  of  earlier 
sculptors,  were  really  the  offspring  of  this  same  idea.  The  most 
celebrated  of  Amazons  proper  was  by  Polyclitus,  who  lived  in  the 
age  of  Praxiteles.  Among  his  works  were  boys,  naked  contestants, 
women  carrying  baskets.  The  most  celebrated  of  these  was  the  youth 
called  "The  Crowned,"  of  which  Pliny  says  it  was  "voluptuously" 
wrought,  and  which  Lucian  styles  "  the  beautiful  work  of  Polyclitus ;" 
and  also  the  Doryphorus,  or  spear-bearer,  called  by  Pliny  "the  boy 
wrought  in  manly  style."  Pliny  makes  this  special  note  of  Polyclitus ; 
"He  made  also  a  statue  which  artists  call  a  canon,  from  which  as  a 
fixed  standard  they  derive  the  lineaments  of  art ;  and  he  alone  of  men  is 
judged  to  have  embodied  art  itself  in  a  work  of  art."  Upon  the 
Amazon  as  the  ideal  of  beauty  in  which  Polyclitus  excelled,  Pliny 
remarks,  "  The  most  lauded  of  Grecian  sculptors  came  into  compari- 
son, although  born  in  different  ages,  when  they  made  ■  Amazons. 
When  several  of  these  were  consecrated  in  the  temple  of  Diana  at 
Ephesus,  it  was  agreed  that  the  one  should  be  selected  as  most 
approved  in  the  judgment  of  the  artists  themselves,  which  each  of  the 
artists  interested  placed  as  second  to  his  own.  This  was  the  Ama- 
zon of  Polyclitus ;  and  the  next  after  that  the  one  of  Phidias." 

The  final  effort  of  the  graceful  style  was  the  study  of  feminine  deli- 
cacy as  refining  masculine  forms ;  the  Hermaphrodite,  or  Mercury- 
Venus,  the  grace  of  woman  incorporated  into  man's  mould,  being 
the  embodiment  of  this  special  idea.  The  master-work  of  this  kind, 
one  now  existing  and  often  copied,  is  that  of  Polycles  thus  referred 
to  by  Pliny,  "Polycles  made  a  noble  Hermaphrodite."  This  figure, 
preserved  in  the  Villa  Borghese  at  Rome,  is  reclining  with  the  face 
28  •»  2  R 


330  ART   CRITICISM. 

downward ;  in  part  to  hide  its  natural  deformity,  and  in  part  to  pre- 
sent its  rare  form  to  better  advantage.  The  hands  of  this  statue 
Winckelmann  regards  as  among  the  most  "beautiful  of  female 
hands."  On  this  general  class  of  sculpture  the  suggestions  of  this 
critic  are  minute  and  discriminating. 

The  view  of  this  style  of  Grecian  Sculpture  would  be  incomplete, 
unless  allusion  were  made  to  the  fact  that  Praxiteles  and  his  school 
after  him  introduced  the  coloring  or  tinting  of  their  statues.  The 
consideration  of  this  subject,  however,  both  as  to  the  nature  and  pro- 
priety of  the  method,  belong  rather  to  Painting  than  to  Sculpture. 
Sculpture  proper  presents  form  alone,  not  color;  and  the  more  rigidly 
the  attention  is  held  in  the  study  of  art  to  a  close  analysis,  the  more 
discriminating  criticism  becomes.  Were  this  feature  of  the  method 
of  the  school  of  Praxiteles  properly  introduced  here,  it  might  allow 
that  his  style  be  characterized  by  the  general  designation  used  by 
Winckelmann,  the  Beautiful;  rather  than  by  the  term  Graceful, 
which  is  restricted  to  form. 

Sect.  6.  The  Historical  Style,  dignified  by  Lysippus;  Sculptured 
Likenesses  of  Living  Men  with  ideal  Accessories;  Illustrated 
in  Busts  and  the  Statues  of  Alexander. 

The  styles  of  sculpture  thus  far  considered  demand  the  embodi- 
ment of  ideal,  not  of  real  images.  The  deified  heroes  of  the  past,  as 
gods  and  demi-gods,  were  imaginary  beings;  while  the  contests  of 
the  arena  were  fictitious  triumphs,  and  the  sculptured  victors  speci- 
mens of  a  class,  not  real  personages.  Indeed,  later  sculptures  in  bas- 
relief,  as  in  the  Parthenon,  commemorating  achievements  of  heroes 
of  the  artist's  day,  were,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  too  small  to 
present  positive  likenesses  of  the  men  whose  deeds  they  recorded. 
It  was  a  distinct,  and,  in  one  sense,  higher  style,  when  exact  like- 
nesses of  living  men  were  cut  in  marble;  and  the  artist  sought  to 
catch  in  sculpture  not  the  blank  inexpressive  cast  of  features,  but  the 
expression  most  characteristic  of  the  subject,  or  one  transcending 
the  original. 

In  this  branch  of  art  as  in  many  a  field  of  invention  it  seems 
to  have  been,  if  we  may  credit  Pliny,  woman's  love,  stimulatiug 
her  quicker  intuitive  suggestions,  that  discovered  a  practical 
and  certain  method  of  taking  likenesses  in  sculptured  form.  As 
affection  demands  an  embodiment  of  an  object  beloved  that  may  be 
kept  present  when  that  object  itself  is  absent,  it  is  natural  to  suppose 
that  this  strongest  desire  of  human  nature  prompted  first  the  method 


<' 


BUSTS,   GIVING   LIKENESSES   AND   EXPRESSION.  331 

of  taking  life-like  impressions  of  human  features.  Tracing  the  early- 
history  of  Grecian  statuary  Pliny^  makes  this  record  of  an  artist,  or 
artisan,  who  lived  about  B.  C.  500.  "Dibutiades,  a  Sicyonian 
potter,  first  invented,  at  Corinth,  a  mode  of  taking  likenesses  in  clay. 
It  was  really  the  work  of  his  daughter,  who,  being  in  love  with  a 
young  man  who  was  to  make  a  voyage  to  a  foreign  country,  traced 
the  shadow  of  his  face  cast  by  a  lamp  on  a  wall ;  from  which  outline 
her  father  made  the  portrait  of  the  youth  in  clay  impressed  upon 
the  drawing,  and  then  conceived  the  idea  of  hardening  it  with  other 
pottery  by  fire."  Probably,  therefore,  the  method  of  taking  casts 
directly  from  the  face  was  known  to  the  Greeks. 

The  historic  age  proper  seems  to  have  commenced  with  Alexander 
the  Great.  Hence  though  we  have  correct  likenesses  of  the  men 
after  that  day,  as  of  the  statesmen  and  warriors  of  the  last  days  of  the 
Roman  Republic  and  of  the  early  Emperors,  there  are  no  really  au- 
thentic likenesses  of  men  preceding  the  days  of  Alexander.  It 
seemed  to  have  been  a  passion  with  Alexander,  as  it  was  with  Napo- 
leon in  later  days,  to  have  copies  of  his  features  multiplied  by  such 
artists  as  Lysippus  the  sculptor,  Apelles  the  painter,  and  Pyrgoteles 
the  engraver;  an  ambition  which  prevailed  extensively  after  his 
time,  and  especially  among  the  Roman  patricians.  In  sculpture, 
Lysippus  was  the  great  originator  of  the  historic  style.  He  executed 
in  marble  a  series  of  likenesses  of  Alexander  from  his  boyhood  to 
his  manhood,  in  complete  statues  of  life-size. 

The  idea  of  executing  heads  alone,  arose  in  part  at  least  from  the 
influence  of  the  historic  style ;  though  it  had  also' its  foundation  partly 
in  the  graceful  or  beautiful  style.  It  was  natural  that  the  head 
should  be  made  a  chief  study  by  artists,  since  its  lines  of  grace  are 
the  most  beautiful,  and  since  also  the  expression  of  the  features  gives 
character  to  a  statue.  In  the  execution  of  the  forms  of  men  of  intel- 
lect, and  indeed  of  ordinary  male  or  even  female  figures,  the  head  is 
so  truly  the  work  of  the  sculptor  that  the  cost  of  time  and  material 
for  the  execution  of  the  entire  figure  may  well  be  regarded  unworthy 
the  toil  of  a  great  artist.  As  in  painting  so  in  sculpture,  heads  alone, 
busts  as  portraits,  came  to  be  the  artist's  chosen  work.  Myron,  the 
arly  sculptor,  excelled  in  the  heads  of  his  statues,  or  whole  figures ; 

hile  after  Phidias'  day,  as  Apelles  painted  only  the  head  of  his 

ost  famed  Venus,  so  great  sculptors  carved  heads  alone.     Pliny  in 


I 


'  Pliny  XXXV.  43.   Pliny's  word  for  likenesses  is  "imagines,"  and  for  portrait 
typum." 


332  ART   CRITICISM. 

mentioning  two  ancient  busts  held  in  great  esteem,  brought  to  Rome 
by  P.  Lentulus  the  Consul  and  placed  in  the  Capitol,  records  the 
names  of  their  authors  as  two  artists  most  eminent  in  this  style  of 
sculpture.  One  of  these.  Chares,  a  pupil  of  Lysippus,  was,  as  we 
shall  see,  admired  by  Cicero  and  other  eminent  critics  as  master  in 
another  department;  that  head  so  much  extolled  being  colossal  in 
size,  and  thus  partaking  of  that  other  style  in  which  he  also  excelled. 
After  the  age  of  Alexander,  especially  in  the  Augustan  age  of 
Rome,  busts  became  a  favorite  mode  of  handing  down  the  features 
of  eminent  men;  and  simple  heads,  or  heads  with  the  breast  and 
neck  cut  in  marble,  as  also  Imperial  features  in  high  relief  on  medal- 
lion plates  and  in  low-relief  upon  coins,  became  common.  The 
Greek  word  used  to  signify  a  bust  is  supposed  to  indicate  their  late 
origin ;  the  word  protome,  originally  referring  either  to  the  forepart 
of  an  inanimate  object  or  to  the  face  of  an  animal,  being  used  in  dis- 
tinction from  prosopon,  the  face  of  a  man,  to  designate  the  half  of  a 
man's  entire  figure  down  to  the  w^aist ;  while  the  bust  proper,  or  the 
head  with  the  breast,  was  called  thorax,  the  term  still  preserved  by 
anatomists.  In  the  Latin,  Pliny  used  the  word  capita  for  sculptured 
heads  or  busts,  and  vultus  for  painted  heads  or  portraits.  By  an 
interesting  analogy  the  English  word  "bust,"  signifying  the  breast 
as  distinguished  from  the  head,  is  derived  from  the  Latin  bustuin, 
a  term  designating  the  funeral  urn ;  which  like  the  bulging  breast 
of  the  human  form  stands  as  the  type  of  all  the  nobler  part  of  the 
living  man.  In  the  later  days  of  art  in  ancient  Rome  that  peculiar 
species  of  "antiques"  so-called,  originated,  which  has  the  head 
carved  in  white,  and  the  bust  in  colored  marble.  Pliny  in  one  of 
his  letters,^  highly  commends,  as  the  visitor  to  the  Roman  galleries 
now  must,  the  artistic  taste  of  the  busts  so  numerous  in  his  day;  yet 
hinting  their  incompleteness  as  works  of  art  by  the  remark,  "And 
indeed,  if  you  should  behold  a  head  of  a  statue,  or  some  member 
torn  off,  though  you  might  not  be  able  to  arrive  at  the  congruity  and 
harmony  of  the  whole,  you  could  nevertheless  judge  whether  that 
part  itself  was  elegant." 

Sect.  7.  The  Impassioned  Style;  Introduced  by  Scopas,  and  culmi- 
nating IN  Agesander  ;  Statues  embodying  ideas  of  Pkysical  Agony 
AND  OF  Mental  Anguish:  Illustrated  in  the  Laocoon  and  the 
Ntobe. 

As  the  different  styles  of  Grecian  sculpture  overlap  and  interlace 
one  another  in  point  of  time,  so  they  often  seem  blended  in  the  same 

'  Pliny  Epist.  Lib.  II.  epist.  5. 


1 


CHARACTERISLICS   OF   TRAGIC   SCULPTURE.  333 

artist.  In  fact  each  class  of  excellcDces  must  be  combined  to  a  cer- 
tain extent  in  every  great  master;  while,  nevertheless,  every  leading 
spirit  in  any  sphere  will  excel  in  some  one  line. 

Dalloway,  though  following  Winckelmann's  limited  division  of 
styles,  and  bringing  in  several  that  are  distinct  under  the  general 
heading  of  the  Beautiful,  presents  this  style  in  its  connection  with 
those  preceding.  His  words  are :  "  To  give  sublimity  to  beauty,  the 
artists  of  this  style  united  manly  and  womanly  attributes  together; 
as  in  Minerva  and  Apollo.  Beauty  of  repose  was  sought  by  the 
earlier  sculptors  of  this  class  in  the  Apollo ;  beauty  of  suffering  was 
the  aim  of  later  artists  as  seen  in  the  Laocoon  and  Niobe." 

Lysippus,  the  great  sculptor  of  the  age  of  Alexander  the  Great, 
taught  principles  to  his  pupils  which  made  them  to  become  leaders 
in  a  yet  more  advanced  style  of  art.  The  bold  style  of  Daedalus 
sought  to  express  energy  and  daring;  the  athletic  style  added  the 
physical  power  of  gymnastic  training;  the  grand  style  of  Phidias 
presented  a  quiet  intellectual  dignity;  the  graceful  style  of  Praxi- 
teles threw  a  charm  of  quiet  unimpassioned  loveliness  over  the  whole 
figure,  especially  of  woman ;  and  the  historic  style  gave  expression 
to  the  characteristic,  or  ordinarily  moving  impulse  of  individual 
men.  It  was  a  yet  added  department  of  art  when  passion,  too 
overwhelming  to  be  anything  more  than  temporary  in  the  sufferer, 
too  unnerving  to  be  endured  long  even  by  the  beholder,  and  yet  as 
the  tragedy  of  art  having  a  strange  power  of  fascination  over  the 
minds  of  men,  came  to  be  cut  in  all  its  truth  and  life  into  enduring 
marble;  giving  first  to  physical  torture  its  scowl  of  agony,  and  then 
to  mental  anguish  its  speechless  voice  of  woe.  This  new  and  added 
feature  in  sculpture,  is  indicated  by  the  famous  art  maxim  of  Lysip- 
pus, quoted  by  Pliny.  In  reply  to  Eupompus,  the  painter,  who 
asked  which  of  his  predecessors  he  should  follow,  Lysippus  replied 
by  pointing  to  a  crowd  of  men  all  differing  in  their  impulses  and 
attitudes,  and  saying,  "That  Nature  herself  was  to  be  imitated,  not 
the  artist."  Another  of  the  maxims  of  Lysippus  was  embodied  in 
his  remark  about  himself  that  "  he  made  men  as  they  seemed  to  him ; 
ot  as  they  were."  Lysippus,  besides  his  statues  of  Alexander  the 
reat,  executed  a  hunting  group  with  dogs,  and  modeled  a  series  of 
oups  of  the  "  Labors  of  Hercules ;"  which,  of  course,  required  the 
reatest  variety  in  animated  posture  and  impassioned  expression. 
It  is  when  speaking  of  Lysippus,  that  Pliny  remarks:  "The  Latin 

ILS  not  the  word  symmetry;''^  and  adds,  "which  quality  he  cultivated 
ost  diligently,  by  changing  the  proportions  assumed  by  the  ancient 


334  ART  CRITICISM. 

statuaries,  and  introducing  a  new  and  untried  system.  He  added 
much  to  the  art  of  statuary  by  expressing  the  hair,  by  making  heads 
smaller,  and  bodies  more  graceful  and  less  bloated,  through  which 
the  height  of  statues  seemed  greater."  Probably  while  the  principle 
of  foreshortening  is  here  referred  to,  there  is  more  important  refer- 
ence to  the  angular  sharpness  of  limbs,  the  towering  of  the  whole 
frame,  and  the  swelling  of  the  chest,  caused  by  the  writhings  and 
contortions  of  men  in  agony,  which  made  the  head  seem  small  as 
compared  with  the  distorted  body.  Quinctilian  and  Propertius^ 
spoke  of  this  characteristic  of  Lysippus;  the  former  alluding  to  his 
work  as  embodying  "natural  expression,"  and  the  latter  calling  his 
statues  "animosas,"  or  impassioned.  All  these  statements  indicate  that 
this  great  artist  practically  carried  out  the  suggestion  of  Socrates 
to  Cleiton,  that  the  sculptor  should  "represent  in  the  form  the  work- 
ings of  the  soul."  He  was  thus  in  execution,  as  well  as  theory,  the 
suggester  of  the  impassioned  style  of  Grecian  sculpture. 

Several  specimens  of  this  style  of  ancient  tragic  sculpture,  the 
work  of  a  series  of  artists  of  great  genius,  have  come  down  to  modern 
times  admired  through  all  the  past.  First  among  this  class  in  point 
of  merit,  though  last  in  the  time  of  its  execution,  is  the  group  of 
Laocoon  and  his  sons,  now  preserved  in  Rome.  It  represents  Lao- 
coon,  the  priest  of  Apollo,  and  his  two  sons,  struggling  with  the  two 
immense  serpents  from  the  sea,  as  fabled  in  the  siege  of  Troy  and  as 
pictured  by  Virgil  after  this  group  in  marble.  Pliny  speaks  of  it  at 
his  day  as  standing  in  the  baths  of  Titus;  and  there,  at  the  revival 
of  art  after  centuries  of  oblivion,  it  was  found,  still  filling  its  old 
station.  Pliny  ascribes  it  to  the  sculptor  Agesander  of  Khodes, 
with  his  son  Athenodorus  and  his  pupil  Polydorus,  who  lived  in  the 
days  of  the  successors  of  Alexander;  and  he  says  the  elder  artist 
carved  the  father  while  the  young  men  carved  the  sons.  Pliny  makes 
the  history  of  these  three  sculptors,  working  together,  to  give  turn 
to  the  sentiment  that  glory  in  art  cannot  be  confined  to  one  indi- 
vidual; and  says  that  it  is  a  "work  to  be  preferred  to  all  others,  both 
in  painting  and  sculpture;"  adding,  "Made  from  one  stone,  both  the 
father  and  his  children,  and  the  folds  of  the  dragons,"  this  work  of 
the  "Rhodian  family"  is  a  "wonder  of  the  agreement  in  conception 
of  different  minds."  A  cool  critic  like  Winckelmann  may  separate 
out  parts  to  be  viewed  alone;  and  may  dwell,  as  he  does,  on  the  sur- 
passing beauty  of  the  lower  limbs  of  both  the  father  and  his  sons. 


'  Qiiinct.  xii.  10;  Propert.  iii.  7,  9. 


THE  LAOCOON,  TOEO  FARNESE  AND  DYING  GLADIATOR.      335 

The  soul  of  the  artist,  however,  was  evidently  swallowed  up,  as  the 
beholder's  now  is,  with  the  agony  and  giant  struggling  evinced  by 
the  strained  muscles  and  the  contorted  features  of  the  sufferers. 
Though  in  detail  a  work  of  rarest  beauty,  it  is  strictly  an  embodi- 
ment of  the  conception  of  physical  agony;  and  as  such,  stands  at 
the  head  of  sculptures  in  a  distinct  style,  appropriately  designated 
the  Impassioned. 

Next  to  the  incomparable  Laocoon  as  a  masterpiece  in  this  style, 
is  the  "Mobe,  and  her  dying  children;"  the  mournfully  pleasing 
theme  of  poets  as  the  embodiment  of  mental  anguish.  It  is  the 
fruitful  Lydian  mother,  whose  children  were  struck  with  death  for 
her  irreverent  pride  at  their  number  and  promise,  suddenly  turned 
to  stone,  as  if  petrified  in  her  tearless  grief  Of  its  author,  Pliny 
records,  after  speaking  of  the  Venus  which  became  a  model,  "  There 
is  equal  hesitation  as  to  the  dying  children  of  Niobe  in  the  temple 
of  Apollo  Sosiani,  whether  Praxiteles  or  Scopas  made  it."  No  sensi- 
tive observer  can  view  this  statue  without  carrying  throughout  life, 
the  idea  of  grief  too  deep  for  tears. 

Yet  a  third  group  in  this  style  is  the  "  Toro  Farnese,"  or  Farnesian 
Bull,  so  called  from  the  Palace  at  Rome,  in  which  it  was  deposited 
when  found.  It  was  another  work  of  Khodian  sculptors,  brought 
to  Rome  in  the  early  conquest  of  that  island.  It  was  according  to 
Pliny  the  work  of  two  brother  artists,  Appolonius  and  Tauriscus, 
and  is  an  embodiment  of  the  legend  of  the  inhuman  mother  Dirce, 
seized  by  her  own  two  sons,  Zethus  and  Amphion,  who  were  enraged 
at  her  brutality,  and  tied  by  their  hands  to  the  wild  bull  to  be 
dragged  to  death.  The  muscular  energy  of  the  youth  who  holds 
the  furious  bull  by  the  nose,  while  his  brother  binds  the  mother, 
frenzied  with  mingled  rage  and  fear,  to  his  back,  absorb  the  beholder 
by  the  fascinating  spell  of  exciting  tragedy  in  sculpture. 

A  fourth  master-work  in  this  style  is  the  famed  Dying  Gla- 
diator, once  supposed  to  be  the  work  of  Ctesilaus,  contemporary 
with  Phidias,  of  whom  Pliny  says,  "he  made  a  wounded  man  sink- 
ing in  death ;  in  whom  it  can  be  seen  how  much  of  life  remains." 
That  work,  however,  was  of  bronze ;  but  its  mention  indicates  that 
the  germ  of  this  style  had  been  developed  as  early  as  the  days  of 
Phidias,  while  its  culmination,  both  from  the  laws  of  progress  in 
thought,  and  in  the  actual  history  of  Grecian  sculpture,  takes  its 
place  as  the  last  step  in  the  advance,  preceding  the  decline,  of  Gre- 
cian art.  Anatomists,  like  Bell,  dwell  upon  this  last  work  with 
admiration;  and  the  common  beholder  is  riveted,  as  by  the  real 
scene  of  death  while  gazing  on  the  Dying  Gladiator. 


336  ART   CRITICISM. 


Sect.  8.  The  Colossal  Style;  culminating  under  Chares;  the  effort 
TO  make  gigantic  massiveness  truly  artistic;  illustrated  in  the 
Colossus  of  Erodes. 

It  was  in  some  respects  a  step  backward  in  the  progress  of  art, 
when  the  Colossal  style  in  and  for  itself  began  to  be  cultivated. 
The  Egyptian  artist  had  sought  to  attain  grandeur,  not  by  giving 
life  and  expression,  all  that  makes  up  character,  to  a  human  form 
of  ordinary  stature,  but  by  adding  massiveness  to  mere  gross  fleshly 
proportion.  When  a  statue  of  colossal  proportions  is  designed  for 
an  elevated  position,  and  to  its  gigantic  size  is  added  by  the  power 
of  genius,  grace,  as  well  as  grandeur,  when  life  and  expression  show 
themselves  in  the  form  and  features,  then  a  colossal  statue  is  a 
triumph  of  art.  Such  was  the  Minerva  of  Phidias;  and  such  are 
numberless  works  of  similar  character  executed  in  modern  times. 
When,  however,  the  chief  effort  of  the  artist  is  to  impress  the  be- 
holder with  the  size  of  his  statue,  and  propriety  and  nature  are 
sacrificed  to  this  idea,  a  just  criticism  always  has  characterized  the 
work  as  a  mark  of  decline  in  true  art.  Pliny's  expression  in  intro- 
ducing his  history  of  colossal  statues,  is :  "  Of  audacity,  the  examples 
are  numberless,"  and  he  adds:  "Speaking,  in  fact,  within  bounds, 
we  have  seen  masses  of  statuary,  which  they  call  colossal,  equal  to 
towers."  His  form  of  statement  is  a  sufficient  indication  of  his 
critical  judgment.  The  two  entirely  distinct  orders  of  colossal 
statues  referred  to  are  always  to  be  carefully  discriminated. 

Here,  again,  it  is  to  be  noticed  that  this,  as  other  styles  of  Grecian 
sculpture,  had  its  very  early  originals.  No  classic  student  can 
forget  the  colossal  horse,  "  like  a  mountain"  in  size,  reared  "  by  the 
Divine  art  of  Minerva,"  in  whose  sides,  among  the  Greeks  introduced 
with  the  horse  within  the  walls  of  Troy,  was  "  Epeus,  the  fabricator 
of  the  deceit;"  the  description  of  which,  by  Virgil,  is  one  of  the 
most  fascinating  fragments  of  ancient  poetic  fiction.^  Plato  and 
Pausanias  allude  to  this  early  sculptor  in  wood,  indicating  that  he 
was  a  true,  though  a  rude  artist ;  and  they  mention  a  Venus,  a  Mer- 
cury and  other  works  in  wood  from  his  chisel.'^  Phidias'  great  works, 
too,  w^ere  colossal.  The  comprehensive  Lysippus  made  two  colos- 
sal statues,  one  of  Jupiter,  and  another  of  Hercules;  the  latter  of 
which,  Pliny  says,  was  forty  cubits,  or  sixty  feet  high ;  too  large  to 
be  removed  by  the  Roman  conqueror  who  appropriated  so  many  of 


Virgil  ^neid,  Book  II.,  vs.  14—329.     ""  Plato,  Ion.  I ;  Pausanias,  ii.  19,  6. 


THE  TEAVELLED  HORSES  AND  COLOSSUS  OF  RHODES.      337 

the  masterpieces  of  Grecian  art;  while  of  the  former,  he  relates, 
"  Though  it  could  be  moved  by  the  hand,  such  was  the  plan  of  its 
balance,  it  could  be  thrown  down  by  no  tempests."  While,  however, 
the  exuberant  genius  of  this  artist  allowed  him  to  resort  to  lower 
artifice  which  opens  the  way  for  corruption  in  art,  his  numerous 
works  are  thus  characterized  by  Pliny:  "He  is  said  to  have  executed 
works  to  the  number  of  1500,  all  of  them  of  so  great  merit  that 
every  single  one  might  give  celebrity  to  any  artist." 

Lysippus  was  the  author  of  one  work  w^hich  the  world  will  not  will- 
ingly let  die.  There  stands  at  the  present  day,  in  front  of  the  mag- 
nificent Church  of  St.  Mark's  in  Venice,  a  chariot  drawn  by  four 
prancing  horses  of  most  exquisite  form,  admired  alike  by  artists  and 
amateurs.  That  magnificent  work  was  executed  by  Lysippus,  and  dedi- 
cated as  the  chariot  of  the  sun ;  the  ideal  favorite  with  Egyptian  and 
Oriental  artists  before  and  after  Solomon's  day.^  Designed  at  his 
home  in  Rhodes,  it  afterwards  became  the  glory  of  the  Isle  of  Chios. 
Thence  it  was  borne  by  the  Roman  Constantine  to  adorn  his  new 
capitol  on  the  Bosphorus ;  thence  again  in  the  conquests  of  the  Vene- 
tians it  was  taken  to  their  Island  City  and  became  one  of  its  chief 
attractions;  thence  yet  again  during  the  conquests  and  art-appro- 
priations of  Napoleon  in  Italy  it  was  transferred  to  Paris ;  and  thence, 
finally,  it  was  returned  to  be  the  property  of  the  last  in  the  list  of  its 
successive  claimants.  There  it  now  stands,  called  "the  travelled 
horses ;"  one  of  the  proudest  surviving  monuments  of  Grecian  sculp- 
ture in  the  colossal  style. 

Of  the  celebrated  wonder  of  the  world,  the  Colossus  of  Rhodes,  at 
once  a  most  famous  and  instructive  specimen  of  this  class,  Pliny  has 
given  a  full  description ;  while  Cicero  has  vouched  for  the  merit  of 
the  artist  who  constructed  it.  It  was  by  Chares,  the  pupil  of  Lysip- 
pus, a  native  of  the  little  town  of  Lindus  in  the  Isle  of  Rhodes;  and 
it  was  to  adorn  the  principal  port  of  his  native  island  that  the  artist 
devoted  to  it  so  much  labor.  The  statue  was  seventy  cubits,  or  about 
105  feet  high ;  it  was  made  to  stand  astride  of  the  narrow  entrance 
to  the  beautiful  land-locked  harbor;  and  between  and  beneath  its 
extended  legs,  as  an  open  portal,  the  ships  that  frequented  that  port 
passed  without  inconvenience.  Erected  shortly  after  Alexander's 
time,  the  statue  was  thrown  down  by  an  earthquake  only  fifty-six 
years  afterwards ;  and  Pliny,  who  describes  it,  saw  it  only  in  its 
ruins.    "It  seemed,"  he  says,  "a  miracle.    Few  men  could  with  their 


■ 


'  1  Kings  xxiii.  11. 
29  2S 


338  ART  CRITICISM. 

arms  embrace  the  thumb.  The  fingers  alone  were  larger  than  ordi- 
nary statues.  Vast  caves  yawned  in  the  broken  limbs."  He  adds, 
that  when  thus  broken  it  was  observed  that  the  interior  hollow  of 
the  massive  legs  had  been  loaded  by  the  artist  with  stones  in  order 
to  aid  in  its  stability.  The  colossal  head  so  admired  at  Kome,  also 
Cicero's  testimony  in  his  Rhetoric,  show  the  originality  and  power  of 
the  artist ;  Cicero's  words  being,  "  Chares  learned  from  Lysippus  to 
make  statues,  but  not  in  his  manner.  Lysippus,  indeed,  exhibited 
the  head  of  Myron,  the  arms  of  Praxiteles,  and  the  breast  of  Poly- 
cles ;  but  Chares,  who  personally  saw  how  his  master  made  all  his 
works,  was  able  either  to  make  a  study  of  the  works  of  others,  or  to 
be  guided  by  his  own  genius."^ 

The  climax  of  what  Pliny  calls  "audacity"  seems  to  have  been 
reached,  though  only  in  conception,  by  Dinocrates ;  who  proposed 
to  cut  Mt.  Athos  on  the  coast  of  Macedonia  into  a  head  and  bust  of 
Alexander,  making  the  hands  to  rest  on  spurs  some  distance  from  its 
foot,  in  one  of  which  a  town  was  to  be  built,  and  in  the  other  a  lake, 
into  which  all  the  waters  of  the  mountain  were  to  be  conducted. 
Alexander  with  his  practical  sagacity,  which  overbalanced  his 
vanity,  is  said  to  have  suggested,  that  there  would  be  no  cultivated 
country  around  the  proposed  city  to  support  its  inhabitants ;  and  he 
employed  the  bold  artist  as  his  architect  for  the  city  in  Egypt,  which 
was  to  bear  his  name.  The  corrupted  taste  which  was  infused  into 
Rhodes,  that  centre  of  classic  art,  by  inferior  imitators  in  the  colossal 
style,  so  liable  to  abuse,  is  traced  in  Pliny's  statement,  that,  in  the 
Island  of  Rhodes  alone  at  least  100  colossi  were  found  at  the  Roman 
conquest;  some  of  which,  transported  to  Rome,  sowed  seeds  of  early 
degeneracy  in  the  sculpture  of  Italy. 

Sect.  9.  Eoman  Sculpture;  linked  with  the  Grecian,  in  the  early 

PERFECTED   EtRUSCAN,    IN   THE    COLLECTIONS   CAPTURED   IN   GrEECE,    AND 

IN  THE  Grecian  taste  characterizing  Eoman  Sculptors. 

Sculpture  expatriated  from  Greece  passed  from  its  native  home. 
Its  own  masters  never  were  fully  themselves  out  of  their  native 
clime;  for  in  the  Asiatic  colonies  on  the  Ionian  shore,  sculpture 
never  flourished,  except  at  the  little  Isle  of  Rhodes  ;  while  in  the  Ita- 
lian colonies  called  Magna  Grsecia,  though  permeated  by  the  Pytha- 
gorean philosophy,  none  of  the  fine  arts  reached  eminence.  Under 
Etruscan  artists  transplanted  to  a  foreign  soil  so  young  as  to  take 


"Sua  sponte;"  Cicero  Kliet.  ad  Keren.  I.  4,  6. 


EARLY   ETRUSCAN   SCULPTURE.  339 

natural  root,  Grecian  sculpture  so  flourished  in  the  early  days  of 
Eome  as  to  vie  with  Greece  itself.  But  a  long  night  of  decline 
settled  down  upon  this  art  in  Italy,  until  the  Roman  conquest  of 
Greece  hastened  the  sunset  of  art  in  its  own  native  clime,  and,  trans- 
ferring all  that  remained  of  its  glory  to  the  Imperial  City,  shed  a 
temporary  and  twilight  radiance  on  that  foreign  soil.  In  the  history 
of  Roman  sculpture  three  phases  are  to  be  distinctly  marked. 

Directly  north  of  Rome,  coming  down  in  fact  to  the  northern  bank 
of  the  Tiber  and  to  the  walls  of  the  Imperial  City,  and  thence  ex- 
tending to  the  north  of  modern  Pisa  and  east  of  modern  Florence, 
was  a  country  settled  in  very  early  times  by  a  colony  from  Lydia, 
the  central  and  chief  Grecian  colony  on  the  western  coast  of  Asia 
Minor.  So  ancient  was  the  settlement  of  this  country,  that,  even 
when  Herodotus  wrote,  its  early  history  was  so  remote  as  to  be 
legendary.  All  authorities  however  agree  that  these  near  neighbors 
to  Rome  originated  from  that  mingled  Grecian  and  Oriental  people, 
who  united  the  vigor  of  colonial  enterprize  with  that  mental  com- 
prehensiveness which  comes  from  foreign  intercourse.  The  region 
they  peopled  was  called  Etruria,  sometimes  also  Tuscia ;  the  former 
of  which  names  is  preserved  in  the  famed  Etruscan  vases,  the  love- 
liest relics  of  ancient  plastic  art;  while  the  latter  name  still  lives  in 
the  familiar  designation  of  Tuscany,  the  portion  of  Italy  which  to 
this  day  is  pre-eminently  the  home  of  sculpture  and  painting.  The 
Etruscan  colony  indeed  was  like  that  called  Magna  Grsecia  in  the 
south  of  Italy,  in  whose  centre  Pythagoras  spent  his  life  and  planted 
his  philosophy.  Their  relics  of  art  familiar  to  the  later  Romans, 
were  the  vases  already  mentioned;^  also  gems,  medals,  sacrificial  ves- 
sels, mirrors  of  rare  workmanship,  statues  of  ancient  kings,  and  the 
Jupiter  Capitolinus  of  baked  clay  lauded  by  Pliny.  Its  artists, 
moreover,  were  the  builders  of  those  ancient  and  wondrous  speci- 
mens of  massive  architecture  in  Italy,  such  as  the  Cloaca  Maxima  at 
Rome.  These  Etruscan  monuments  show  the  power  of  Grecian 
spirit  in  art,  triumphing  as  it  did,  at  so  early  a  day  over  a  rude  and 
warlike  race. 

The  early  taste  of  the  Romans  we  have  reason  to  believe  was  like 
the  character  of  her  people  rude  and  severe.  The  Etruscan  works 
which  adorned  Rome  in  its  infancy  were  designed  by  the  cultivated 
people  north  of  that  city  who  built  them  for  their  stern  and  rough 
lords.     Numa,  the  second  Roman  king,  a  man  of  philosophic  and 


Book  III.,  chap.  i.  sect.  3. 


340  ART  CRITICISM. 

peaceful  pursuits,  taught  the  people  a  simple  spiritual  worship ;  and 
for  more  than  a  century  and  a  half  no  image  of  deity  was  allowed  to 
be  adored.  The  influence  which  such  a  belief  and  practice,  in  con- 
trast with  that  of  Greece,  must  have  exerted  to  restrict  the  culture 
of  art,  is  easily  anticipated.  During  all  the  long  centuries  in  which 
the  Greeks  were,  generation  after  generation,  advancing  to  the  climax 
of  perfection  in  sculpture,  the  Romans  made  no  progress. 

Such,  indeed,  seems  to  have  been  the  condition  of  things  up  to  the 
period  when  the  monuments  of  Grecian  art  began  to  be  brought  by 
Roman  Generals  as  trophies  of  their  victories  to  Rome.  Pliny  and 
others  have  recorded  the  history  of  these  collections ;  and  also  the 
fact,  that  the  Romans,  as  a  people,  were  uncultured  to  appreciate  the 
treasures  brought  to  their  doors.  Less  than  two  centuries  after  the 
peerless  artists  of  Greece  finished  their  works,  such  Roman  Generals 
as  Marcellus,  Mummius  and  Scylla  were  ravaging  the  cities  of 
Greece,  and  demolishing  what  they  could  not  bear  ofl".  Of  Marcel- 
lus, who  took  Syracuse  in  Sicily  in  the  second  Carthaginian  war, 
Livy^  says,  "  Marcellus  bore  off  to  Rome  the  ornaments  of  the  city, 
the  works  of  sculpture  and  painting  with  which  Syracuse  abounded ;" 
and  he  adds,  "then  was  the  first  origin  of  admiration  for  works  of 
Grecian  art."  Pliny  relates  that  "  M.  Scaurus  when  sedile  built  a 
theatre,"  which  he  adorned  with  "  three  thousand  brazen  statues," 
brought  from  abroad.  "Mummius,  on  the  conquest  of  Achaia, 
including  the  cities  of  Thebes  and  Corinth,  filled  the  city  with 
statues.  The  Luculli  also  brought  in  many.  Mucianus,  three  times 
consul,  reported  that  there  were  no  less  than  three  thousand  statues 
at  Rhodes ;  and  there  is  believed  to  have  been  a  no  less  number  at 
Athens,  Olympia  and  Delphi." 

How  little  the  Romans  as  compared  with  the  Greeks  were  pre- 
pared to  appreciate  Grecian  art  is  abundantly  manifest.  Of  Mum- 
mius we  are  told  that  he  threatened  the  common  laborers,  who  were 
packing  the  paintings  and  sculpture  taken  from  Corinth,  that  if  any 
were  injured  or  lost,  they  would  have  to  make  others;  as  if  only  hand 
labor  were  required  for  the  execution  of  such  master-pieces.  Pliny 
tells  us,  that  the  Roman  generals  brought  away  Asiatic  statues  of 
wood  and  clay,  as  well  as  the  master-pieces  of  Greece  in  bronze  and 
marble ;  seeming  to  imply  that  they  did  not  discriminate  between  the 
two.  Even  Pliny  himself,  after  the  statement  he  makes  of  the  thou- 
sands of  the  works  of  art  thus  brought  to  Rome  at  so  much  cost, 


Livius  Lib.  xxv.  sect.  40. 


I 


INFLUENCE   OF   GKECIAN  SCULPTURE   AT   ROME.  341 

exclaims,  "What  mortal  could  go  through  this  collection?"  "Or 
what  use  can  be  perceived  as  derived  from  them?  Nevertheless  it 
affords  pleasure  to  have  slightly  examined  these  renowned  works,  by- 
whatever  reason  one  may  be  prompted,  and  to  have  known  their 
authors." 

A  great  influence  however  was  evidently  exerted  on  the  popular 
taste  for  art  by  these  collections  at  Rome.  Horace*  writing  in  the 
age  of  Augustus  penned  the  oft-quoted  lines, 

"Grsecia  capta  ferum  victorem  cepit,  et  artes 
Intulit  agresti  Latio." 

Captured  Greece  indeed  found  its  victor  uncultured,  and  brought 
the  arts  into  rustic  Italy;  and  its  influence  in  the  days  of  Horace 
was  just  being  seen.  Suetonius  records  that  the  favorite  boast  of  Au- 
gustus was  this;  "urbem  marmoream  se  relinquere,  quam  lateritiara 
accepisset."  If  the  first  Emperor  could  thus  truly  say  that  he  left  a 
marble  city  where  he  had  found  a  brick  one,  a  great  advance  in  love 
of  art  must  have  been  accomplished  among  the  Roman  people, 
before  and  during  his  reign.  That  same  climax  of  perfected  culture, 
long  delayed  among  the  Romans  as  compared  with  the  Greek  people, 
produced  the  most  polished  of  orators  Cicero,  the  most  graphic  of 
annalists  Julius  Caesar,  and  the  richest  and  sweetest  of  Epic  and 
lyric  poets,  Virgil  and  Horace. 

While  however  in  architecture,  which  may  be  called  a  useful  as 
well  as  an  ornamental  art,  the  practical  Roman  genius  was  entirely 
original  in  its  creations,  the  painters  and  sculptors  of  note  that 
appeared  at  Rome,  seem,  as  their  names  indicate,  to  have  been  prin- 
cipally Grecian  both  in  taste  and  in  race.  Pliny  mentions  three 
worthy  of  note ;  one  in  the  last  days  of  the  Republic  skilled  in  sculp- 
turing lions  and  other  savage  beasts ;  another  under  Augustus  noted 
for  gaudy  architectural  decorations ;  and  a  third  under  Nero,  even 
grand  in  colossal  statues.  The  latter,  Pliny  relates,  when  he  had  dis- 
tinguished himself  by  a  colossal  statue  of  Hercules  made  in  the  pro- 
vince of  the  Averni,  now  Auvergne,  in  Gaul,  was  called  to  Rome  by 
Nero.  At  the  instance  of  the  tyrant  he  made  a  colossus  110  feet 
high,  in  the  likeness  of  the  prince ;  but  it  was  afterwards  dedicated 
to  the  sun  in  reproof  of  the  vices  of  that  prince.  He  also  executed 
five  other  statues  of  clay,  "which  indicates,"  adds  this  critical  histo- 
rian, "that  the  art  of  casting  had  passed  away;  though  in  the  science 


'  Horat.  Epist.  Lib.  IT.,  i.  157. 

29  » 


342  AKT   CRITICISM. 

of  modelling  and  carving,  Zenodorus  was  inferior  to  no  one  of  the 
ancients."  It  is  a  sad  comment  on  the  injustice  which  may  be  done 
to  a  genuine  artist  by  despotic  caprice  and  in  a  corrupt  age.  When 
this  had  culminated  in  Nero,  art  declined;  to  rise  no  more  until  a 
new  and  that  distant  era  dawned. 


CHAPTER    IV. 


MODERN    sculpture;    PLASTIC    ART    AS    AFFECTED    BY    CHRISTIAN 

CIVILIZATION. 

The  more  the  intelligent  student  of  ancient  art  contemplates  its 
perfection,  especially  in  the  department  of  sculpture  as  it  reached  its 
climax  among  the  Greeks,  the  more  incomparable  and  peerless  those 
early  works  seem  to  be.  In  fact  to  our  ordinary  apprehension  the 
race. that  achieved  such  works  seems  to  have  been  superhuman,  and 
beyond  the  reach  of  imitation  by  men  of  modern  times. 

But  here  the  fact  meets  us  that  though  the  plastic  arts  declined 
after  the  days  of  Phidias  and  his  successors,  until  they  seemed  for 
centuries  lost  to  the  earth,  they  suddenly  arose  perfected  again  in  the 
sculptors  of  Italy  living  before  and  after  Michel  Angelo.  There 
must  have  been  a  chain  of  causes  operating  during  all  that  long  dark 
night ;  producing  first  the  deepening  gloom  till  its  midnight  was 
reached ;  and  then  again  reproducing  the  dawn  and  the  full  noon- 
day that  succeeded.  The  laws  of  intellectual  development  and  of 
aesthetic  tendencies  operate  as  steadily,  though  as  gradually,  as  do 
those  of  growth  in  the  single  tree  and  in  the  forest.  The  effort  to 
reach  and  to  trace  the  principles  that  have  exercised  an  influence  in 
the  revival  and  in  the  irregular  progress  of  the  art  of  sculpture  in 
modern  times  is  difiicult  because  of  the  meagerness  of  history :  yet 
facts  of  value  may  be  gathered  to  aid  in  tracing  its  infancy  in  the 
early  ages  of  Christianity,  till  its  rise  to  something  like  ancient 
splendor  in  Modern  Italy ;  whence  it  spread  into  Spain  and  France 
or  South-western  Europe,  into  Germany  and  North-eastern  Europe, 
and  finally  into  England  and  America  which  are  yet  a  virgin  soil  just 
receiving  its  first  culture  in  art. 


CONTRAST   BETWEEN   ANCIENT   AND   MODERN   ART.        343 


Sect.  1.  The  Transition  Period  from  Ancient  to  Modern  Sculpture  ; 
Illustrated  specially  in  the  change  of  subjects  for  Art  intro- 
duced BY  Christianity. 

We  have  observed  that  the  first  and  great  subject  of  sculpture,  in 
Egypt  and  Greece  alike,  was  the  embodiment  of  divine  or  super- 
human beings.  As  the  deities  of  the  Greek  were  ideal  men  and 
women,  eminent  for  some  coveted  quality  of  a  physical,  intellectual, 
or  moral  nature,  so  their  sculptured  statues,  as  human  forms,  were 
matchless  in  perfection.  It  was,  of  course,  a  great  transition  when 
the  Grecian  mythology  ceased  to  win  the  popular  confidence  and 
even  lost  common  respect ;  and  when  the  statues  of  peerless  gods  and 
goddesses  from  being  objects  of  religious  veneration  came  to  be  relics 
of  an  idolatrous  worship  which  was  held  as  blasphemous. 

We  have  observed  how  this  form  of  art  had  its  stages.  As  re- 
stricted to  deified  beings,  it  w^s  bold  and  massive  when  the  worship- 
pers were  rough  and  accustomed  to  measure  greatness  by  massive- 
ness;  it  became  grand  when  Athens  was  rising  to  greatness;  and 
beautiful  when  she  had  reached  her  growth  and  could  advance  only 
by  chastening.  As  extended  to  men,  it  was  athletic  when  heroes 
of  physical  development  were  the  great  of  earth ;  it  became  historic 
when  men  great  in  intellect  were  exalted ;  it  was  impassioned  when 
excited  feeling  was  more  attractive  than  calm  intelligence ;  and  it 
declined  into  the  colossal  when  degeneracy  could  be  made  to  seem 
grand  only  by  exaggeration.  The  transition  in  the  style  of  art  is 
thus  seen  to  be  a  gradual  and  connected  progress,  whether  it  be 
towards  its  rise  or  decline. 

At  first  glance  the  occasion  for  this  change  may  be  sought  in  some 
outward  circumstances  affecting  the  artist;  which  circumstances, 
however,  are  an  effect  of  a  cause  yet  behind.  Substantially  human 
nature  is  the  same  in  all  lands  and  ages ;  men  have  the  same  sensual, 
intellectual,  and  emotional  characteristics.  True  beauty  must  always 
be  admired,  and  personal  ambition  must  always  prompt  a  desire  to 
excel  in  the. creation  of  some  new  style  of  art.  External  circum- 
stances may  cramp  genius,  or  foster  effeminacy;  but  the  varying 
external  circumstances  of  the  Greek  were  in  no  degree  the  measure 
or  cause  of  the  varying  art-spirit  among  their  people  at  different 
eras. 

That  radical  change  can  only  be  traced  to  a  radical  cause ;  and 
that  fundamentally  differing  cause  can  only  be  found  in  the  trans- 
formed religious  opinions  and  emotions  of  that  versatile  people.     No 


344  ART   CRITICISM. 

external  temptation  to  luxury  alone  could  lure  genius  into  the  lap 
of  indulgence;  no  greed  of  gold  coming  from  princely  patrons  could 
give  it  stimulus,  were  there  not  beforehand  in  man's  moral  nature 
the  spirit  already  formed  to  which  the  appeal  could  be  made.  It  is 
mainly  to  the  operation  of  moral  and  religious  causes,  that  we  must 
trace  the  varying  taste  and  progress  of  men  in  science,  literature, 
and  art. 

The  spirit  that  prompts  man  to  observe  eifects  in  nature,  more 
strongly  urges  to  a  search  for  their  causes ;  and  science  cannot  begin 
its  rule  in  a  nation  without  turning  men's  thoughts  first  of  all  to 
theology.  The  consciousness  of  higher  wants  which  dawning  civili- 
zation awakens,  leading  to  toil  for  physical,  intellectual  and  moral 
amelioration,  are  outstripped  by  the  more  rapidly  growing  and 
refining  thirst  for  a  right  spirit,  and  for  a  religion  that  is  pure  and 
undefiled  before  God.  The  intellectual  search  for  truth  as  to  the 
Divine  Being,  first  in  all  the  questionings  of  Socrates  and  the 
reasonings  of  Plato  and  Aristotle,  is  no  less  the  leading  theme  of 
philosophic  inquiry  in  every  cultured  nation  and  among  all  studious 
men.  The  student  of  art  who  overlooks  this  fundamental  element 
in  human  nature,  no  less  than  the  artist  who  should  ignore  it,  must 
fail  of  his  end ;  as  truly  as  would  the  master-builder  who  should  deny 
the  law  of  gravity,  and  take  no  account  of  the  crush  and  thrust  of 
his  material. 

The  change  of  subjects  for  sculpture,  which  the  decline  of  the 
Greeks'  respect  for  their  ancient  mythology  necessarily  produced,  is 
one  of  the  most  important  elements  that  wrought  the  transition  from 
ancient  to  modern  sculpture.  As  we  have  observed,^  the  religion  of 
Christ  was  pecular  in  drawing  men  to  the  worship  of  one  living  and 
true  God,  a  spirit  that  could  not  be  represented,  and  to  one  being 
uniting  the  Divine  and  the  human  natures,  whose  form  might  be 
represented  by  art.  As  the  marked  change  from  ancient  sculpture 
and  painting  is  found  in  the  substitution  of  this  one  perfect  being 
for  the  many  godlike  forms  of  limited  perfection  conceived  by  the 
Greek  artist,  it  is  fitting  that  it  should  thus  be  the  first  subject  con- 
sidered under  modern  sculpture;  since  sculpture,  as  Winckelmann 
has  intimated,  is  the  art  in  which  the  peculiar  spirit  distinguishing 
the  ancients  from  the  moderns  is  most  manifest.  The  consideration 
of  this  topic  bridges  over  the  chasm  that  separates  the  two  worlds 
and  ages,  that  before  and  that  after  Christ,  one  from   the  other. 


«  Book  T.  Chap.  vii.  Sect.  6. 


GRADUAL   DEVELOPEMENT   OF   CHRISTIAN   ART.  345 

This  one  feature  is  the  fundamental  characteristic  of  the  Transition 
Period  between  Ancient  and  Modern  Sculpture. 

Sect.  2.  The  chaste,  though  rude  style  of  sculpture,  prevalent  in 
the  early  ages  of  christianity. 

It  was  to  be  expected,  after  the  decline  of  Classical  Sculpture 
under  the  Romans,  especially  when  that  decline  originated  chiefly  in 
the  loss  of  popular  confidence  in  the  religious  system  of  which  these 
matchless  works  were  embodiments,  it  was  to  be  expected  that  this 
decline  would  be  a  great  and  a  long  protracted  one.  It  was  not  to 
be  expected  that  the  new  religion  of  Christ  would  at  once  develop 
the  arts  of  civilization  and  general  intellectual  culture,  as  they  w^ere 
to  be  seen  in  the  after  days  of  its  triumph.  The  struggle  of  art  to 
rise  from  its  deep  depression  must  be  gradual,  even  if  the  progress 
of  Christianity  w^ere  a  steady  and  unbroken  advance.  The  develope- 
ment  of  Christ's  kingdom,  however,  was  to  be  like  that  of  the  plant ; 
first  the  blade,  then  the  stalk,  then  the  ear,  and  finally  the  full 
corn  in  the  ear.  It  was  to  grow  like  a  tree,  by  stages;  drought  suc- 
ceeding to  shower,  and  winter  to  summer,  now  checking  its  growth, 
and  now  stripping  it  of  green  as  if  life  had  ceased.  It  was  to  be 
inferred  from  the  teachings  of  Christ  as  to  the  slow  and  sometimes 
apparently  retrograde  movements  of  his  truth  and  grace  in  its 
struggle  with  error  and  vice  in  the  world,,  that  the  history  of  art 
would  be  a  checkered  one;  its  beauty  often  marred,  if  its  life  did 
not  become  wholly  extinct.  It  is  an  error,  however,  to  infer,  that 
the  Christian  system  was  so  simple,  so  aside  from  pomp,  that  it  did 
not  attract  the  truly  cultured  Greek.  That  very  simplicity  was  its 
beauty ;  the  charm  that  won,  as  by  a  spell,  genuine  genius  and  cul- 
ture. PauP  says,  indeed,  "not  many  wise  men  afler  the  flesh,  not 
many  mighty,  not  many  noble,  are  called ;"  for  these  are  often  the 
men  of  perverted  and  low  ambition,  and  often  devoid  of  true  taste. 
But  the  very  cast  of  mind  of  its  most  ardent  advocates,  of  such  men 
as  Paul,  and  Apollos,  and  Luke,  and  Justin,  and  Chrysostom,  coupled 
with  the  fact  that,  in  the  second  century  of  the  Christian  era,  the 
renowned  school  of  Alexandria  was  emptied  of  its  pupils  by  the 
Christian  school  of  Origen,  because,  like  Paul  and  Apollos,  they 
could  not  withstand  the  superior  attractions  of  the  religion  of  Christ, 
this  is  a  sufficient  testimony  that  genius  and  culture  were  drawn  as 
to  a  genial  home  into  the  early  Christian  Church. 


1  C!or.  i.  26. 
2  T 


346  ART  CRITICISM. 

In  tracing  the  history  of  art  under  the  sway  of  Christianity,  it  is 
necessary  to  keep  distinct  those  two  very  different  ideas ;  the  patron- 
age of  art  m  itself  considered  by  early  Christians,  and  their  opposi- 
tion to  the  ancient  use  of  works  of  art  as  objects  of  religious  adoration. 
It  is  satisfactory  to  be  able  to  assure  ourselves  that  the  intelligent 
view  of  this  distinction,  so  common  in  our  day,  prevailed  in  the  ear- 
liest and  purest  days  of  Christianity. 

It  is  evident  from  the  allusions  of  Paul,^  already  referred  to,  that 
art  itself,  which  addresses  the  ear  and  eye  to  give  pleasure,  is  in  per- 
fect consonance  with  the  harmonious  moral  culture  expected  in  a 
Christian.  The  picture  given  by  John  the  Apostle*  of  the  worship 
of  angels  and  saints  in  Heaven  seems  an  equally  clear  intimation 
that  art  which  addresses  the  ear,  and  by  parity  of  reasoning  that 
which  addresses  the  eye,  is  not  inconsistent  with  but  necessary  to  the 
highest  exercise  of  devotion;  for  truth,  by  whatever  means  presented 
to  the  human  mind,  is  aided  in  its  vividness  by  an  appeal  to  the 
aesthetic  emotions. 

That  works  of  art,  both  as  ornaments  and  as  embodiments  of 
Christian  sentiment  addressed  to  the  eye,  were  common  while  some 
of  Christ's  apostles  were  living,  or  in  the  age  of  the  Apostolic  Fathers, 
is  manifest  from  the  frequent  allusions  of  the  earliest  Christian 
writers.  Thus  Irenseus,  a  disciple  of  Polycarp  the  disciple  of  John, 
who  was  an  eminent  missionary  in  Gaul  about  A.  D.  175,  states  that 
the  Carpocratians,  a  sect  who  held  the  human  nature  of  Christ  in 
special  esteem,  had  both  statues  and  pictures  of  Jesus.^  During  the 
early  persecutions  a  false  interpretation  of  Isaiah's  mention,*  "his 
visage  was  marred,"  he  was  "without  form  or  comeliness,"  "there  is 
in  him  no  beauty,"  prompted  by  their  own  gloom,  led  Christians  to 
picture  their  Master  as  careworn  and  dejected ;  while,  among  some,  an 
objection  was  felt  to  the  formation  of  any  image  of  his  person.^  But 
this  objection  was  temporary  and  limited,  and  did  not  lead  to  the  rejec- 
tion or  restriction  of  really  artistic  representations  of  Christ ;  as  is 
manifest  from  the  statements  of  Eusebius,  the  Christian  historian  of 
the  days  of  Constantino,  who  from  personal  observation  and  authentic 
records  compiled  the  history  of  the  Church  during  the  first  300  years 


'  1  Cor.  xiv.  7,  and  2  Cor.  iii.  18, 
"  Rev.  xiv.  2 ;  xv.  2,  compare  Rev.  xxi.  21,  26. 

«  Irenagus  contra  Hsereses  Lib.  I.  cap.  25.  "•  Isa.  liii.  2 — i. 

'Tertullian  de  came  Christ!  9;    Clemens  Alex.  Strom.  II;  Origeu  cont. 
Celsum  VI. 


SCULPTURED   DEVICES   AMONG   EARLY   CHRISTIANS.       347 

of  its  existence.  The  prevailing  idea  of  Christ  was  drawn  from  the 
pictures  given  of  him  by  David  and  Solomon/  as  excelling  in  beauty 
and  majesty  of  form;  Solomon  describing  special  features,  head, 
locks,  eyes,  cheeks,  lips,  hands,  body  and  legs,  as  they  would  appear 
carved  in  ivory  and  gold.  Eusebius^  mentions  that  not  only  were 
images  and  pictures  of  Christ  of  great  beauty  and  majesty  numerous 
among  Christians,  but  that  lovers  of  art  among  the  unchristianized 
Greeks  and  Romans  had  obtained  statues  of  Jesus  and  his  Apostles, 
and  that  they  kept  them  in  their  houses  as  art  treasures.  He  par- 
ticularly describes  a  group  of  statuary  executed  at  Paneas,  or  Ce- 
sarea  Philippi,  a  town  at  the  head  waters  of  the  Jordan,  representing 
Jesus  as  healing  the  woman  who  had  an  issue  of  blood.^  His  inci- 
dental statements,  copied  from  previous  writers  and  derived  from 
personal  observation,  show  that  from  the  first  art  was  cherished  by 
Christians,  and  that  ideal  representations  of  Christ's  person  are  a 
natural  demand  of  the  human  mind. 

In  the  same  early  age,  too.  Christian  devices  and  emblems  were 
common ;  some  of  which  certainly  had  great  merit  as  conceptions  of 
sentiment,  however  much  they  might  be  lacking  in  artistic  grace  of 
execution.  Among  these*  were  the  emblems  of  Christ's  salvation 
under  the  device  of  the  ship,  or  Ark  of  Noah  f  that  of  the  Holy 
Spirit's  descent  as  on  Christ  in  the  form  of  a  dove  f  that  of  devo- 
tional worship  under  the  image  of  the  lyre  or  harp  f  and  that  of  the 
three  Christian  graces,  faith,  hope  and  charity  under  the  figures  of 
the  cross,  the  anchor,  and  the  heart.^  These  devices  were  cut  in 
relief  on  pitchers  or  other  utensils ;  they  were  inscribed  on  the  sarco- 
phagi and  funeral  monuments  of  the  dead ;  and  they  were  carved  of 
ivory,  pearl  or  other  material,  and  used  as  ornaments  for  the  parlor 
or  the  person.  Tertullian®  also  mentions  small  embossed  carvings 
of  events  in  Christ's  life,  such  as  the  lost  sheep  brought  back  by 
Christ  on  his  shoulder,  which  were  stitched  by  pious  mothers  on  the 
caps  -worn  by  their  boys;  the  propriety  and  requirement  of  which 
seemed  to  be  found  in  such  expressions  as  those  of  the  Revelation  of 
John  which  relate  to  the  "white  stone,  and  in  the  stone  a  new  name 


»  Psalm  xlv.  2,  3;  and  Song  of  Sol.  v.  10—16. 

"  Euseb.  Hist.  Eccles.  lib.  vii.  cap.  18.  s  Matt.  ix.  20—22. 

*  See  Clemens  Alex.  Paedog.  III.  «  Heb.  xi.  7,  and  1  Pet.  iii.  20. 

«  Matt.  iii.  16.  ^  Psalm  xxxiii.  2,  etc. ;  Kev.  v.  8 ;  xiv.  2 ;  xv.  2. 

8 1  Cor.  xiii.  13;  compare  Matt.  x.  38;  Heb.  vi.  19,  and  2  Cor.  iii.  3,  with 

Pet.  iii.  4.  ®  Tertul.  de  Pudicitia  cap.  vii. 


348  ART   CRITICISM. 

writt^,"-  and  the  "name  of  the  Lamb  in  the  forehead."^  Among 
these  devices  the  cross  became  naturally  the  earliest,  as  it  is  the  most 
common  and  permanent  as  also  the  most  distinctive  and  significant. 
The  spirit  of  the  Crusades  only  revived  an  early  emblem  when  taking 
literally  Christ's  words^  as  rendered  in  the  Latin  Vulgate  and  as 
thundered  through  the  hills  and  valleys  of  Southern  Europe  by 
Peter  the  Hermit,  "Qui  non  accipit  crucem  suam,  et  sequitur  me, 
non  est  me  dignus,"  it  suggested  as  its  badge  a  cross  of  red  cloth 
sewed  upon  the  left  breast.  A  similar  prompting  of  the  art  spirit 
common  to  man  has  kept  alive  the  emblem,  making  now  the  "  cruci- 
form finial"  the  chosen  terminating  finish  for  Church  spires  among 
Christians  of  every  sect.  That  it  was  a  late  period  when  Christian 
emblems  and  sculptured  forms  became  objects  of  worship  is  intimated 
by  heathen  observers^  of  the  early  Christians.  Pliny,  in  a  letter  to 
Trajan,  written  when  none  could  be  found  who  had  been  Christians 
"more  than  twenty  years,"  after  describing  the  simple  worship  of  the 
Christians  states  as  to  those  who  recanted,  "All  venerated  thy  image 
and  the  statues'^  of  the  gods ;"  and  at  a  later  period  Celsus  the  philo- 
sophic opposer-  of  the  new  religion  charges  against  Christians  that 
"they  refused  to  rear  altars,  images,  and  temples."^  The  period 
when  works  of  art  began  to  be  abused  is  indicated  in  one  of  the 
canons  established  by  the  council  of  the  Western  and  African 
Churches  held  in  the  Third  Century  at  lUiberis,  a  town  at  the  foot 
of  the  Eastern  Pyrenees  on  the  border  of  France  next  to  Spain,  in 
which  it  was  decreed,  "that  pictures  ought  not  to  be  introduced  into 
the  Churches  lest  that  be  worshipped  and  adored  which  is  painted 
on  the  walls."  * 

It  is  instructive  to  observe  that  the  spirit  of  true  art  grew  with 
the  growth  of  early  Christianity,  and  that  artists  of  eminence  were 
called  forth  by  the  general  spirit  of  culture  which  prevailed  around. 
As  the  age  of  Phidias  was  the  age  of  Plato,  of  Demosthenes,  and  of 
Sophocles,  so  the  era  when  those  artists  arose  who  gave  true  beauty 
and  artistic  taste  to  the  early  churches  of  Palestine,  erected  through 
the  influence  of  Helena  the  mother  of  Constantino,  was  the  age  of 
such  men  as  Chrysostom,  the  Demosthenes  of  the  Grecian  pulpit, 
and  of  Gregory  of  Nyssa,  the  Xenophon  of  the  Greek  Church.  It 
is  most  important  to  the  interests  of  Christian  truth  to  note,  that  it 
was  a  generation  later,  when  the  effects  of  this  development  in  Chris- 


'  Eev.  ii.  17 ;  xxii.  4.         «  Matt,  x.  38.         '  Origen  contra  Celsum  VIII. 
••  Canon  Illiberitanum  36 ;  quoted  Gieseler  Ch.  Hist.  Vol.  1,  sect.  70,  note  5. 


THE  CAUSES  OF  DEGENERACY  IN  CHRISTIAN  SCULPTURE.     349t 

tji^ii  art  Jiad  been  matured  m  execution  aad  tested  in  it&  religious 
effect  thpt  the  devout  Augustine  gave  the 't^timony  already  cited.* 
It  was  the  charm  which  the  cultured  minds  and  chastened  imagina- 
tions of:^  such  men  threw  around  the  person  and  the  doctrine  of 
Christ. that  inspired  the  artists  of  the  Church iat. that  day. 

Sect.  3.  The  artificial  Style  and  illegitimaj:e,  use  of  Sculpture 

CHARACTERIZI^STG  THE   MedI^^VAL  AGES  OF  THE  -CHRISTIAN   ChURCH. 

A  darker  era  for  art,  as  well  as  science  and  general  culture 
drew  on,  when,  two  or  three  centuries  after  Constantine,  the  Roman 
Empire  and  with  it  the  Christian  church,  became  divided  between 
the  East  and  the  West.  Gradually  pictures  and-  images  came  to  h& 
made  aids-to  devotion  in  the  grosser  sense;'  and  those  results  which 
had  been. leen  in  other  ages,  and  under  systems  of  religion  widely 
different  'from  Christianity  soon  showed  themselves. 

The  first  effect  was  seen  upon  art  itself.  As  already  observed  in 
Egypt,  and  to  a  certain  extent  in  primitive  Greece,  the  necessarj^ 
conseqiience  of  making  images  an  object  of  religious  adoration  wa^ 
the  fixing  of  an  artificial  style  as  the  orthodox  pattern  after  which 
all  copies  should  be  modeled.  The  great  cause  of  this  degradation 
of  art,  as  of  all  the  corruptions  from  that  time  prevailing  in  the 
Church,  was  the  same  with  that  which  in  all  history  has  sapped  the 
foundations  of  Empires  and  Hierarchies.  It  had  come  to  be  popular 
to  b^  a  Christian ;  worldly  men  pressed  into  the  Church  to  gain  posi- 
tions of  influence  and  emolument ;  men  without  piety,  and  of  course,' 
without  integrity  of  mind  or  heart,  out-voted,  or  out-managed  the 
lowers  of  the  truth,  beauty,  and  glory  of  the  Christian  system;  and 
mfen  without  principle,  ahd  therefore  without-true  genius,  which' 
always  scorns  anything  low,  got  control  of  the  decorations  of 
Churches  as  the  tools  of  the  degenerate  men  who  held  its  ofiices. 
The  effect  was  to  degrade  art;  and  to  make  it  less  and  less  respecta- 
ble to  be  an  artist.  The  wretched  caricatures  of  madonnas  and 
crucifixes  still  seen  in  the  small  shrines  erected  at  the  corners  of 
high-roads  throughout  Italy,  Spain,  and  even  France,  as  well  as  the 
often  hideous  figures  seen  at  Church  door-ways  and  altars,  as  wit- 
nessed in  the  old  cathedral  of  "Notre  Dame,"  at  Paris,  are  relics 
of  this  degeneracy  of  art. 

A  second  and  most  unfavorable  result,  was  the  corruption  of  reli- 
gion itself  which  image  worship  introduced.     As  already  intimated. 


'  Book  I.  Chap.  vii.  Sect.  6. 
30 


350  ART   CRITICISM. 

our  aesthetic  sense  and  sensibility,  our  powers  of  judging  of  and  being 
moved  by  the  beautiful,  the  grand  and  sublime,  was  manifestly  given 
like  all  our  other  faculties  and  susceptibilities  by  our  Creator,  in 
order  not  simply  to  furnish  us  delight,  but  to  lead  us  to  the  true  and 
the  good.  No  end  of  life,  no  employ  of  our  powers  of  mind  can  be 
so  exalted  as  their  exercise  in  the  worship  and  service  of  God.  Art, 
therefore,  must  have  as  its  highest  end  to  aid  our  devotion.  But  in 
the  history  of  Christianity  the  same  truth  taught  in  the  palmiest 
days  of  Greece,  as  well  as  in  every  age  and  land,  was  realized.  The 
effort  to  raise  our  higher  nature  through  intermediate  instruments  of 
a  lower  nature,  the  idea  of  elevating  the  soul  of  man  to  loftier 
spiritual  conceptions  by  means  of  material  agencies,  is  a  contradic- 
tion in  logic;  and  it  must  lead  to  a  result  the  contrary  of  that 
attempted.  Since  by  nature,  instead  of  being  pure  and  spiritual  in 
the  tendency  of  our  souls,  we  tend  to  the  gross  and  sensual,  the  effort 
to  approach  the  Divine  Spirit  through  a  material  medium  leads  to  a 
constant  and  reactionary  degeneracy;  first  of  the  tone  of  mind  in 
the  worshipper,  and  then  of  the  image  he  adores.  The  increasing 
corruption,  therefore,  of  art  just  noticed  must  be  but  the  reflex  of  an 
increasing  degeneracy  in  spirituality  among  Christians.  This  neces- 
sary influence  it  should  again  most  carefully  be  observed,  is  in  per- 
fect harmony  with  the  counter  principle  that  when  true  spiritual 
devotion  is  the  sentiment  that  is  leading,  and  not  to  be  led,  the  influ- 
ence of  art  is  designed  by  our  Creator  to  be  an  aid  to  that  spiritual 
effort  of  the  mind.  Art  is  the  handmaid  of  religion ;  but  it  cannot 
be  made  its  master  or  author.  When  this  distinction  became 
neglected,  the  Churches  began  to  be  filled  with  statuary  and  paint- 
ings which  were  by  the  people  perverted  from  their  office  as  works 
of  art;  and  though  intelligent  and  spiritually  minded-Churchmen 
with  tongue  and  pen  urged  the  true  use  of  sacred  art,  yet  the  ten- 
dency was  still  downward.  Art  was  sacrificed ;  for  religion  could 
not  be,  by  true  men.  The  farther  history  of  the  controversy  on  this 
subject  in  the  early  Church  belongs  rather  to  painting  than  to 
sculpture. 

One  result  of  this  struggle  of  good  men  to  save  both  art  and  spir- 
itual Christianity  at  the  same  time,  was  seen  in  one  of  the  topics 
controverted  by  the  Eastern  and  Western  Churches  at  their  separa- 
tion. The  Eastern  Church,  founding  their  objection  upon  the  second 
command  of  the  Decalogue,  rejected  carved  images  representing  Jesus, 
or  any  person  deemed  sacred;  yet  they  retained  and  favored  the 
decoration  of  Churches  with  paintings  of  the  Saints  and  of  the 


STUDY  OF  NATURE  REVIVED  IN  CHRISTIAN  SCULPTURE.     351 

Virgin  mother  and  her  child.  The  propriety  of  this  distinction  was, 
of  course,  questionable;  while  it  led  in  the  Eastern  Church  to  a 
double  influence  which  was  unfavorable  for  art.  It  excluded  sculp- 
ture entirely  from  the  field  of  the  artist,  and  that  in  that  very  land 
where  Classic  art  had  reached  its  perfection ;  while  at  the  same  time 
it  made  painting  to  sink  into  a  state  of  degeneracy  from  which  it 
has  never  yet  risen.  This  withering  blight  is  seen  in  the  lifeless, 
meaningless  painted  objects  that  hang  upon  the  walls  of  Churches 
in  modern  Greece,  the  ancient  home  of  the  Muse  of  sculpture  and 
painting;  which  worse  than  inanimate  and  senseless  pictures  receive 
from  state  and  military  officials,  as  they  kneel  and  kiss  each  saint,  a 
show  of  reverence  such  as  is  not  seen  even  in  Roman  Churches. 
Even  crucifixes  were  banished  from  the  Eastern  Christian's  shrine. 
The  only  relics  of  sculpture  lingering  in  the  field  of  Christian  art  in 
the  Oriental  Church,  are  rude  anaglyphs,  or  carvings  in  low  relief 
on  chalices  and  sarcophagi. 

Sect.  4.  The  Majestic  Grandeur  to  which  Sculpture  arose  at  the 
Kevival  op  Science,  of  Letters,  of  Art,  and  of  Eeligion  in  the 
fifteenth  century. 

It  was  not  strange  that  the  age  of  WickliflTe  and  Thomas  a  Kem- 
pis,  of  Luther  and  Loyola,  of  Dante  and  Chaucer,  of  Copernicus 
and  Columbus,  should  fall  so  near  that  of  Lionardo  da  Vinci,  and 
of  Michel  Angelo,  that  these  men  eminent  in  spheres  so  different 
may  be  said  to  have  been  formed  and  developed  by  the  same  influ- 
ences. Religion,  Science,  Letters,  and  Art,  all  flourish  together; 
and  the  same  country,  at  the  same  age,  will  produce  a  "galaxy  like 
Dante,  Columbus,  and  Lionardo,  not  only  because  they  are  kindred 
plants  naturally  fed  from  the  same  soil,  but  because  like  forest  trees 
they  stimulate  each  other's  growth. 

Here,  again,  as  in  Greece,  the  graduated  steps  by  which  the 
advance  of  art  is  attained  is  most  marked;  since  it  required  at  least 
two  centuries  and  a  half  from  the  first  reviving  of  art  to  bring  forth 
the  sculptor  in  whom  that  branch  seemed  to  be  perfected.  It  was 
in  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century  that  the  return  to  the 
pure  and  ancient  taste  began ;  and  it  was  at  the  close  of  the  sixteenth 
century  that  it  reached  its  climax  of  perfection. 

In  the  octagonal  building  called  the  Baptistery  in  the  rear  of  the 
Cathedral  of  Pisa,  stands  a  large  octagonal  font  about  four  feet  high 
and  five  or  six  in  diameter,  with  a  pulpit  in  the  rear  executed  in 
marble  with  fine  bas-reliefs  representing  Scripture  incidents.     It  is 


352  ART  CRITICISM. 

the  work  of  Nicolo  Pisano;  who,  about  A.  D.  1250;  had  the  geiiiiis 
and  daring  to  rise  above  the  taste  and  bigotry  of  his  times,  and, 
taking  nature  as  his  model,  to  frame  Sculpture  of  sacred  personages 
with  the  beauty  and  life  belonging  to  real  men  of  differing  charac- 
ters. His  son  Giovanni,  or  John,  partook  his  father's  spirit;  and 
the  heart  of  ancient  Etruria,  or  Tuscany,  became  a  second  time  the 
cradle  for  the  infancy  of  a  new  or  revived  taste  in  art.  The  churches 
•not  only  of  Pisa,  but  of  the  whole  surrounding  region,  now  contain 
relics  of  the  improved  sculpture  thus  introduced ;  among  which,  one 
of  the  finest  specimens  is  the  altar  in  the  chapel  of  St.  Michael,  at 
Florence,  by  Orcagna;  a  disciple  of  the  school  of  Pisano. 

The  tourist  in  Italy  finds  his  attention  arrested  by  the  three  bronze 
doors  of  the  Baptistery  in  the  rear  of  the  Cathedral  at  Florence. 
When  yet  a  youth,  Michel  Angelo,  destined  to  be  the  Phidias  of 
Modern  Italy,  used  to  stand  and  gaze  upon  these  doors,  and  to 
exclaim  that  they  were  "  degne  d'essere  le  porte  di  Paradise,"  worthy 
to  be  the  gates  of  Paradise.  Two  of  these  were  the  work  of  Lorenzo 
Ghiberti,  who  lived  at  the  opening  of  the  fifteenth  century,  or  about 
one  hundred  and  fifty  years  after  Pisano ;  and  who  occupied,  there- 
fore, the  middle  period  in  the  growth  of  that  art  taste  which  culmi- 
nated in  the  days  of  the  Medici.  Ghiberti  and  Donatello  were 
leading  spirits  in  this  age;  their  themes  were  still  Italian-like  inci- 
dents in  the  lives  of  patriarchs  and  prophets,  and  of  Jesus  and  his 
apostles ;  executed,  however,  not  after  the  old  cramped  and  inexpres- 
sive pattern,  but  with  the  life  of  the  best  Grecian  sculptures. 

The  visitor  to  the  Church  of  St.  Peter's,  at  Rome,  however  stolid 
his  mind,  or  impassive  his  sensibilities,  is  held  spell-bound  before  the 
majestic  and  impassioned  statue  of  Moses.  Hervey^  says  of  it,  "For 
efiTect,  the  world  has  nothing  like  it."  It  was  made  for  the  chapel 
and  tomb  of  Pope  Julian  II.  in  that  immense  church.  It  is  the 
masterpiece  of  Michel  Angelo  as  a  sculptor;  in  whom  the  perfect 
sublime  belonging  to  themes  of  the  Old  Testament  Law,  seems  to 
have  been  more  fully  reached  than  by  any  other  artist  of  ancient  or 
modern  times.  He  combined  in  himself  in  the  highest  eminence  the 
character  of  sculptor,  architect  and  painter;  and  in  his  masterpieces 
in  each  of  these  departments,  the  boldness  amounting  to  positive 
daring  which  is  an  essential  element  of  the  sublime  in  character  and 
in  works,  is  strikingly  exhibited.  Hervey  has  said  of  his  three  great 
works:  "His  Moses  inflames,  his  dome  of  St.  Peter's  awes,  and  his 


Illustrations  of  Modern  Sculpture,  T.  K.  Hervey,  London,  1834. 


IIECOVERED  MODELS  AEFECTING  CHRISTIAN  SCULPTURE.     353 

Last  Judgment  startles."  Michel  Angelo's  Moses  has  been  both 
compared  and  contrasted  with  the  Jupiter  of  Phidias.  The  artist 
and  this  work  are  worthy  of  the  comparison;  for  like  Phidias, 
Michel  Angelo  reached  the  height  of  artistic  success  in  the  religious 
system  of  which  he  sought  to  make  his  ideal  an  embodiment ;  that 
of  Phidias  being  the  majesty  of  the  supreme  among  the  Grecian 
hero-deities,  and  that  of  Michel  Angelo  being  the  glory  that  shone 
in  the  face  of  the  first  great  law-giver  of  the  unseen  God  as  he  came 
from  the  terrors  of  Sinai  radiant  with  a  light  so  dazzling  that  the 
people  could  not  look  thereon.  It  is  to  be  contrasted  with  the  work 
of  Phidias,  because  it  is  as  wide  a  departure  from  the  classic  stand- 
ard of  art  as  the  God  of  Moses  is  from  the  deities  of  Hesiod.  In 
this  work  of  Angelo,  the  sublime  belonging  to  the  Old  Testament  as 
the  forerunner  of  the  New  Testament  reached  its  climax.  It  is  in 
painting,  rather  than  in  sculpture,  that  the  sublime  of  the  New 
Testament  history  has  been  attempted  and  attained. 

Sect.  5.  The  embodiment  of  Christian  Sentiment  in  forms  of  classic 
grace,  characterizing  modern  sculpture  in  southern  europe. 

Michel  Angelo  was  the  grand  representative,  not  of  perfected 
Italian  sculpture,  but  of  the  revival  of  art  in  general,  and  the  special 
master  of  the  sublime  in  Christian  themes.  Long  before  his  time  the 
peculiar  character  of  Tuscan  genius  had  displayed  itself;  so  like  that 
of  the  ancient  Greeks  who  had  settled  in  central  Italy,  and  who  were 
the  lineal  ancestry  of  the  great  artists  of  Modern  Italy.  The  cha- 
racteristic of  perfected  Italian  sculpture,  as  also  of  the  best  school  of 
modern  architecture,  was  this;  it  caught  the  spirit  of  beauty  and 
grace  conceived  by  the  ancient  Greeks,  and  made  it  conspire  to 
express  the  sentiment  and  thus  to  promote  the  devotion  and  advance 
the  civilization,  belonging  to  the  Christian  faith.  An  exhaustive 
analysis  might  reveal  in  the  progress  of  this  art  in  Modern  Italy 
substantially  the  same  steps  beheld  in  Ancient  Greece  from  the  rude 
to  the  bold,  the  grand,  the  graceful,  the  historic  and  the  impas- 
sioned. 

In  the  middle  of  the  Fourteenth  Century,  75  years  after  Pisano 
lived,  and  150  years  before  M.  Angelo,  in  marked  resemblance  to 
the  progress  of  art  in  Greece,  the  first  school  of  design,  modelled 
after  those  of  ancient  Greece,  was  introduced  into  Tuscany.  A  cen- 
tury later  this  school  reached  its  climax  of  success ;  and  two  main 
causes  conspired  with  the  already  awakened  spirit  of  art  to  give  it  a 
thoroughly  classical  cast. 

22  2  u 


354  ART   CRITICISM. 

In  the  year  A.  D.  1453,  Constantinople,  the  centre  to  which  had 
clustered  the  little  remains  of  true  Grecian  taste  that  had  survived 
centuries  of  decline,  was  taken  by  the  Turks.  The  few  genuine 
descendants  of  an  unbroken  succession  possessing  the  art  spirit  of 
ancient  days,  a  spirit  that  will  always  like  that  of  true  religion  have 
its  "elect  remnant,"  being  driven  from  their  home,  sought  the  land 
of  Western  culture.  Arrived  in  Italy  no  spot  so  invited  them  as  the 
old  colonial  heritage  of  Etruria.  The  revival  of  art  had  here  raised 
up  a  noble  and  truly  princely  line  of  patrons,  in  the  long  succession 
of  Grand  Dukes  of  Tuscany,  who  admired  ancient  art  and  cherished 
every  effort  for  its  restoration.  The  mingling  of  these  fugitive 
Greeks  among  the  native  artists  of  this  region  of  Italy  served  to  give 
a  more  decided  tendency  to  the  classic  taste  already  awakened. 

Not  long  after  this,  while  these  fugitives  were  yet  living,  and 
partly  it  is  probable  through  their  influence,  the  relics  of  the  statues 
of  Grecian  gods  and  heroes  thrown  down  and  buried  beneath  the 
ruins  of  their  temples  in  ancient  Rome  by  the  Christian  zealots  of 
the  days  of  Theodosius,  were  dug  up  from  their  graves.  How  com- 
pletely these  masterpieces  of  classic  sculpture  had  been  made  to  dis- 
appear is  manifest  from  a  list  prepared  by  Pope  Eugenius  IV.,  A.  T>. 
1430,  of  the  then  preserved  Grecian  statues ;  in  which  only  five  are 
enumerated  as  entire.  From  about  A.  D.  1480  to  1506,  in  which 
latter  year  the  group  of  Laocoon  was  exhumed,  a  large  number  were 
rescued ;  most  of  w^hich  were  deposited  in  the  Vatican  and  Farnese 
Palaces  of  Rome,  and  in  the  halls  of  the  Medici  or  Grand  Ducal 
family  at  Florence.  The  study  of  these  ancient  models,  and  the  am- 
bition to  restore  the  parts  of  them  that  were  lost,  gave  a  permanent 
Grecian  cast  to  Italian  taste  in  sculpture. 

A  yet  more  decided  influence  came  from  the  independent,  the 
almost  ultramontane  freedom  of  religious  sentiment  and  practice  that 
had  always  maintained  at  Milan  and  in  other  Northern  cities  and 
sections  of  Italy.  Flaxman  has  Avith  force  drawn  attention  to  the 
fact  that  the  family  of  the  Grand  Dukes  of  Tuscany  had  a  club 
organized  for  the  study  of  Plato  and  the  discussion  of  the  doctrines 
of  that  philosopher,  who  was  both  made  by  and  the  maker  of  Gre- 
cian sculptors.  By  this  club,  which  grew  into  a  society  devoted  to 
the  re-publishing  of  the  Greek  classics  and  to  the  revival  of  that 
early  Christian  philosophy  which  sought  to  reconcile  the  Platonic 
doctrines  with  the  teachings  of  the  New  Testament,  the  art-spirit  of 
the  age  was  directed.  It  was  natural  that  the  philosophy  which  gave 
shape  to  the  conceptions  of  Phidias  should  also  give  a  turn  to  the 


CLASSIC   INFLUENCE   FROM   UNBURIED   POMPEII.  355 

ideals  of  the  sculptors  who  grew  up  under  the  influence  of  the  school 
of  the  Medici. 

The  artists  who  began  this  work  of  classical  reform  were  most  of 
them  not  great  masters  in  art.  The  men  who  were  entrusted  with 
the  repairing  and  restoration  of  mutilated  antiques  already  referred 
to,  Bellini  who  carved  the  arms  of  the  mutilated  Venus,  Montorsoli 
who  repaired  the  Apollo  Belvidere,  Bandinelli  who  re-cast  the  right 
arm  of  the  Laocoon,  and  Guglielmo  della  Porta  that  of  the  Far- 
nese  Hercules,  were  not  artists  of  the  higher  order  of  genius.  The 
improved  schools  of  Northern  Italy  did  not  reach  Southern  Italy 
and  its  centre  Naples,  whose  style  was  a  profuse  ornament.  A  cor- 
rupt Neapolitan  taste  grew  to  maturity  under  Bernini ;  who,  forgetful 
of  the  principle  that  the  sculptor's  chisel,  employed  upon  hard  mate- 
rial and  that  of  one  color,  cannot  present  the  nice  tracery  and  the 
minute  shading  to  which  the  painter's  brush  is  alone  adequate,  con- 
ceived the  unartistic  idea  of  carrying  the  ornamented  style  of  Cor- 
regio's  painting  into  sculpture.  The  Florentine  School,  too,  when 
the  line  of  its  noble  patrons  became  degenerate,  lingered  to  a  close 
near  the  end  of  the  Seventeenth.  Century.  In  the  Eighteenth  Cen- 
tury, however,  new  awakening  causes  started  the  drooping  spirit  of 
true  art  from  its  brief  slumber ;  that  renewed  taste  taking  its  charac- 
ter from  the  classic  Greek,  and  finding  its  subjects  in  spiritual  Chris- 
tianity. The  opening  of  the  treasures  of  art  hid  beneath  the  ashes 
of  Pompeii,  first  discovered  in  1748,  revived  the  before  kindled 
interest;  while  the  appearance  of  the  masterly  treatise  on  ancient 
sculpture  by  Winckelmann,  who  attracted  by  the  new  discoveries 
left  Germany  and  spent  his  life  in  Italy,  fanned  to  a  flame  the 
enthusiasm  for  classic  sculpture,  till  all  Italy,  Europe,  and  even 
America  were  attracted  by  it.  The  numerous,  and  sometimes  obscure 
Churches  and  palaces  of  the  cities  of  Italy  rejoice  in  perfect  gems  of 
sculpture,  classic  in  grace  and  Christian  in  theme,  the  oflspring  of 
this  revived  taste;  treasures  which  no  foreign  gold  can  bribe  their 
appreciating  possessors  to  part  with ;  shrines  to  which  the  tourist  in 
Italy,  led  by  true  love  for  art,  will  find  himself  draw^n  as  by  the  spell 
of  a  rare  devotion.  The  three  veiled  statues.  Modesty,  Vice  and  the 
Dead  Christ,  in  the  retired  Church  of  Santa  Maria  della  Pieta,  lost 
among  the  300  more  attractive  sacred  edifices  of  that  city,  more  than 
realize  this  characteristic  of  the  taste  of  that  age. 

Prominent  in  this  new  era  was  Canova.  Born  at  Possagno,  in 
Austrian  or  Venetian  Italy,  A.  D.  1757,  the  son  of  a  stone-cutter,  in 
the  ninth  year  of  his  age  he  carved  two  small  shrines  in  Carrara 


356  ART  cRiTieis:>r. 

marble,  displaying  such  genius  that  an  artist  secured  him  a  place  as 
pupil  in  the  studio  of  a  sculptor  at  Venice.  At  seventeen,  he  had 
executed  his  statues  of  Orpheus  and  Eurydice;  which  were  soon  fol- 
lowed by  those  of  Daedalus  and  Icarus.  Having  visited  Eome, 
Naples,  and  the  new  collections  from  Pompeii,  he  established  his 
studio  at  Venice,  and  brought  out  his  Apollo  and  Theseus,  whose 
reputation  overwhelmed  him  with  orders  from  crowned  heads. 
During  the  French  Revolution  of  1798  he  visited  Germany,  and  in 
1802  Napoleon  invited  him  to  Paris,  where  he  modelled  a  statue  of 
the  Emperor.  The  spirit  of  the  French  Court  interfering  with  his 
devotion  to  art,  he  returned  to  his  native  town,  where  he  remained 
till  his  death  in  1822. 

Canova's  works  group  themselves  under  those  three  classes  which 
characterize  the  sculpture  of  native  and  foreign  students  of  art  in 
Modern  Italy.  They  are  first,  classic  themes,  the  promptings  of  the 
aesthetic  cravings  of  artists;  second,  religious  studies,  the  suggestion 
of  higher  aspirings  after  moral  excellence;  and  third,  historical  or- 
private  subjects,  as  busts  and  statues  of  men  of  renown,  or  of  wealth, 
undertaken  from  the  necessities  of  livelihood.  The  capitols  of  Aus- 
tria and  France  have  numerous  memorials  of  the  latter  class  from 
Canova's  chisel ;  the  Churches  of  Italy  abound  in  the  second ;  and 
the  collections  of  amateurs  in  almost  every  country  in  Europe  have 
relics  of  the  first  class  of  his  works.  This  threefold  direction  of  his 
genius  manifested  itself  in  his  last  days ;  when  he  planned  the  beau- 
tiful little  Church  after  the  order  of  the  Parthenon  for  his  native 
village,  and  executed  a  series  of  bas-reliefs  designed  to  illustrate  the 
life  of  Socrates,  together  with  a  group  of  Mars  and  Venus ;  when, 
again,  he  conceived  and  completed  his  exquisite  Piety,  his  St.  John, 
and  reclining  Magdalene;  and  when  yet  again  he  modeled  and 
carved  the  colossal  sitting  statue  of  Washington  for  the  Capitol  of 
North  Carolina  at  Raleigh. 

It  seems  to  be  the  ordering  of  Providence  that  genius  of  the 
highest  order  should  be  rare,  and  add  glory  to  but  an  occasional  age. 
Such  works  as  the  beautiful  equestrian  statue  in  bronze  of  Louis 
XIV.,  by  Bosio,  standing  in  the  Place  des  Victoires,  at  Paris,  and 
others  of  similar  merit  executed  by  Italian  artists  in  the  early  part 
of  the  present  century,  hint  the  counter  truth  that  genius  itself  must 
have  a  congenial  field  for  development,  and  that  even  ordinary 
capacity  rises  to  excellence  when  nurtured  amid  associations  promo- 
tive of  general  culture.  The  statues  of  Peace  and  War,  by  Persico, 
at  the  American  Capital,  are  testimonials  to  the  fact  that  to  carve 


MODERN   SCULPTURE   IN   SPAIN   AND   FRANCE.  357 

in  marble  is  for  the  Italian  a  natural  mechanical  pursuit;  and  as 
among  the  thousands  of  workmen  in  an  English  or  American  factory, 
some  Avill  develop  great  inventive  skill,  so  among  the  thousands  of 
common  chippers,  carvers  and  polishers  of  Italian  birth,  employed 
on  great  public  works  in  almost  every  country,  it  is  only  here  and 
there  that  a  true  artist  will  be  called  out.  Everywhere  and  univer- 
sally, however,  the  spirit  of  Italian  sculpture  is  moulded  to  the 
classic  type. 

Sect.  6.  The  union  of  simplicity  in  design,  natural  beauty  of  form, 

AND  liveliness  OF  EXPRESSION  DISTINGUISHING  SCULPTURE  IN  NORTHERN 

Europe. 

Though  the  spread  of  a  cultured  taste  for  the  art  of  sculpture  has 
generally  had  its  rise  in  the  countries  of  Northern  Europe  from  the 
visits  of  Italian  artists,  and  though  the  artists  of  every  clime  have 
flocked  to  Italy  as  the  school  for  study,  yet  the  age  of  culture  has 
everywhere  been  preceded  by  a  rude  native  genius  which  the  classic 
influence  of  Southern  Europe  could  only  refine,  but  never  shape. 

Even  Spain,  the  natural  neighbor  of  Italy,  in  location,  language 
and  ecclesiastical  predilections,  had  a  native  art  taste  of  its  own 
which  Italian  refinement  only  modified;  a  fact  more  apparent, 
indeed,  in  the  History  of  Painting,  yet  traceable  even  in  Sculpture. 
The  long  residence  and  the  real  cultivation  of  the  Moors  in  Spain 
first  stamped  its  impress  of  mingled  glitter  and  true  magnificence  on 
the  artists  of  Castile  and  Aragon.  Afterward  the  fame  of  St.  Peter's 
and  of  Michael  Angelo  drew  Paul  de  Cespides  from  Spain  to  Rome; 
and  in  him  sculpture  rose  in  that  land  of  grand  ideas  to  something 
like  dignity.  Since  that  era,  however,  Spain  has  been  behind  almost 
all  other  portions  of  Europe  in  this  department  of  art. 

In  France  there  were  sculptors  of  ability  before  the  age  of  Da 
Vinci.  The  "Fountain  of  the  Innocents,"  at  Paris,  executed  in  the 
sixteenth  century  by  Jean  Gougon,  as  also  the  works  of  Jacques 
d'Angouleme  in  the  same  age,  show  but  a  partial  chastening  from 
the  early  Florentine  culture  upon  an  artist  of  true  genius  impatient 
of  discipline.  The  Caryatides  of  the  Louvre,  by  Sarrasin  at  a  later 
day,  are  a  worthy  imitation  of  those  graceful  figures  which  adorned 
the  Parthenon;  though  they  are  French,  not  Grecian.  In  the  bril- 
liant era  of  Louis  XIV.,  Girardon  and  Puget  gave  that  yet  more 
marked  native  type  to  French  sculpture,  which  won  for  it  the  title 
"  La  Belle."     Yet  later.  Falconet  gained  even  a  foreign  reputation ; 


358  ART  CRITICISM. 

being  selected  to  execute  a  bronze  statue  of  Peter  the  Great,  in 
Kussia. 

The  true  genius  of  French  sculpture,  however,  appeared  in  Hou- 
don.  This  great  artist  was  born  in  1741,  at  Versailles,  near  Paris. 
The  work  of  Winckelmann  on  Sculpture  gave  direction  to  his  early 
aspirations;  and  in  youth  he  took  the  first  prize  for  Sculpture  at  the 
Eoyal  Academy.  Going  to  Italy  after  a  brief  visit  to  the  unburied 
cities  of  Herculaneum  and  Pompeii,  he  spent  ten  years  at  Pome; 
during  which  time  he  executed  his  famous  statue  of  St.  Bruno,  of 
which  Pope  Clement  XIV.  said,  "  It  would  spealc  did  not  the  rule  of 
his  order  enjoin  silence."  Returning  to  Paris,  during  the  supremacy 
of  the  Revolution,  he  executed  busts  and  statues  of  Rousseau,  Di- 
derot, D'Alembert,  Turgot,  Mirabeau,  and  Voltaire.  At  the  invita- 
tion of  Benjamin  Franklin,  then  at  Paris,  whose  bust  he  executed, 
he  visited  America  in  1785,  and  during  two  weeks  spent  at  Mount 
Vernon,  took  the  casts  for  that  statue  of  Washington  which,  when 
executed,  Lafayette  declared  to  be  the  best  likeness  obtained  of  the 
American  patriot;  and  which,  at  this  day,  is  the  central  ornament 
of  the  State  Capitol  at  Richmond  in  Virginia.  Returning  to  France, 
imperial  in  place  of  Republican  subjects  demanded  his  skill  in  the 
persons  of  Napoleon  and  Josephine.  He  lived  till  1828;  dying  at 
the  age  of  eighty-seven  years,  having  passed  through  national  vicis- 
situdes such  as  few  mortals  meet ;  verifying,  in  his  quiet  devotion  to 
art,  how  happy  and  successful  the  man  of  highest  ambition  may  be, 
while  all  the  world  is  in  tremor  and  peril  around  him.  One  of  his 
last  works,  a  labor  of  love  in  hours  saved  from  less  noble  toil,  was 
his  Cicero ;  now  standing  as  a  monitor  to  the  Senators  of  France  in 
the  palace  of  the  Luxembourg. 

In  Germany  the  Revival  of  Spiritual  Religion  was  followed  amid 
the  general  impulse  given  to  intellectual  inquiry  by  a  genuine  taste 
in  painting  and  sculpture.  As  early  as  the  Sixteenth  Century,  a 
genius  for  this  latter  art  had  displayed  itself  in  an  independent  native 
vigor  of  conception,  chastened  afterwards  by  culture  to  classic  ele- 
gance, and  devoting  itself  generally  from  the  necessity  of  the  artist 
either  to  subjects  of  local  interest  or  to  religious  themes.  Hervey 
has  characterized  German  sculpture  as  "  excelling  in  funereal  monu- 
ments." As  early  as  the  Sixteenth  Century,  Peter  Vischer  had,  by 
his  group  of  the  Twelve  Apostles  at  Nuremburg,  given  Bavaria  the 
honor  of  being  leader  among  the  German  states  in  sculpture.  Though 
this  art  has  lingered  behind  her  sister,  Painting,  in  Germany,  yet  in 
the  works  of  Schliiter,  Schadow,  Dannecker,  Ranch,  and  others, 


THORWALDSEN  THE  DANE,  AND  THE  BELGIAN  GEEFS.   359 

themes  of  classic  and  Christian,  of  national  and  individual  interest 
have  been  ennobled  in  sculpture. 

In  the  neighboring  states  of  Denmark  and  Belgium,  sculpture  has 
been  pre-eminently  a  master-study.  The  name  of  Thorwaldsen,  born 
at  Copenhagen  1772,  is  a  monument  to  Danish  genius.  His  father, 
an  Iceland  stone-cutter,  perceiving  his  son's  talent,  placed  him  early 
at  a  school  of  design.  The  Royal  Academy  of  Copenhagen,  seeing 
his  promise,  sent  him  at  their  expense  for  five  years  to  Rome ;  where 
his  life  has  been  spent.  His  early  works  were  his  Jason,  Achilles, 
Mars,  Adonis,  Hebe,  and  other  classic  subjects;  and  the  patronage 
of  two  English  gentlemen,  one  of  whom  ordered  his  Jason  when  in 
plaster  to  be  cut  in  marble,  while  another  afterwards  bought  his 
Hebe,  was  the  foundation  of  his  pecuniary  independence.  After- 
wards, until  he  could  refuse  them,  he  executed  many  busts  and 
statues  of  living  personages.  His  later  and  more  favorite  studies 
have  been  Christian  themes ;  a  St.  John,  and  Christ  and  his  Apostles 
for  the  Cathedral  Church  of  Copenhagen ;  Church  and  altar  decora- 
tions, and  funereal  monuments  in  relief  and  in  full  statues;  embodi- 
ments of  sentiment,  of  which  his  Day  and  Night  are  gems  every- 
where popular;  while  even  a  candelabra,  modelled  after  the  descrip- 
tion left  by  Pausanias  of  that  found  in  the  temple  of  Jupiter  at 
Athens,  has  invited  his  fertile  and  comprehensive  genius.  The  style 
of  Thorwaldsen  is  bolder  and  more  full  of  passion  and  of  majesty 
than  that  of  Canova;  his  life-long  Roman  culture  moulding, 
but  not  giving  original  shape  to  the  peculiar  type  of  the  sculpture 
of  Northern  Europe,  as  eclectic  in  culture  though  independent  in 
themes. 

In  the  two  brothers,  William  and  Joseph  Geef,  the  former  born  at 
Antwerp,  Belgium,  in  1806,  sculpture  has  found  recent  and  noble 
representatives  to  honor  that  country.  The  "Faithful  Messenger" 
of  Joseph  first  called  public  attention  to  the  works  of  these  brothers. 
''The  Melancholy,"  the  "Prayer,"  and  the  "Lion  in  Love,"  of  Wil- 
liam Geef,  the  latter  work  first  exhibited  at  the  London  Exhibition 
of  1851,  are  fine  examples  of  the  permanent  union  of  the  Christian 
and  classic  ideals  which  seem  to  be  natural  suggestions  to  the  mind 
of  young  artists  in  the  north  of  Europe. 

Sect.  7.  The  Scope  of  Subject  and  Vigor  of  Conception  seen  in  the 
early  growth  of  english  and  american  sculpture. 

England  has  been  behind  Continental  Europe  in  producing  emi- 
nent artists;  and  America,  her  daughter,  has  with  more  reason  been 


360  A1^  CRITICISM.       ..  ; 

"behind  even  the  mother  land;  though  as  a  nation  the  earliest  to 
develope  art  taste.  In  England,  the  main  cause  of  this  neglect  h^^ 
been  the  wide  extent  of  her  domain/ which  has  invited  so  strongly 
her  young  men  of  genius  to  positions  of  wealth  and  power ;  while  in 
Amdrica  the  same  cause  has  had  even  greater  occasion  for  control. 
The  natural  life  of  the  people  of  England,  so  like  to  that  of  the 
Romans,  ha$  made  her,  likfe  her  prototype,  a  collector,  it  might  almost 
be  said  a  plunderer,  rather  than  an  originator  and  executer  of  works 
of  art  in  painting  and  sculpture.  Literature  speaks  to  the  mind  in 
only  one  tongue  selected  from  many;  and  every  cultured  nation 
must  therefore  have  writers  in  their  own  native  language:  but  art 
has  the  "  gift  of  tongues ;"  and  a  Greek  statue  may  address  the  pe<3ple 
of  Rome  or  London  as  intelligibly  as  an  Athenian  audience.  It  was 
in  the  time  of  Charles  the  First,,4about  A.  D.  1620,  that  the  Earl  of 
Arundel  brought  from  Greece  those  exquisite  bas-reliefs,  pried  out 
from  under  the  cornicfes  of  Grecian  temples,  and  those  matchless 
fragments  of  ancient  statues,  which  yet  adorn  the  British  Museum. 
Nearly  two  centuries  later,,  from  1799  to  1812,  while  Lord  Elgin 
represented  England  at  Constantinople,  the  Elgin  marbles  were  in 
like  manner  gathered;  such  a  collection  as  the  free  Greeks  of  this 
day  will  never  again  allow  to  be  taken  from  their  shores. 

The  early  sculptures  now  found  in  the  English  Churches  are  not 
by  native  artists;  for  neither  the  Britons,  Saxons,  or  Normans,  had 
leisure  to  turn  artists.  After  the  Crusades,  art  was  more  cultivated 
in  England ;  but  in  the  person  of  Italian  artists.  During  the  reign 
of  Edward  III.  the  rich  ornaments  and  monuments  of  York  and 
Gloucester  Cathedrals  were  executed ;  but  not  by  English  scul|>tiors. 
From  the  reign  of  Henry  YIIL  the  spirit  d'f  thie  Reformation  for  a 
time  yielded  to  the  fallacy  of  Iconoclasm,  and  art  was  neglected; 
but,  as  always  in  the  history  of  Christianity,  it  was  a  fanaticism  of 
short  duration,  succeeded  by  a  speedy  return  to  thejust  appreciation 
and  approbation  of  the  works  of  art. 

In  the  Eighteenth  Century,  native  sculptors  appeared  in  the  per- 
sons of  Banks,  Wilton  and  Bacon.  Born  A.  D.  1735,  Thomas  Banks 
by  his  early  success  as  a  pupil  of  the  London  Royal  Academy  won 
the  selection  as  the  Academy  beneficiary  to  Italy.  His  "  Caractacus 
pleading  before  Claudius  at  Rome,"  early  executed,  and  his  "  Psyche 
and"  the'  JBiitterfly,"  won  him  a  European  reputation.  The  present 
century  has  been  as  fruitful  as  the  past  was  barren  in  the  growth  of 
genius  for  art  in  England.  In  this  extended  devotion,  especially  to 
sculpture,  Flaxman  has  led  the  way.     Born  at  York,  in  1755,  at  the 


THE   NATIVE   SCULPTORS   OF   ENGLAND.  361 

age  of  fifteen  years,  he  entered  the  Royal  Academy,  and  at  twenty- 
seven  went  to  Italy.  Classic  themes  and  the  classic  style  as  pre- 
sented in  outlines  upon  ancient  vases,  became  his  favorite  study ;  and 
during  seven  years  spent  at  Rome  he  executed  his  "Illustrations  of 
Homer."  Drawn  from  the  best  models  of  the  ancients  they  have 
been  admired  for  their  spirit  in  every  country  of  Europe.  These 
classic  subjects  of  his  early  study  however  were  only  executed  in 
drawings  and  plaster  casts;  they  were  too  ideal  and  extended  to  be 
put  in  marble.  Richard  Westmacott,  born  in  1774,  the  son  of  a 
sculptor,  who  sent  him  to  Rome  in  his  eighteenth  year,  developed  an 
early  taste  for  ideal  creations,  which  impoverish  the  purse,  though  they 
enrich  the  genius  of  the  artist.  Westmacott's  "  Psyche  opening  the 
casket  of  Beauty,"  and  his  "  Euphrosyne,"  one  of  the  Graces,  are 
beautiful  conceptions  of  ideal  art.  His  later  labor  was  devoted 
almost  entirely  to  statues  of  eminent  men ;  among  which  his  Addison 
was  his  first,  and  his  George  III.  his  most  complimentary.  Francis 
Chantrey,  born  in  1782,  having  from  boyhood  shown  a  fondness  for 
modelling  in  clay,  deserted  his  law  studies  at  Sheffield,  when  he 
chanced  one  day  to  enter  the  shop  of  Ramsay  a  sculptor.  At  twenty 
years  of  age,  he  made  himself  famous  by  a  bust  of  Home  Tooke, 
which  indicated  original  genius  in  giving  life  and  force  of.  expression 
to  marble.  His  works  of  statuary  and  monumental  design  are  found 
everywhere  in  London;  and  his  statue  of  Washington  in  the  State 
House  at  Boston  is  prized  by  Americans. 

Wales  claims  renown  in  the  progress  of  English  Sculpture.  John 
Gibson,  born  at  Conway,  in  1791,  apprenticed  to  a  wood  carver, 
showed  genius  which  led  William  Roscoe  and  Lord  Brougham  to 
aid  in  sending  him  to  Rome.  A  pupil,  first  of  Canova,  then  of 
Thorwaldsen,  his  studies  became  chiefly  classic,  and  his  works  ideals 
of  ancient  mythology,  as  well  as  statues  of  the  living.  Among  the 
latter  are  statues  of  Queen  Victoria,  Robert  Peel,  and  others;  and 
among  the  former  are  "Psyche  borne  by  Zephyrs,"  "Mars  and  Cupid," 
"Hero  and  Leander,"  "Aurora,"  "Hebe,"  "Sappho,"  and  "Venus," 
and  a  gem  of  sentiment,  the  "  Sleeping  Shepherd."  Independent  in 
spirit  Gibson  has  ventured  on  the  hazardous  attempt  of  Praxiteles 
to  add  tint  to  marble;  his  "Victoria"  and  "Aurora"  being  slightly 
tinged,  and  his  "Venus"  completely  colored,  flesh,  hair,  and  drapery. 
He  is  a  leading  spirit  among  many  able  contemporary  English 
sculptors;  such  as  Bell,  Bacon,  Bailey,  Carew,  Manning,  Marshall, 
Spence,  Wyatt,  and  others ;  Ireland  also  being  represented  by  Foley. 

The  rise  of  native  American  sculptors,  though  recent,  is  yet  com- 
31  2  V 


362  AET   CRITICISM. 

paratively  early;  appearing  as  they  have  in  the  infancy  of  the 
nation,  and  rapidly  advancing  to  special  eminence  and  excellence. 
That  early  rise  is  admirably  presented  by  Francis  Hopkinson,  of 
New  Jersey,  one  of  the  signers  of  the  Declaration  of  American 
Independence,  the  racy  and  trenchant  satirist  of  his  times;  who 
records  that  "there  came  to  this  country  in  1783  immediately  at  the 
return  of  Peace,  a  certain  Kobert  Edge  Pine,  parading  the  title 
'Painter  to  His  Majesty,'  and  cherishing  the  intent  to  paint  the 
portraits  of  the  '  Heroes  of  the  American  War.' "  Said  Pine,  the 
painter,  brought  along  with  him  a  plaster  cast  of  the  Venus  di 
Medici;  "but,"  says  Hopkinson,  "he  kept  it  very  privately,  as  the 
manners  of  the  times  would  not  permit  the  exhibition  of  such  a 
figure.  And  yet  the  celebrated  women  of  that  day  exposed  their 
persons  in  such  a  manner,  as  to  shock  even  French  modistes ;  the 
fashion  of  the  open-necked  dresses  of  the  dissolute  Court  of  Charles 
the  Second  being  in  vogue  in  London,  New  York,  and  Philadelphia, 
at  that  period." 

While  such  was  the  lack  of  Art  taste  in  the  more  Northerly  States, 
where  Puritan,  Dutch  and  Quaker  influence  prevailed,  on  the  marble 
mantel  jambs  of  many  a  descendant  of  the  aristocratic  cavaliers 
settled  in  Virginia  and  South  Carolina  were  found  reliefs  of  classic 
subjects  carved  by  Italian  artists  in  England.  The  birth  of  the 
new  nation,  however,  was  immediately  and  in  all  sections  of  the 
country  succeeded  by  an  ambition  for  sculpture  in  its  higher  forms. 
There  were  men  whom  their  countrymen  could  not  willingly  allow 
to  pass  from  memory.  The  features  of  one,  the  Father  of  his 
Country,  every  Eevolutionary  soldier  and  every  American  wished  to 
have  in  personal  possession.  Franklin's  invitation  to  Houdon  was 
the  impulse  of  a  universal  aspiration.  The  statue  of  Washington 
in  the  capitol  of  Virginia,  at  Eichmond,  by  Houdon,  the  French 
sculptor,  that  in  the  capitol  of  North  Carolina,  Ealeigh,  by  Canova 
the  Italian  sculptor,  and  that  in'  the  capitol  of  Massachusetts,  at 
Boston,  by  Chantrey,  the  English  sculptor,  are  at  once  evidence  of  a 
universally  awakened  popular  demand  for  statuary,  and  of  the  fact 
that  no  American  sculptor  of  ability  had  arisen ;  while  that  in  the 
Hall  of  Independence,  at  Philadelphia,  the  work  of  William  Eush, 
carved  in  1812,  is  a  monument  of  the  aspiration  for  native  art 
awakened  by  the  new  national  life. 

It  was  not  till  about  1830  or  1840  that  works  of  sculpture  began 
to  appear  which  proved  that  ere  long  a  rich  harvest  in  this 
department  of  art  was  to  be  the  growth  of  American  soil.     The 


AMERICAN  SCULPTORS  ;   GREENOUGH  AND  CRAWFORD.      363 

Gallery  of  American  statuary  now  contains  a  worthy  list  of  honored 
names,  all  of  whom  have  flourished,  and  most  of  whom  have  been 
born  within  the  last  half  century.  Among  these,  Greenough,  Clev- 
enger,  Crawford,  among  the  dead,  and  among  the  living.  Powers, 
Brown,  Mills,  Palmer,  Stone,  Kogers,  Barbee,  Hosmer,  and  others 
have  adorned  their  country. 

The  name  of  Horace  Greenough  stands  first  in  time,  as  well  as 
eminent  in  merit,  among  American  sculptors;  his  "Chanting 
Cherubs,"  executed  in  1828,  being  the  first  group  in  marble  from  the 
chisel  of  an  American  artist.  Born  at  Boston  in  1805,  at  the  age 
of  sixteen  he  had  attained,  under  the  instruction  of  a  French  sculp- 
tor, proficiency  in  modeling.  Encouraged  by  Allston,  the  painter, 
he  left  College  for  Rome  at  the  age  of  twenty  years ;  where  he  made 
the  acquaintance  of  Thorwaldsen.  Revisiting  at  intervals  his  native 
land,  he  established  his  studio  permanently  in  Italy,  at  Florence. 
"  His  Chanting  Cherubs"  introduced  him  to  the  public ;  and  soon  he 
had  numerous  calls  for  busts.  His  first  commission  from  the  United 
States  Government  was  the  colossal  Washington  for  the  United 
States  Capitol,  which  was  finished  in  1843.  During  the  process  of 
chiseling  this  great  work,  he  executed  his  "Medora,"  his  "Venus 
Victrix,"  and  his  "  Angel  Abdiel."  His  second  commission  from  the 
United  States  Government,  his  "Rescue,"  or  the  Western  Hunter 
grappling  with  an  Indian,  was  finished  in  1851.  Greenough's  cast 
of  mind  was  bold  and  impulsive;  chastened  and  humanized  by  a 
genial  urbanity  and  generous  sympathy.  The  criticism  of  his  Wash- 
ington, relating  solely  to  the  drapery,  and  turning  on  these  two  nice 
questions,  first,  whether  the  true  ideal  of  art  in  drapery  is  not  to  give 
a  national  costume  and  whether  the  Grecian  sculptor  chose  the 
flowing  toga  for  its  own  ease  and  grace  or  as  the  national  garb,  and 
second,  whether  the  nude  of  the  Grecian  statuary  seen  in  the  Her- 
cules of  Daedalus,  but  not  in  the  Jove  of  Phidias,  justified  nudity  iii 
an  apotheosis  of  the  American  patriot-general,  seems  to  have  worn 
upon  his  sensitive  and  generous  nature,  and  to  have  hastened  his 
death  in  1851.  The  head  of  Greenough's  Washington  is  incompa- 
rably sublime ;  and  in  itself  will  make  the  artist  ever  live  in  the 
hearts  of  his  countrymen,  and  in  the  appreciation  of  generous  critics. 
His  "Venus,"  too,  is  of  the  sweetest  loveliness;  and  the  genius  that 
could  excel  in  such  opposite  styles,  uniting  the  boldness  of  Phidias 
and  the  grace  of  Praxiteles,  will  shine  as  a  rare  one  in  the  history 
of  American  sculpture. 

Shobel  Vail  Clevenger,  born  at  Middleton,  Ohio,  in  1812,  was 


3()4  ART   CRITICISM. 

reared  a  stone-cutter.  An  angel,  which  he  carved  on  a  tombstone, 
having  attracted  attention  at  Cincinnati,  he  went  to  Boston,  and, 
after  some  private  instruction,  executed  busts  of  Webster,  Clay,  and 
other  eminent  men.  Visiting  Italy,  he  continued  his  labors  in  the 
same  class  of  sculpture.  He  died  at  sea  on  his  way  home  in  his 
thirty-first  year;  leaving  behind  the  pledges  of  great  future  emi- 
nence, had  his  life  been  spared. 

Thomas  Crawford,  noted  for  laboriousness  as  well  as  ability,  born 
at  New  York,  in  1814,  from  the  time  he  could  hold  a  pencil,  devoted 
every  leisure  moment  to  drawing.  At  fourteen,  his  father  allowed 
him  to  enter  the  shop  of  a  wood-carver;  at  nineteen  he  commenced 
executing  monumental  marble ;  entering  also,  a  School  of  Design. 
At  twenty-one,  with  scanty  means,  going  to  Rome,  he  became  a 
pupil  of  Thorwaldsen.  For  several  years  he  toiled  incessantly  with- 
out awakening  special  notice;  when  his  model  of  "Orpheus"  drew 
forth  the  encomiums  of  both  Thorwaldsen  and  of  Gibson,  and  a 
copy  of  it  was  in  consequence  ordered  for  the  Boston  Athseneum. 
He  now  devoted  himself  for  some  years  to  classic  themes  for  higher 
improvement,  and  to  busts  to  replenish  his  purse.  In  1849,  on  a 
visit  to  America,  he  obtained  from  the  state  of  Virginia  a  commis- 
sion for  the  equestrian  statue  of  Washington,  now  at  Richmond; 
which,  with  the  group  on  the  pedestal,  forms  the  most  elaborate  com- 
position in  bronze  in  America.  Crawford  died  in  1857,  at  the  age 
of  forty-three  years,  from  an  over-taxing  of  his  energies.  His  works 
in  statuary  and  busts,  in  classic.  Christian  and  sentimental  themes, 
excite  surprise  at  their  general  merit,  as  well  as  their  number.  His 
grandest  studies  were  his  models  for  the  group  in  the  tympanum  of 
the  northeast  portico  of  the  United  States  Capitol,  and  for  the  colos- 
sal Liberty  at  the  apex  of  the  dome ;  works  which  have  been  exe- 
cuted by  other  hands  since  his  death. 

Hiram  Powers,  born  in  Woodstock,  Vermont,  in  1805,  but  re- 
moved early  in  life  to  Ohio,  having  made  the  acquaintance  in  youth 
of  a  German  sculptor  at  Cincinnati,  conceived  a  love  for  the  art. 
Having  acquired  some  skill  in  modelling  in  clay  after  spending  seven 
years,  from  twenty-three  to  thirty  years  of  age,  as  a  Curator  of  a 
Museum,  he  came  to  Washington  City  in  1835,  and  gained  reputa- 
tion for  his  busts.  Two  years  later,  through  the  liberality  of  Mr. 
Longworth  of  Cincinnati  he  was  enabled  to  visit  Italy.  One  year 
after,  in  1838,  he  modelled  his  Eve ;  which  drew  encomiums  from 
Thorwaldsen.  In  1839,  he  modelled  his  Greek  Slave ;  of  which  he 
has  made  not  less  than  four  copies.     Other  subjects  of  sentiment  fol- 


POWERS,   BROWN,   IkHLLS,    PALMER   AND   STONE.  365 

lowed ;  when,  as  usually  occurs,  the  demands  of  men  of  wealth,  that 
could  not  be  denied,  led  him  from  the  flowery  fields  of  the  ideal  into 
the  dusty  highway  of  the  lucrative.  His  busts  of  private  individuals 
and  statues  of  eminent  men  adorn  many  a  public  hall  and  private 
gallery.  Powers'  genius  is  of  the  quiet  and  pensive  order,  the  natu- 
ral offspring  of  his  mild,  unobtrusive  nature ;  a  trait  which  manifests 
itself  in  the  retiring  modesty  and  gentle  grace  of  his  female  figures, 
and  also  in  the  repose  of  his  masculine  forms. 

Henry  K.  Brown,  born  in  Massachusetts  in  1814,  drew  at  twelve 
years  of  age  a  portrait  of  an  old  man  which  revealed  his  genius. 
Encouraged  by  his  mother  at  eighteen  years,  he  began  the  study  of 
portrait  painting  in  Boston.  Attempting  to  model  a  young  lady's 
head  in  clay,  and  succeeding,  he  turned  his  thoughts  to  sculpture. 
The  sale  of  his  youthful  productions,  with  the  added  aid  of  friends 
permitted  him  to  visit  and  pass  some  years  in  Italy.  Believing  the 
stimulus  and  direction  of  home  life  to  be  the  legitimate  field  for  the 
artist's  toil  after  classic  study  abroad,  returning  home  he  fixed  his 
residence  at  New  York ;  which  city  as  well  as  Columbia,  S.  C,  are 
marked  with  the  treasures  of  his  skill.  Among  his  works  in  marble 
are  his  "Hope,"  "The  Pleiades,"  and  "The  Four  Seasons;"  and  in 
bronze  his  statue  of  De  Witt  Clinton,  and  the  equestrian  Washington 
in  Union  Park,  New  York. 

Clark  Mills,  born  in  the  State  of  New  York  in  1815,  apprenticed 
as  a  millwright,  then  as  a  plasterer,  left  an  orphan  by  the  death  of 
his  parents,  went  in  youth  to  Charleston,  S.  C.  His  superior  skill  in 
stucco  suggested  an  attempt  at  modelling  in  clay.  His  success  in 
busts,  particularly  in  the  head  of  Calhoun,  determined  him  to  visit 
Italy.  Passing  through  Washington  City  on  his  way  he  received  in 
1848  a  commission  for  an  equestrian  statue  of  Jackson.  His  model 
was  prepared  from  a  horse  trained  to  rear  and  stand  poised  on  his 
hind  feet,  and  the  cast  was  made  without  a  furnace,  his  fire  being 
concentrated  as  in  a  coal-pit;  the  objections  of  men  of  science  both 
to  the  stability  of  his  work  and  to  his  method  of  executing  it  being 
met  by  practical  demonstration  on  a  small  scale.  When  completed, 
and  inaugurated  January  8th,  1853,  it  was  the  first  specimen  in  the 
history  of  equestrian  statuary  of  a  horse  poised  with  his  rider  upon 
two  feet.  Mills'  Washington,  and  his  casting  of  Crawford's  Liberty, 
have  added  to  the  fame  gained  by  his  Jackson.  His  genius,  specially 
daring,  taking  models  from  nature  and  learning  methods  from  prac- 
tical pursuits  has  triumphed  without  an  instructor  in  new  paths  of 
art.     His  life  study  has  been  to  perpetuate  the  native  men  and  ani- 

31  « 


366  ART   CRITICISM. 

mals  of  the  American  continent  in  a  group  picturing  an  Indian  hunt 
of  the  elk,  the  buffalo,  and  the  wild  horse;  all  his  models  of  these 
animals  having  been  taken  from  specimens  obtained  at  great  expense 
and  kept  for  years  at  his  studio. 

Erastus  D.  Palmer,  born  in  the  State  of  New  York  in  1817,  pur- 
sued till  the  age  of  twenty-nine  years  the  business  of  a  carpenter  and 
joiner.  Having  seen  a  cameo,  he  attempted  with  a  simple  file  and 
knife  to  cut  in  shell  the  portrait  of  his  wife.  His  success  led  him  to 
devote  some  years  at  Albany  to  cameo  carving.  Turning  his  thoughts 
to  sculpture,  he  modelled  his  infant  Ceres,  after  his  own  child.  From 
that  time  his  study  and  labor  have  shown  the  wondrous  power  of 
self-education.  His  numerous  works  have  been  busts  of  the  living, 
themes  of  classic  and  Christian  sentiment  and  passion.  His  carving 
has  that  exquisite  delicacy  acquired  in  cameo  cutting,  while  his  con- 
ception is  most  etherial  in  its  expression. 

Horatio  Stone,  born  in  New  York,  near  the  Hudson,  in  1818, 
through  the  influence  of  a  mother  who  was  an  amateur  had  an  early 
awakened  aspiration  to  be  an  artist.  The  sublime  of  nature  around 
gave  tone  to  his  enthusiasm;  while  every  painting,  engraving  or 
moulding  met  with  added  practical  direction.  At  an  early  age  he 
entered  the  studio  of  Eobertson  of  New  York,  and  soon  after  that  of 
Col.  Trumbull  the  early  American  historical  painter;  at  whose  sug- 
gestion he  entered  a  Medical  School  to  study  Anatomy  as  bearing  on 
art.  In  1846,  being  diverted  from  his  purpose  to  visit  Italy,  he 
opened  a  studio  in  New  York ;  which  about  ten  or  twelve  years  later 
he  removed  to  Washington  City ;  his  attention  being  given  to  Sculp- 
ture and  Landscape  Gardening.  Among  his  perfected  works  are  his 
statues  of  Hamilton  and  Hancock ;  the  latter  being  one  of  the  most 
expressive  monitors  in  the  U.  S.  Capitol.  Among  his  favorite  studies 
is  a  monument  to  Smithson,  idealizing  his  conception  of  the  diffu- 
sion of  knowledge;  and  another  to  Baker  who  fell  in  the  late 
war.  No  American  sculptor  has  a  higher  conception  of  the  spi- 
rituality and  sacredness  which  attaches  to  the  sculptor's  calling  than 
Stone. 

Among  younger  American  sculptors  many  are  displaying  rare 
gifts.  Rogers,  whose  bronze  door  for  the  U.  S.  Capitol  has  been 
admired  even  in  Munich,  where  his  castings  were  made,  promises  emi- 
nence in  finished  work.  Barbee,  whose  "  Fisher  Girl "  has  won  high 
encomiums  wherever  exhibited,  has  the  genius,  and  promises  to  gain 
the  culture  of  a  true  artist.  Harriet  Hosmer,  alone  in  her  eminence 
as  a  female  sculptor,  born  in  1881,  entering  in  1850  a  Medical  Col- 


YOUNGER   AMERICAN   SCULPTORS.  367 

lege  at  St.  Louis  for  instruction  in  Anatomy,  and  afterwards  trained 
at  Rome  in  the  studio  of  Gibson,  has  gained  an  early  and  growing 
fame  both  in  England  and  America  for  her  power  of  design  in  classic 
and  historic  subjects  expressive  of  sentiment.  In  general,  the  sculp- 
tors of  America  have  revealed  a  native  fertility  and  versatility  of 
genius  which  has  not  yet  taken  on  a  marked  national  cast. 


BOOK   IV. 

AECHITECTURE ;    OR     THE    COMBINING     OF    FORMS,     WITH    THE 
UNITED   ENDS   OF   UTILITY   AND   BEAUTY. 

The  term  architect  is  from  the  Greek  architekton ;  a  word  used  as 
early  as  the  days  of  Herodotus,  and  meaning  a  master-builder.  It 
has  come  to  us,  however,  through  the  Latin ;  as  is  seen  in  the  objec- 
tive term  architedura,  or  architecture. 

Architecture  is  primarily  a  useful,  and  only  secondarily  a  fine  art ; 
while  drawing  is  primarily  a  fine  and  secondarily  a  useful  art,  and 
sculpture  is  only  a  fine  art.  It  was  naturally  the  first  of  arts ;  since 
men  require  habitations  to  dwell  in  before  they  demand  any  of  the 
ornaments  which  the  other  fine  arts  may  add.  Hence  some  critics 
urge  that  architecture  should  be  made  the  first  and  leading  one 
among  the  Fine  Arts.  In  its  origin,  however,  it  was  not  a  fine,  but 
a  technical  art;  simple  and  rude  as  was  man  himself.  It  is,  in  fact, 
the  art,  and  the  only  art,  in  which  animals,  inferior  to  man,  have 
displayed  the  skill  which  instinct  alone,  not  reason,  suggests.  Archi- 
tecture is  not  a  Fine  Art  until  drawing  and  sculpture,  first  becoming 
arts,  add  their  grace  and  power  to  the  builder's  skill. 


CHAPTER    I. 


ORIGIN   OF  ARCHITECTURE  AS  AN  ART ;   AND   THE   PRINCIPLES    CON- 
TROLLING ITS  FORMS. 

As  a  useful  art.  Architecture  must  have  begun  with  the  origin  of 
man;  and  in  proportion  to  the  simplicity  of  age  and  race  in  the 
human  family  has  always  been  the  simplicity  of  the  art  of  building. 
In  Eden  there  could  have  been  little  occasion  for  an  artificial  struc- 

368 


CIRCUMSTANCES   ORIGINATING   ARCHITECTURE.  369 

ture  to  shelter  our  first  parents ;  for  as  they  required  no  clothing  to 
ward  off  cold,  or  the  stings  of  nettles,  venomous  insects  or  reptiles, 
so  they  could  have  needed  no  other  shelter  than  the  bowers  formed 
by  branching  trees  and  creeping  vines.  When  coverings,  wrought  by 
their  own  hands  were  needed,  as  material  prepared  to  their  hand, 
first  strong  leaves,  then  skins,  became  their  clothing,^  so,  perhaps, 
caves  or  thick  trees  were  naturally  formed  habitations.  It  must 
have  been  long  after  their  exile  from  Eden  ere  any  elaborateness  of 
structure  could  have  been  given  to  edifices  of  wood  and  stone ;  since 
finished  tools,  implying  previously  existing  arts,  were  requisite  for 
such  constructions. 

Sect.  1.  Ciecumstances  DETEHMrNiNG  the  Structure  of  Private 

Dwellings. 

History  attests,  what  we  might  beforehand  imagine,  that  the  first 
human  habitations  were  both  in  form  and  material  of  the  simplest 
conceivable  structure.  As  the  Arabs  of  the  Asiatic  Desert  now  spin 
and  weave  the  hair  of  their  goats,  and  from  the  cloth  thus  made 
form  a  movable  roof  over  a  hut  whose  sides  are  stone,  earth,  or 
brush-wood,  so  the  patriarchs  of  the  earliest  days  seem  to  have 
formed  their  humble  abodes.  The  first  dwelling  mentioned  in  Sacred 
History  is  in  this  record ;  "  Jabal  was  the  father,"  or  instructor,  "  of 
such  as  dwell  in  tents;"  and  of  Jacob  it  is  recorded  that  he  "was  a 
plain  man  dwelling  in  tents."^ 

The  material  of  dwellings  has  always  been  dependent  on  the 
nature  of  the  country  and  the  wants  of  mankind.  The  keeper  of 
flocks  lives  in  a  tent  made  of  cloth  easily  removed.  In  the  moun- 
tain regions  in  and  about  Palestine,  the  descendants  of  Lot,  Esau,  and 
Israel,  in  rude  times  made  abodes  in  caves ;  and  Homer  says  of  the 
Cyclops,  "  Their  abode  is  on  the  summits  of  mountains,  and  caverns 
serve  them  for  retreats."^  The  rude  aborigines  of  America  made 
huts  of  ice  and  snow  in  the  frigid  zone,  of  mud  and  bark  in  the 
temperate  latitudes,  and  of  palm  branches  and  grass  in  the  torrid 
regions.  In  the  plains  of  ancient  Assyria,  they  built  of  brick  laid 
in  bitumen,  because  they  had  neither  stone  nor  lime  for  mortar  ;*  and 
in  Egypt  of  limestone,  sandstone,  and  granite,  because  all  these  were 
abundant  on  their  river's  brink. 


*  Gen.  iii.  7,  21.  *  Gen.  iv.  20;  xxv.  27. 

*  Gen.  xix.  30 ;  xxxvi.  20,  Horite  meaning  cave-dweller ;  Judg.  vi.  2 ;  and 
Odys.  L.  IX.,  106. 

*  Gen.  xi.  3. 

2  W 


370  ART  CRITICISM. 

The  style  of  building  has  varied  equally  with  its  material.  Two 
necessities  have  controlled  style;  protection  first  from  men,  and 
second  from  the  elements  of  nature.  Cain,  the  first  man  of  blood, 
with  the  fear  begotten  by  crime,  "built  a  city"  for  defence;^  and 
dwellers  in  the  lands  bordering  on  the  Asiatic  desert,  exposed  from 
Job's  day  down  to  Arab  incursions,  built  closely  walled  towns  on 
precipitous  hill-tops  like  ancient  Jerusalem.  Israel  in  the  days  of 
their  Judges,  which  with  them  was  the  age  of  border  warfare,  dug 
caves  in  the  mountains  to  which  an  enemy  could  have  but  one 
approach.  The  early  Greeks  also  perched  their  first  citadels  on  a 
jutting  rock  called  the  Acropolis ;  as  is  seen  in  ancient  Athens  and 
Corinth,  and  in  modern  Cairo.  The  Arabs  of  the  Asiatic  and 
African  deserts,  and  savages  of  every  land  pitch  their  tents,  or  erect 
their  huts  in  circles ;  within  whose  area  their  flocks  may  be  secure 
and  they  combine  for  defence.  Plato,  in  his  Republic,  argues  that  a 
military  necessity  first  suggested  public  buildings;  saying,  "A  city 
takes  its  rise  from  this  fact;  that  no  man  can  be  self-sufficient;  since 
we  all  have  many  wants  beyond  our  own  powers.  Can  you  imagine 
any  other  principle  originating  the  building  of  cities?"  Aristotle, 
more  comprehensive,  going  back  to  the  ultimate  principle,  suggest- 
ing a  prior  cause  which  has  led  the  Divine  Being  to  permit  men  to 
be  possessed  of  such  a  spirit  of  evil  that  protection  is  needed,  and 
arguing  that  there  could  be  no  virtue  unless  there  were  vice  to  be 
resisted,  no  beneficence  unless  there  were  needy  to  relieve,  urges  that 
the  inherent  love  of  society  for  the  sake  of  aiding  others,  rather  than 
of  being  aided,  the  yearning  of  men  to  have  power  and  repute  as 
public  benefactors,  is  the  secret  of  organized  society.  Hence  he 
makes  Civil  Architecture  an  art  above  Military  Defences;  a  view 
which  seems  to  lead  Vitruvius  to  regard  Civil  Architecture  as  cover- 
ing all  that  belongs  to  the  art  proper. 

Yet  again,  the  climate  and  shape  of  country,  meteorological  and 
geological  peculiarities  of  a  region,  the  exposure  of  houses  to  the 
sun's  heat,  to  rain  and  hurricane,  to  earthquakes  from  below  and  to 
avalanches  from  above,  will  give  laws  for  building.  The  houses  of 
India  are  surrounded  by  open  verandahs  or  piazzas  to  shade  their 
sides ;  and  those  of  cities  in  volcanic  countries  in  South  America  are 
but  one  story  in  height,  to  guard  against  their  fall  when  shaken  by 
earthquakes.     Swiss   mountain   dwellers  build  their  cottages  with 


Gen.  iv.  17. 


MILITARY   ARCHITECTURE  A   SCIENCE,   CIVIL   AN   ART.     371 

sharp  peaked  roofs  and  projecting  eaves  to  cut  and  fling  aside  the 
falling  avalanche;  and  on  the  other  hand  the  denizens  of  sunny 
plains  in  Southern  Asia  cover  their  dwellings  with  flat  roofs  as  pro- 
menades in  the  cool  evening  breeze. 

It  is  important  to  observe  that  the  result  of  necessity  originates 
a  law  of  taste.  To  put  the  Swiss  cottage  on  an  open  field,  or  a 
grotto  on  anything  but  a  hillside,  to  surround  a  house  with  an  open 
verandah  in  the  cold  regions  of  the  temperate  zone,  to  build  a  sum- 
mer house  of  brick,  or  a  castellated  structure  of  wood  is  a  perver- 
sion of  the  very  idea  in  which  architecture  originates.  Thus  in  the 
simplest  ages,  and  in  the  plainest  structures  reared  for  the  abode  of 
single  families  first  necessity  compelled  association  and  uniformity 
in  building,  and  afterwards  taste  came  in  to  give  a  law  and  fashion 
which  is  the  germ  of  the  art  of  Architecture. 

Sect.  2.  The  Demands  of  Man's  Social  Nature  giving  origin  to  Archi- 
tecture AS  AN  Art. 

AjS  society  advanced,  men  combined  more  and  more;  and  then 
larger  structures  were  required.  When  thus  combined  and  co-opera- 
ting to  rear  a  structure  for  common  shelter,  for  united  assembling, 
or  for  general  defence,  one  superior  mind  naturally  acquired  ascend- 
ancy and  assumed  sway,  forming  the  plan  and  regulating  the  many 
hands  employed  in  the  labor  of  executing  the  design.  Thus  the 
office  of  architect,  or  chief  builder,  arose;  an  office  which  became 
more  important,  and  demanded  a  higher  order  of  art  capacity  and 
training,  as  the  objects  for  spacious  and  lofty  structures  increased. 
The  same  yearning  of  taste  which  demanded  trees  pleasant  to  the 
eyes  in  Eden's  groves  and  bowers,  and  which  prompted  man  to  dress 
and  keep  these  abodes  of  lowliness  where  no  storm  made  a  more 
elaborate  shelter  necessary,  that  same  insatiate  craving  for  beauty 
and  grandeur  made  the  architect  the  great  man  in  art.  To  this 
effect  Plato  again  in  the  same  connection  suggests,  "  After  the  science 
of  building  had  thus  arisen,"  in  necessity  for  common  defence,  "  it 
separated  itself  from  the  other  sciences  and  took  the  distinctive 
name  architectural."  What  Plato  from  his  cast  of  mind  called 
episteme,  a  Science,  Aristotle  at  the  same  day  called  techne,  an  art ; 
Plato  applying  the  term  architectonice  to  military,  Aristotle  to  civil 
architecture.  The  word,  indeed,  at  this  era,  had  become  suffi- 
ciently common  to  be  used  figuratively,  as  the  synonym  of  artistic 
order  and  skill  in  the  domestic  and  civil  organization  of  society; 


372  ART  CRITICISM. 

while  Pliny  afterwards  metaphorically  applies  it  to  "the  skilful 
power  of  the  Architect,  Nature."^ 

As  to  their  uses,  the  structures  of  man  have  grouped  themselves 
into  three  departments.  Civil  Architecture  comprises  the  buildings 
erected  as  private  dwellings  to  shelter  families,  and  those  reared  for 
the  assembling  of  men  in  thousands  for  purposes  of  social  enjoy- 
ment, or  improvement,  according  as  the  demands  of  mere  love  of 
Society,  of  taste,  of  learning,  or  of  religion,  have  required.  Mili- 
tary Architecture  embraces  the  erection  of  forts,  the  digging  of 
canals,  moats  and  trenches,  the  construction  of  bridges,  and  all  that 
relates  to  man  as  moving  about  the  earth  and  coming  into  contact 
or  collision  with  his  fellow ;  and  it  is  a  striking  fact,  that  the  depart- 
ment of  military  engineering  is  the  first  to  which  we  find  the  Greek 
term  architektdn  applied;  Herodotus,^  in  his  History  of  Egypt, 
speaking  of  the  architect  tou  orugmatos,  of  the  canal,  and  in  his 
History  of  Syria,  of  the  architect  tes  gephuras,  of  the  bridge.  Naval 
Architecture  relates  to  structures  made  to  float  as  habitations,  to  fly 
as  messengers  of  commerce,  or  to  sweep  the  ocean  and  command 
continents  as  moving  castles  and  fortresses.  There  is  an  attraction 
of  art  clustering  even  about  the  river  rafts  of  the  American  Indian, 
the  ocean  canoes  of  the  Pacific  Islander,  the  harbor  junks  of  the 
Chinese,  the  caiques  of  the  boatmen  on  the  Bosphorus,  and  the  gon- 
dolas and  gallies  of  the  Venetians  and  Genoese ;  and  art  has  had  its 
place  in  the  whole  history  of  naval  architecture,  from  the  paper 
reed  boats  on  the  ancient  Nile,  to  the  far-famed  clipper  sailing 
vessels  and  mammoth  ocean  steamers  of  modern  times.  There  is  a 
charm  of  art,  too,  as  well  as  of  romance,  that  lingers  through  all 
the  history  of  Military  Architecture,  and  gleams  about  castle  heights 
from  that  of  David  on  Mount  Zion,  to  those  of  the  crags  of  the 
Drachenfels  on  the  Rhine.  It  is,  however,  the  leading  principles 
of  Civil  Architecture  alone,  as  developed  in  its  history,  that  come 
into  its  ordinary  study  as  an  Art ;  Aristotle  and  Vitruvius,  as  ob- 
served, restricting  its  field  entirely  to  Civil  Architecture, 

This  branch  alone  of  Architecture  opens  a  wide  field  of  survey; 
and  it  resolves  itself  naturally  into  several  divisions.  The  leading 
purposes  for  which  large  public  buildings,  whose  successful  construc- 
tion requires  both  the  science  and  art  of  an  architect,  are  erected. 


'  Plato's  Kepub.,  B.  IV. ;  Aristot.  Ethics,  I.  1,  Polit. ;  and  Poet.  xix.  7 ;  and 
also  Pliny  Hist.,  X.  91,  "  Architectse  Naturae  vis." 
«Herodot.  III.  60,  and  IV.  87. 


PRINCIPLES   CONTROLLING   THE   ART   OF   BUILDING.       373 

may  be  included  in  these  three ;  buildings  made  subservient  to  the 
supply  of  man's  material,  intellectual,  and  moral  or  religious  wants. 
The  principles  that  should  control  their  structure  as  designed  for 
these  three  purposes,  according  to  the  Greek  architects  cited  by 
Vitruvius,  are  these  five ;  first,  taxis,  or  order,  the  proper  arrange- 
ment of  parts  before  putting  them  together;  second,  symmetria,  pro- 
portion in  size;  third,  euarithmia,  harmony  in  number,  in  the  ad- 
justment of  the  parts  both  in  their  separate  dimensions  and  in  their 
interlocking  junctures ; /owr^A,  diathesis,  or  composition,  the  dispos- 
ing of  the  portions  of  an  extended  edifice  so  that  they  shall  be  beau- 
tiful as  a  whole;  and  fifth,  oikonomia,  or  economy,  the  securing  of  the 
useful  ends  for  which  the  building  was  erected.  Ruskin,  in  his 
somewhat  fanciful  form  of  statement  in  his  "  Seven  Lamps  of  Archi- 
tecture," presents  five  purposes  and  seven  guides  to  their  accomplish- 
ment. The  purposes  of  edifices  are :  first,  "  devotional,"  for  religious 
worship;  second,  "memorial,"  as  private  and  public  monuments  for 
the  dead;  third,  "civil,"  as  public  edifices  for  business  and  recrea- 
tion ;  fourth,  "  military,"  for  defence  against  armed  foes ;  and  fifth, 
"  domestic,"  for  family  abodes.  The  seven  lamps,  or  seven  guiding 
principles  that  control  the  architect,  are  these;  first,  "Sacrifice," 
under  which  the  Jewish  temple  is  considered;  second,  "Truth," 
which  leads  to  the  discussion  of  the  propriety  of  Gothic  drops,  fres- 
coed domes  representing  the  open  sky  of  a  hypsethral  temple,  and 
the  use  of  iron  as  material  for  building;  third,  "Power,"  which  em- 
braces massiveness  as  an  element  of  architectural  effect;  fourth, 
"Beauty,"  relating  chiefly  to  architectural  decorations;  fifth,  "Life," 
the  making  of  an  edifice  the  exponent  of  living  things  and  of  the 
men  who  rear  it;  sixth,  "Memory,"  as  monuments  of  history,  con- 
servators of  old  ideas,  and  relics  of  the  past;  seventh,  "Obedience," 
respect  for  great  men  and  their  plans,  as  opposed  to  empiricism  and 
striving  for  novelty. 

Among  buildings  to  promote  material  ends  are  markets,  exchanges, 
and  halls  for  the  exhibition  as  well  as  the  sale  of  the  commodities 
and  necessaries  of  life,  which  wiere  represented  by  the  agora  of  the 
Greeks  and  Xh^  forum  of  the  Latins.  Vitruvius  gives  a  large  place 
to  this  department  of  architecture:  since  among  the  Greeks  and 
Romans  the  agora  or  forum  had  the  double  end  of  a  mart  for  trade, 
and  an  arena  for  the  display  of  physical  prowess,  and  of  intellectual 
culture;  the  markets  of  Roman  towns  being  the  great  publishing 
centres  in  an  age  when  newspapers  were  unknown.  The  Forum  was 
an  elliptical  enclosure,  whose  breadth,  Vitruvius  says,  should  be  two- 

32 


374  ART   CRITICISM. 

thirds  of  its  length,  surrounded  by  covered  sheds  or  porticoes  more 
or  less  costly.  The  Greek  Forum  had  its  porticoes  very  spacious, 
and  two  stories  in  height;  the  columns  being  crowned  with  marble 
entablatures.  These  stories  were  of  sufficient  height  to  have  galleries 
in  the  lower  portion  of  the  entablature,  where  men  of  leisure  could 
saunter  for  the  sake  of  exercise.  The  pillars  in  the  Grecian  agora 
were  close  set;  but  in  the  Roman  Forum  their  distance  apart  was 
greater  since  the  galleries  were  occupied  as  places  whence  to  witness 
gladiatorial  combats.  "  The  lower  porticoes,"  he  says,  "  are  occupied 
by  the  offices  of  the  bankers;  which  location  is  calculated  to  facili- 
tate business  and  increase  the  public  revenues;  while  the  upper  bal- 
conies contain  seats  for  spectators  of  the  diversions  of  the  Forum." 
The  Basilica,  or  Royal  Exchange,  which  sometimes  had  within  it 
a  Hall  of  Justice,  was  a  rectangular  building,  with  a  lofty  portico, 
having  inner  halls  and  outer  galleries.  The  Basilica,  Vitruvius  says, 
"should  be  contiguous  to  the  Forum  and  on  the  side  least  exposed, 
so  that  the  merchants  who  meet  there  for  business  need  not  be  incon- 
venienced by  cold  in  the  winter."  "  The  width  should  not  be  less 
than  the  third  nor  more  than  the  half  of  the  length."  "  The  height 
of  the  columns  should  be  equal  to  the  width  of  the  porticoes ;  which 
should  be  one-third  of  the  distance  of  the  columns  measured  across 
the  basilica."  Vitruvius  minutely  described  one  built  by  himself, 
which  he  regarded  a  model  at  Fanestrum;  which  was  120  feet  long, 
60  feet  wide,  having  columns  in  its  portico  50  feet  high  and  five  feet 
in  diameter,  underneath  which  were  tiers  of  galleries  rising  above 
each  other. 

The  buildings  designed  to  meet  intellectual  wants  were  of  two 
classes ;  educational  and  aesthetic.  Those  for  instruction  proper  em- 
brace Schools,  Colleges,  Lecture  and  Lyceum  Halls,  Libraries  and 
Halls  of  collections  in  Science  and  Art.  In  early  and  later  times, 
for  practical  instructors  of  the  people,  like  Socrates,  the  stoa,  or 
covered  porticoes  around  the  agora  or  forum,  were  the  chosen  audi- 
ence halls ;  while  for  more  select  and  private  indoctrinating  of  dis- 
ciples such  buildings  as  the  Academia  of  Plato,  the  Lykeion  of  Aris- 
totle, and  the  Mouseion  of  Alexandria  were  erected.  Those  structures 
which  were  designed  to  minister  to  the  sensibilities,  were  the  theatre 
and  the  amphitheatre.  The  amphitheatres  among  which  the  vastest 
monuments  of  Roman  architecture,  such  as  the  Coliseum,  are  now 
found,  furnished  exhibitions  addressed  only  to  the  eye ;  while  the 
theatre,  both  among  the  Greeks  and  the  Romans  addressed  the  mind 
through  the  ear  as  well  as  the  eye.     The  nicest  of  acoustic  effects, 


ACOUSTIC   ADAPTATION   IN   GRECIAN   THEATRES.  375 

based  on  mathematical  calculations  as  well  as  on  practical  observa- 
tions, were  exercised  in  so  adapting  these  immense  audience  arenas 
that  the  voice  of  the  speaker  might  reach  the  tens  of  thousands  of 
hearers.     Vitruvius  says, 

"We  must  also  be  careful  in  observing  that  the  situation  chosen 
be  not  calculated  through  local  circumstances  to  check  the  dilation 
of  sound ;  but  on  the  contrary  be  such  as  to  permit  the  free  expan- 
sion of  the  human  voice.  For  sound  is  a  subtle  fluid  acting  upon 
the  organs  of  hearing  by  the  vibration  of  the  particles  of  air  which 
are  put  in  motion  and  expand  themselves  in  an  infinite  succession  of 
circles.  The  efiect  is  similar  to  that  which  takes  place  on  the  sur- 
face of  water,  previously  at  rest,  when  a  stone  is  cast  into  it;  in 
which  we  observe  that  a  number  of  concentric  circles  are  generated, 
which  are  constantly  enlarging  until  circumscribed  by  the  narrow- 
ness of  the  stream,  or  by  some  obstacle  which  prevents  their  perfect 
formation ;  when  the  undulations,  meeting  with  interruption,  the  first, 
recoiling,  resists  the  progress  of  those  which  follow  in  succession.  The 
air  is  put  in  motion  by  sound  in  a  similar  manner;  with  this  differ- 
ence, that  the  undulations  of  the  water  are  made  in  a  plane  surface, 
whereas  in  air  they  ascend  as  they  extend  themselves.  Thus  it  is 
with  the  voice.  When  no  obstacle  interrupts  the  first  undulation, 
the  next  and  those  following  are  perfect;  and  they  make  distinct 
impressions  upon  the  ear  of  the  spectators  who  are  in  the  upper,  as 
well  as  those  that  are  in  the  lower  seats ;  and  that  without  rever- 
berating. The  architects  of  former  days  therefore  made  use  of  a 
form  in  the  auditory  of  the  theatre  adapted  to  the  configurations  of 
air  arising  from  the  expansion  of  sound ;  and  by  the  application  of 
physics  to  the  science  of  music,  succeeded  in  efiecting.that  the  sounds 
which  were  uttered  upon  the  stage  should  be  conveyed  to  every  part 
of  the  theatre  clearly  defined  and  well  modulated.  For,  as  musical 
instruments  are  formed  of  thin  plates  of  metal  or  hoi'n  with  a  view 
to  produce  distinctiveness  in  the  tones  of  the  chords,  so  the  principles 
on  which  the  theatres  of  the  ancients  were  constructed,  and  which 
were  calculated  to  increase  the  powers  of  the  voice,  were  deduced 
from  the  elements  of  harmony." 

The  moral  ends  sought  in  public  structures  are  two;  civil  and 
religious.  As  Aristotle  based  his  Politics  on  his  Ethics,  so  the  pnyx 
of  Athens,  where  Demosthenes  swayed  the  Athenian  people  when 
assembled  in  their  legislative  capacity,  the  Areopagus  where  the 
Athenian  Senate  sat  for  judicature,  and  the  Acropolis  covered  with 
temples  to  the  gods  were  alike  moral  powers.     The  Capitol  of  Rome 


376  ART   CRITICISM. 

was  at  once  a  shrine  of  religion  and  the  arcana  of  the  State ;  Roman 
historians,  statesmen,  and  philosophers  alike  appealing  to  the 
influence  of  this  single  common  edifice,  the  bond  of  national  and 
religious  sanctity,  in  giving  through  all  their  history  the  union  which 
was  the  power  of  that  great  people. 

The  structures  erected  for  religious  ends  were  temples  and  tombs; 
Egyptian  and  Roman,  Asiatic  and  European  minds  alike  conceiving 
the  idea,  that  garnished  sepulchres  for  the  dead  were  quite  as  effec- 
tive as  adorned  temples  for  the  homage  of  the  living  in  securing 
for  men  Divine  favor  and  benefaction.  In  ruder  ages,  religious 
worship  seems  to  have  been  held  in  the  open  air,  under  shady  trees 
within  an  enclosure;  as  the  ancient  Druids  performed  their  san- 
guinary religious  rites,  and  as  the  most  enthusiastic  worshippers  of 
spiritual  Christianity  now  gather  by  thousands  in  groves  where  no 
house  of  adequate  size  can  be  procured.  When  afterwards  temples 
were  erected,  it  became  common  for  Pagan  and  Jewish  temples. 
Christian  Churches  and  Mohammedan  mosques,  to  be  erected  in  a 
lar^e  enclosure.  No  proper  idea  can  be  obtained  of  an  Egyptian 
temple  at  Thebes,  or  of  the  Jewish  temple  at  Jerusalem,  unless 
regard  be  had  to  this  peculiarity;  while  also  the  allusions  of  the 
classic  writers  of  Greece  and  Rome  to  sacred  shrines,  is  but  imper- 
fectly comprehended  without  this  distinction  be  made.  The  temenos 
of  the  Greeks  was  the  sacred  enclosure,  consisting  of  grove  and 
open  field,  in  which  the  sacred  rites  were  performed;  the  altar  and 
sacrifices,  involving  the  slaughter  of  bullocks  amid  blood  and  filth, 
and  the  dense  smoke  of  the  burning  flesh,  requiring  out-door  grass 
sward  beneath,  as  well  as  out-door  air  and  sky  around  and  above; 
while  the  naos  was  the  builded  structure  within  this  enclosure.  So, 
too,  among  the  Romans,  the  deluhrum  is  the  enclosure,  and  the  tern- 
plum  or  cedes,  the  temple  or  house ;  though  this  distinction  was  not 
always  observed  in  later  days  when  the  delubrum,  like  the  modern 
church-yard,  had  disappeared  from  crowded  cities.  To  the  most 
ancient  sacred  enclosure  and  house  at  Rome,  Pliny  thus  alludes; 
"Among  the  most  ancient  delubra,  that  of  Quirinus  or  Romulus 
himself,  is  esteemed.  In  this  were  for  a  long  time  two  sacred  myrtle- 
trees  before  the  house  itself;  one  called  the  patrician,  the  other  the 
plebeian."^ 

In  the  history  of  Architecture,  a  large  part  of  the  skill  of  artists 


•  See  Homer  Iliad.  VIII.  28;  Odys.  VIII.  363;  Herodot.  II.  155;  III.  142; 
Pliny  Nat.  Hist.  XV.  36. 


ENDS  SOUGHT  IN  COLUMNAR  APPENDAGES.      377 

and  of  the  lavish  expenditure  of  money,  time,  and  toil  made  by  the 
people  of  great  nations,  has  been  exhausted  upon  structures  designed 
for  religious  ends.  From  the  times  of  the  rearing  of  Egyptian  tem- 
ples down  to  the  building  of  Christian  Churches,  Sacred  Architecture 
will  be  found  to  be  the  central  interest  in  the  history  of  the  art,  and 
often  entirely  to  absorb  it. 

Sect.  3.  Principles  originating  and  giving  form  to  Columnar  Archi- 
tecture. 

As  already  intimated,  the  purposes  of  shade  and  shelter  originated 
styles  of  building  in  different  lands.  The  same  two  ends  evidently 
gave  origin  to  columnar  aj^pendages  to  edifices;  which,  originating 
in  necessity,  came  afterwards  because  of  their  prominence  as 
architectural  features,  to  be  the  chief  field  in  which  genius  and  skill 
sought  its  highest  triumphs.  This  idea  is  embodied  in  the  word 
fagade,  used  to  designate  the  principal  front  view  of  a  building;  a 
term  derived  from  the  Latin  facio,  to  make,  whence  the  Roman  fades 
and  English  face,  referring  to  the  front  view  of  the  head  in  the  human 
form,  the  portion  of  the  figure  in  which  the  artist's  skill  in  execution 
is  specially  tested,  and  which  is  therefore  the  work  of  art.  In  warm 
climates  the  hut  of  the  humblest  laborer  requires  open  yet  sheltered 
space  for  comfort  during  the  day;  and  hence  a  covered  awning,  or 
piazza,  though  it  were  but  a  rude  shed,,  was  naturally  erected  even 
in  higher  latitudes  upon  the  side  of  dwellings  having  a  southern 
exposure.  Again  in  cold  climates,  in  order  to  throw  rain  aiid  snow, 
as  they  fall,  to  a  suflScient  distance  from  the  sides  and  especially  from 
the  entrances  of  dwellings,  projecting  eaves  and  porches  were  required 
on  both  sides  of  the  house.  At  first  these  projecting  eaves  and 
porches  would  be  constructed  with  rough  and  easily  prepared  sup- 
ports ;  but  afterwards  they  would  take  on  more  of  richness  of  mate- 
rial. The  same  necessity  which  led  to  the  introduction  of  projecting 
roofs  supported  by  columns  in  private  dwellings  would  for  a  stronger 
reason  lead  to  their  use  in  public  edifices;  under  whose  porticoes 
hundreds  would  need  and  seek  shelter  at  the  time  of  their  assem- 
blies. What  seems  thus  before-hand  to  be  expected,  history  real- 
izes in  the  columnar  architecture  of  many  and  varied  lands. 

Vitruvius,  and  other  able  practical  and  critical  authors,  give  hints 
as  to  the  material  and  shape  of  the  columns  first  used,  and  as  to  the 
origin  of  different  orders  of  architecture,  in  Greece  and  in  other  lands. 
Sections  of  the  trunks  of  trees  would  naturally  be  ^rst  used  as  the  - 
comer-posts  of  houses  and  as  supports  for  its  projecting  porch.     The 

32  *  2  X 


378  ART   CRITICISM. 

proportionate  stoutness  of  the  tree  selected  would  naturally  be 
adapted  to  the  weight  to  be  supported ;  the  oak,  very  robust,  support- 
ing a  massive  load  of  branch  and  twig,  and  being  but  a  few  diame- 
ters in  height  up  to  its  branches;  the  maple  and  poplar  more  slender 
because  its  top  to  be  supported  is  much  lighter,  and  its  height  there- 
fore being  in  much  greater  proportion  to  its  diameter;  while  the 
palm  sustaining  but  a  slight  umbrella  top  is  almost  spindle-like  in 
its  proportions;  this  latter  being  the  model  of  columns  in  the  um- 
brella-topped and  airy  summer  palaces  in  the  land  of  the  palm- 
tree,  as  the  former  were  for  Egyptian,  Grecian  and  Gothic  temples. 
The  slight  yet  geometrically  measured  taper  of  the  tree  trunk,  sloping 
inward  to  the  top,  adjusted  by  the  Infinite  Mind  to  the  precise  form 
of  greatest  strength,  entered  into  the  proportions  of  Grecian  as  well 
as  of  Egyptian  columns.  The  bulging  projection  of  the  stump  at 
the  tree's  foot,  itself  a  base  to  the  column  when  cut  near  the  ground, 
became  a  natural  model  for  the  bases  of  columns  in  the  different 
orders  of  architecture,  so  rounded  as  to  present  no  jutting  corners 
for  passers  by  to  strike.  The  branching  projection  of  the  spreading 
boughs  at  top  when  cut  just  above  their  junction  with  the  trunk, 
was  equally  the  natural  model  for  the  capital  of  a  column. 

There  is  a  special,  as  well  as  a  general  analogy  guiding  to  princi- 
ples of  design  in  columnar  architecture.  The  Egyptians,  on  whose 
soil,  annually  covered  with  water  for  four  months,  no  tree  would 
grow,  and  whose  feeding  so  much  on  marsh  roots  led  the  Greeks  to 
call  them  Lotophagi  or  lotus-eaters,  naturally  selected  as  the  model 
of  their  columns  the  most  beautiful  of  their  marsh  plants ;  making 
their  base,  shaft  and  capital  resemble  a  bundle  of  the  tuber-shaped 
root,  the  graceful  stalk,  and  the  acorn-shaped  bud  or  bell-shaped 
flower  of  the  lotus.  In  the  simplest  of  structures,  such  as  the  wigwam 
of  the  North  American  Indian,  the  Arab's  tent,  the  Hindoo's  veran- 
dah, and  the  European  emigrant's  log  cabin,  the  native  tree  of  what- 
ever kind  has  been  the  material  as  well  as  the  model  of  rude  builders. 
So,  too,  the  broad  spreading  tree-topped  roofs  of  the  pagodas  of 
Central  India,  whose  massive  solid  centre,  with  its  projecting  tent-like 
porticoes  surrounded  by  light  columns,  was  modelled  after  the  huge 
trunks  and  slender  drop-stalks  of  the  banyan  tree;  as  also  the  inner 
design  of  the  high  pointed  arches,  of  the  groined  and  fretted  ceilings, 
and  of  the  drops  and  pendants  of  the  Gothic  cathedral,  was  derived 
from  the  arched  avenues  between  forest-trees,  the  crossings  and  inter- 
twining of  their  ^branches,  and  the  hanging  clusters  of  their  foliage, 
flowers  and  fruits.     Vitruvius  dwells  at  length  upon  this   as  the 


LOCAL  CfAUSES  MODIFYING  STYLES  IN.  ARCHITECTURE.      379 

model  originating  the  idea  of  Grecian  and  Roman  columnar  edifices  ; 
while  at  the  same  time  he  teaches  that  the  proportions  of  columns, 
as  indicated  in  the  Osiride  of  the  Egyptians  and  in  the  Greek  Cary- 
atides, are  copied  from  the  human  figure. 

Orders  in  Columnar  Architecture  whose  particular  consideration 
properly  belongs  to  that  of  the  difierent  ages  and  styles  of  architec- 
ture, have  been  made  to  dej^end  on  slenderness  of  shaft  and  elabo- 
rateness of  ornamented  capital.  The  counter  ideas  of  strength  and 
of  grace,  of  utility  and  of  beauty,  of  material  convenience  and  of 
moral  expressiveness  have  been  balancing  principles  ever  con- 
trolling taste  and  design  in  columnar  architecture;  and  the  style  of 
building  in  different  ages  and  lands  has  depended  on  the  propor- 
tionate ascendancy  in  the  minds  of  a  people,  or  of  architects,  of  any 
one  of  these  conflicting  or  conspiring  principles.  Thus  in  Egypt  the 
specimens  of  columnar  architecture  remaining  are  all  of  the  massive 
kind,  while  those  of  Modern  Asia  where  Egyptian  taste  anciently 
prevailed,  present  the  two  extremes  of  excessive  massiveness  and  of 
most  fragile  lightness ;  indicating,  perhaps,  that  as  in  Egyptian  sculp- 
ture, so  in  Egyptian  architecture,  the  lighter  structures  which  their 
climate  must  have  invited  have  long  since  perished.  In  Greece, 
whose  architects  were  as  truly  the  opposites  of  the  Egyptians  in 
architecture  as  in  sculpture,  there  was  an  effort  to  harmonize  the 
extremes  which  in  Asia  are  made  to  antagonize ;  and  they  sought  in 
their  three  orders  of  columns,  first,  one  that  should  have  strength 
predominant  and  beauty  subordinate;  second,  one  in  which  beauty 
was  predominant  and  strength  subordinate;  and  third,  one  which 
should  give  the  two  ideas  equal  control.  In  the  latt^^r  and  better 
days  of  the  art  in  Egypt,  the  same  end,  either  through  a  reflex  influ- 
ence from  rising  Grecian  genius  or  from  the  development  of  a  purer 
native  taste,  was  sought  by  Egyptian  architects;  so  that  the  three 
distinct  orders  are  as  marked  in  the  massive  columns  of  Egyptian 
temples  as  in  the  graceful  ones  of  Grecian  shrines. 

Sect.  4.  Local  Circumstances,  and  National  Peculiarities  of  Esthe- 
tic Culture  and  Moral  Convictions,  giving  origin  to  leading 
STYLES  IN  Architecture. 

There  are  certain  general  parts  of  which  every  building  must  be 
made  up,  for  whatever  purpose  erected ;  the  modification  of  which 
parts  through  the  influence  of  local,  national,  aesthetic  or  moral 
causes  existing  among  any  people  have  led  to  diversity  of  style,  and 
to  the  origin  of  what  may  be  called  schools  in  architecture.     These 


380  ART   CRITICISM. 

parts,  taken  in  the  natural  order  of  their  erection,  are  the  walls,  the 
roof,  the  steps  or  platform,  and  the  columnar  projections  or  porti- 
coes; all  of  which,  both  as  to  material  and  form,  the  several  causes 
mentioned  above  have  served  to  vary  and  modify. 

Local  circumstances,  to  a  great  extent,  determine  the  material 
employed  in  buildings.  In  a  new  country,  stocked  with  wood,  like 
America,  the  exterior  wall,  as  well  as  the  interior  and  roof  are  from 
necessity  and  also  from  a  consequent  taste,  built  of  this  perishable 
material.  In  the  plains  of  ancient  Assyria,  where  there  was  neither 
wood  nor  stone,  burnt  brick  was  used ;  in  Egypt,  where  there  is 
abundance  of  stone  and  no  rain,  stone  for  public  buildings  and  un- 
burnt  brick  for  huts  of  the  laboring  people  have  always  been  em- 
ployed ;  while  at  this  day  in  Mexico  adobe  or  burnt  clay,  and  in 
Europe  and  America  even  iron  is  becoming  a  common  building 
material.  The  slight  rains  of  Northern  Africa  and  Western  Asia 
allow  roofs  to  be  flat,  so  as  to  serve  as  delightful  elevated  prome- 
nades during  the  evening  breezes ;  while  the  rains  of  Greece  demanded 
a  gentle  slope,  and  the  snows  of  Switzerland  a  steep  roof-pitch.  The 
neighborhood  of  hostile  nations  wdiich  requires  thick  and  high  walls 
in  the  building  of  a  city  upon  a  plain,  in  a  hill-country  demands 
only  a  castle  built  upon  an  acropolis.  The  length  and  breadth,  and 
height  of  porticoes  is  naturally  greater  in  mild  than  in  cooler  climes. 
The  temple  of  Egypt  on  a  level  plain  needed  no  steps  to  mount  to 
the  entrance ;  but  a  Grecian  temple  on  a  rounded  eminence  must 
have  a  flight  of  steps  around  the  depressed  border.  These  natural 
causes  may  be  allowed  too  much  weight  both  in  design  and  in  criti- 
cism, but  they  cannot  be  wholly  disregarded. 

So,  too,  forms  of  religious  belief,  moral  opinions  and  habits  have 
given  cast  to  leading  features  of  structures  reared  for  the  same  com- 
mon religious  ends.  The  ancient  Egyptians,  material  in  their  notions 
of  spiritual  things,  fond  of  the  recondite  and  magic  arts,  worshippers 
of  reptiles  such  as  the  serpent  and  crocodile,  transferred  their  gross 
spirit  to  their  temples ;  rearing  massive  walls  to  cast  a  deep  dark 
shade,  and  covering  the  dismal  walls  of  tombs  with  carvings  and 
paintings  of  secular  and  material  subjects.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
lively  spirit  of  the  Greeks,  their  refined  culture,  their  love  of  ideal 
beauty,  created,  as  native  to  their  genius,  temple-walls  of  pure  white 
marble,  a  roof  slant  of  most  gentle  slope,  columns  proportioned  after 
the  ideal  human  forms  which  as  deities  they  worshipped,  and  steps 
whose  easy  ascent  allowed  a  princess  to  move  upwards  with  scarcely 
a  bend  of  the  knee.     Yet  again,  the  Romans,  comprehensive  and 


EGYPTIAN  ARCHITECTURE,  AIMING  AT  MASSIVENES8.      381 

cultured,  uniting  Egyptian  massiveness  and  Grecian  grace,  originated 
a  style  of  architecture  which  united  strength  to  beauty,  and  made 
elegance  aid  utility.  Lastly,  there  dawned  upon  the  world  a  revela- 
tion of  religious  truth,  whose  very  nature  implied  social  gatherings 
for  religious  instruction  as  well  as  worship,  and  demanding  an  ear- 
nest and  growing  effort  to  attain  a  style  of  Church  architecture  which 
should  unite  convenience  with  suitableness  of  design  and  expressive- 
ness in  the  composition  of  every  part;  an  ideal  which  has  been 
struggling  upward  towards  a  realization  during  all  the  ages  of  pro- 
gressive Christian  civilization. 

The  uses  to  which  architectural  structures  have  been  appropriated, 
the  result  mainly  of  the  condition  of  existing  intellectual  culture  and 
religious  enlightenment,  have  influenced  those  surroundings  and  ap- 
pendages of  architectural  works,  especially  shrines  of  religion,  so 
greatly  affecting  their  general  style.  The  Egyptian,  Hebrew  and 
Mohammedan  sanctuaries,  shrines  of  religious  rites  maintained  by 
the  State  for  its  support,  were  begirt  by  fortress-like  walls  as  an  ex- 
ternal defence;  while,  too,  designed  to  be  the  centre  of  the  Schools 
where  should  be  trained  the  intellectual  supports  of  that  civil  and 
religious  system,  the  enclosure  of  the  ancient  Hebrew  temple,  like 
that  of  the  modern  Mohammedan  mosque,  was  lumbered  and  marred 
with  the  rooms  requisite  for  the  purposes  of  scholastic  education. 
The  Greek  temples,  like  the  Churches  of  Spiritual  Christianity,  stood 
out  alone,  guarded  by  their  own  sanctity;  and  the  school  had  its 
separate  seat.  This  latter  fact  may  aid  to  definiteness  of  view  in 
considering  the  four  distinct  ages  and  styles  of  architecture  just 
adverted  to. 


CHAPTER    II. 


EGYPTIAN,     THE     TYPE     OF     ASIATIC     ARCHITECTURE;     IN     WHICH 
MASSIVENESS   IS   THE   AIM. 

The  relics  of  ancient  Architecture  to  be  traced  throughout  East- 
ern and  Southern  Asia,  and  having  their  true  type  in  ancient  Egypt, 
seem  by  their  massiveness  to  be  the  very  embodiment  of  the  spirit 
that  animated  the  men  who  had  just  escaped  the  deluge,  as  pictured 
in  the  history  of  the  first  great  structure  reared  by  mortals.     The 


382  ART   CRITICISM. 

builders  of  that  huge  pile  Moses  represents  as  saying,  "  let  us  build 
us  a  city  and  a  tower  whose  top  may  reach  unto  Heaven ;  and  let  us 
make  us  a  name  lest  we  be  scattered  abroad  upon  the  face  of  the 
whole  earth."  Josephus  the  most  competent  of  Jewish  commentators 
upon  the  antiquities  of  his  nation  represents  Nimrod,  of  the  same 
race  with  the  Egyptians,  to  have  been  the  chief  who  rallied  the 
human  family  to  unite  in  the  rearing  of  this  structure;  and  that  he 
said,  "  He  would  be  revenged  on  God  for  destroying  their  forefathers, 
and  should  he  have  a  mind  to  drown  the  world  again ;  for  he  would 
build  a  tower  too  high  for  the  waters  to  be  able  to  reach  its  top."  * 
The  massive  was  certainly  the  aim  in  this  early  structure;  and 
thence  in  less  than  two  centuries  that  same  branch  of  the  human 
family  transferred  it  to  Egypt. 

Sect.  1.  The  uses  of  Egyptian  Structures  called  Temples;  giving 
character  to  their  forms  of  architecture. 

There  are  two  classes  of  massive  and  extensive  structures  in  Egypt, 
whose  vastness  in  their  ruins  still  fills  the  world  with  admiration. 
The  first  class,  reared  above  ground,  were  called  temples;  though 
they  answered  the  three-fold  purpose  of  palaces  for  royalty,  of  fort- 
resses in  war,  and  of  shrines  for  religious  worship.  The  second 
class,  constructed  under  ground,  were  called  tombs;  which  though 
designed  exclusively  as  burial-places  for  the  dead,  were,  in  times  of 
emergency,  made  safe  retreats,  and  even  magazines  in  war;  like  the 
labyrinth,  the  Pyramid  cells,  and  the  tombs  of  Egypt,  and  also  the 
arched  passages  beneath  the  mount  on  which  the  temple  of  Solomon 
stood. 

Both  the  style  and  design,  often  mistaken,  of  the  ancient  Egyptian 
temple,  so-called,  is  indicated  in  the  structure  and  grouping  of  mo- 
dern cities  in  India.  Every  intelligent  reader  of  the  history  of  the 
late  campaign  of  the  English  army  in  India,  especially  of  the  ad- 
vance upon  and  the  holding  of  the  city  of  Lucknow,  must  have  been 
struck  with  the  disposition  of  the  different  fortresses,  called  Bagh, 
situated  half  a  mile  apart  or  more,  and  distributed  through  the  town  ; 
while  the  intervening  space  was  occupied  by  the  residences  of  the 
people  only  one  story  in  height,  over  whose  roofs  a  galling  fire  was 
poured  upon  the  English  infantry  as  they  pressed  on  from  fortress 
to  fortress.  With  the  plat  of  such  a  city  before  him,  the  visitor  to 
Thebes  in  Egypt,  called  by  Homer  hekatompylai  Thehai  or  "hundred 


Gen.  xi.  1 — 4 ;  and  Josephus  Antiq.  I.  iv.  2. 


GENERAL  PLAN  OF  EGYPTIAN  TEMPLES.       383 

gated  Thebes,"'  can  readily  reconstruct  from  its  remaining  ruins  the 
entire  city. 

On  the  Eastern  bank  of  the  river,  which  is  half  a  mile  wide,  is, 
first,  the  temple  of  Luxor,  close  by  the  river's  brink,  covering  an 
area  of  a  quarter  of  a  mile  square ;  and  distant  from  this  a  mile  and 
a-half  to  the  northeast,  and  back  from  the  river  three-fourths  of 
a  mile,  is  the  temple  of  Karnac,  covering  half  a  mile  square. 
Riding  from  one  to  the  other  of  these  structures  the  visitor  is  passing 
through  an  avenue  of  sphynxes  whose  heads  and  backs  are  still 
raised  above  the  annually  deposited  mud  of  the  Nile's  inundation. 
Passing  over  the  river  to  the  Western  bank  at  a  distance  of  about 
half  a  mile  is  a  third  temple ;  at  about  a  third  of  a  mile  yet  farther, 
a  fourth ;  and  so  on  till  even  a  seventh  and  an  eighth  are  passed. 
Of  these  the  fifth  is  the  remains  of  the  celebrated  Memnonium,  be- 
fore which  still  stand  the  immense  seated  statues  of  Memnon  and 
his  brother ;  while  the  sixth  is  the  structure  called  by  the  modern 
Arab  name  "  Medinet  Aboo,"  famed  for  the  beauty  and  perfection 
of  the  bas-relief  sculptures  on  its  walls. 

Sect.  2.  General  arrangement  of  the  parts  of  the  Egyptian 

Temple. 

Approaching  now  the  temple  of  Karnac,  the  most  extensive  and 
best  preserved  of  the  number,  a  general  survey  gives  this  outline. 
Within  the  centre  of  the  immense  area,  half  a  mile  square,  was  built 
the  original  shrine  by  a  Pharaoh  living  before  Joseph's  day;  the 
name  of  the  Pharaoh  of  that  age,  enclosed  in  the  oval  called  a  car- 
touche, being  on  the  walls.  The  general  structure  of  the  original 
shrine  is  seen  at  Edfoo ;  where  one  of  the  best  preserved  of  the  inner 
temples  is  found.  The  foundations  are  of  limestone;  the  builders 
evidently  understanding,  since  this  arrangement  is  universal,  that 
while  sand-stone  disintegrates  from  the  moisture  of  the  soil,  lime- 
stone is  hardened  by  the  same  cause.  The  external  walls  are  of 
sand-stone  easily  cut  by  the  chisel  with  the  sculptures  which  cover 
them ;  a  stone  too  which  in  the  climate  of  Egypt,  where  there  is  no 
rain,  is  so  durable  that  these  carvings  are  still  after  ages  perfectly 
preserved.  The  roof  is  made  by  laying  immense  blocks  of  sand- 
stone across  from  wall  to  wall.  The  interior  facing  is  of  granite, 
whose  hardness  allows  a  polish  like  that  of  marble;  a  finish  which 
the  builders  were  most  skilful  in  attaining.     From  the  corners  of  the 


•  Homer,  Iliad.  IX.  383. 


384  ART  CRITICISM. 

front  of  this  first  shrine  running  on  the  right  and  left,  two  massive 
walls  of  sand-stone  from  thirty  to  forty  feet  high,  projected  forwards ; 
forming  the  sides  of  a  hollow  square,  the  back  of  which  was  the 
shrine.  A  castellated  wall,  towering  100  feet  high,  formed  the  front 
of  this  open  square ;  whose  front  and  sides  sloped  at  a  graceful  angle 
inwards,  like  the  obelisks,  while  the  top  Avas  crowned  v/ith  a  curved 
cornice,  consisting  merely  of  an  abacus  or  upper  stone.  This  entire 
front  is  called  pylon,  from  the  Greek  puld,  a  gate ;  the  gate  or  en- 
trance being  in  the  centre  of  it  at  the  base.  This  pylon  with  the 
two  side  walls  encloses  an  area  or  open  court  of  three  or  four  acres ; 
along  the  sides  of  this  open  court,  at  the  right  and  left  on  entering 
the  gate  and  back  against  the  wall,  is  a  covered  colonnade,  as  around 
the  Grecian  agora  and  Roman  forum ;  and  in  front  of  the  temple,  at 
the  bottom  of  the  court,  is  the  portico  of  the  temple  with  a  double 
row  of  columns.  In  front  of  the  pylon  towered  a  pair  of  lofty  obe- 
lisks, or  of  gigantic  statues,  or  of  both;  the  obelisks  being  of  red 
granite  from  60  to  100  feet  in  height,  and  from  twelve  to  fifteen  feet 
square  at  the  base,  tapering  gradually  till  near  the  top  where  they 
terminate  in  a  pyramidal  point ;  and  the  statues  being  of  red  granite 
or  grayish  porphyry,  and  rising  sixty  feet  sometimes  in  a  standing 
posture.  In  the  temple  of  Karnac,  covering  half  a  mile  square,  por- 
tion after  portion,  halls,  porticoes,  obelisks,  enclosing  walls  and 
pylons,  were  added  during  a  period  of  1800  years  from  the  days  of 
Joseph  and  the  Egyptian  Pharaohs  to  the  times  of  the  Roman  occu- 
pants after  Christ.  In  the  grand  hall  of  this  structure  is  a  forest  of 
columns  in  rows  covering  an  acre  or  more  of  ground,  two  rows  of 
which  are  twelve  feet  in  diameter,  and  sixty-six  feet  in  height.  Over 
the  walls  of  an  entrance  passage  at  the  East  a  roof  is  thrown  formed 
of  blocks  of  sand-stone  about  five  feet  in  height  and  thickness,  and 
about  thirty  feet  long,  which  had  been  raised  to  the  top  of  the  two 
side  walls  about  thirty  feet  high,  and  laid  across  from  wall  to  wall. 
A  pair  of  obelisks  in  front  of  the  grand  hall  of  Karnac  measure 
ninety-two  feet  in  height. 

Sect.  3.  The  Three  Orders  of  Columns  and  the  Form  of  Cornice  pecu- 
liar TO  the  Egyptian  Temple. 

As  already  considered,  it  is  in  the  columnar  appendages  of  an 
edifice,  which  from  their  prominence  strike  the  eye,  that  the  artist 
has  a  field  for  the  display  of  his  skill.  The  portions  of  these  appen- 
dages which  give  names  to  orders,  are  the  sculptured  heads  at  the 
summit  of  individual  columns,  called  capitals,  and  the  corresponding 


THREE   ORDERS   OF   EGYPTIAN    COLUMNS.  385 

projecting  head  of  the  combined  range  of  columns  called  the  corofia, 
cornice,  or  crown,  with  kindred  reference  to  the  main  feature  in 
sculpture. 

In  Egyptian,  as  in  Grecian  architecture,  three  orders  are  found ; 
marking  either  original  complementary  suggestions,  or  successive 
stages  in  the  progress  of  improvement.  In  Egyptian  structures, 
temple  walls  and  pylons,  as  well  as  obelisks  and  pyramids,  slope 
inward  from  the  base  to  the'  summit ;  according  to  the  law  of  strength 
suggested  by  nature  in  the  trunks  of  trees,  jutting  rocks  and  moun- 
tain peaks,  and  according  to  the  law  of  beauty  based  upon  this  law 
of  stability  specially  marked  in  the  human  form,  from  which,  as  the 
Creator's  master-work,  all  other  things  beautiful  seem  to  be  modeled. 
This  inward  slope  from  the  bottom  up,  in  walls  and  columns,  is  more 
strikingly  presented  in  Egyptian  than  in  Grecian  architecture,  as  is 
also  the  projection  above  of  the  capital  and  cornice;  the  Egyptian 
exaggerating  nature  so  much  as  to  falsify  her  law. 

In  these  columns  there  are  three  distinct  classes,  named  by  the 
French  savans  of  A.  D.  1798  after  the  object  in  nature  from  which 
their  capitals  are  modelled ;  first  the  lotus-bud  capital  copied  from 
the  closed  bud  of  the  water-lily;  second  the  lotus-flower  capital',  or 
open  lotus;  and  third  the  Osiride  capital  presenting  a  four-faced 
head  of  the  god  Osiris  cut  in  complete  relief  These  three  orders  have 
been  classified  by  T.  U.  Walter,  LL.  D.,  the  architect  of  the  U.  S. 
Capitol,  as  the  robust,  corresponding  to  the  massy  Greek  Doric ;  the 
medium,  or  slender  and  graceful,  corresponding  to  the  Grecian  Ionic ; 
and  the  delicate,  yet  more  slender  and  ornamented,  corresponding  to 
the  Greek  Corinthian ;  the  second  in  his  enumeration  being  the  third 
of  the  French  engineers,  and  his  third  their  second.  The  robust 
column  of  the  Egyptian  has  the  proportion  of  from  four  and  a-half 
to  five  and  a-half  of  its  own  diameter  as  its  height;  the  shaft  was 
sometimes  smooth  and  sculptured,  but  generally  reeded  and  banded 
in  representation  of  a  bundle  of  lotus  stalks;  its  capitals  were  in 
form  like  a  lotus-bud  either  smooth  or  slightly  foliated;  while  its 
base  was  rounded  and  foliated  like  a  tuber  root.  Specimens  of  this 
style  have  been  successfully  attempted  in  the  fa9ade  of  the  Debtors' 
wing  of  the  Philadelphia  County  Prison,  and  in  the  Penitentiary  at 
Trenton,  New  Jersey.  The  medium,  or  Osiride  column,  is  six  dia- 
meters in  height,  the  proportion  of  the  human  figure ;  the  shaft  is 
plain  or  sculptured ;  the  capital  has  four  human  faces  with  cows'  ears 
in  complete  relief  with  a  temple-shaped  mitre  above  each  face ;  while 
its  base  is  a  plain  projecting  foot-slab.     This  order  has  not  been 

33  2  Y 


386  ART   CRITICISM. 

copied  in  tliis  country.  The  delicate,  or  lotus-flowered  column,  varies 
in  proportionate  height;  the  shaft  being  at  Ombos  5i,  at  Thebes  in 
the  grand  temple  of  Karnac  51,  at  Latopolis  5|,  and  in  the  temple 
of  Apollinopolis  7  diameters.  The  base  is  rounded  and  foliated 
as  a  tuber  root,  and  the  capital  is  an  inverted  bell  or  open  lotus- 
flower,  sometimes  smooth,  sometimes  slightly  foliated,  and  sometimes 
with  leaves  deeply  cut. 

The  French  classification,  made  upon  the  ground  by  their  ablest 
artists  and  savans  is  doubtless  full  and  correct.  The  lotus-bud,  on 
the  immature  stalk,  has  in  nature  a  less  elevation  than  the  flower ; 
as  the  shaft  having  this  flower  as  its  capital  is  proportionately  longer 
than  that  having  the  bud  as  its  head.  The  shaft  of  the  more  robust 
order  is  often  scolloped  to  represent  a  bundle  of  lotus  stalks,  while 
sculptured  bands  running  around  indicate  the  strength  naturally 
belonging  to  such  a  bundle.  In  the  sculptures  of  the  tombs  the 
lotus  is  often  represented  growing  in  water,  and  the  bud  stalk  is 
always  represented  as  shorter  than  the  flower  stalk,  the  bud  stalk 
not  having  really  reached  its  full  growth.  While,  too,  these  two 
columns  vary  in  proportionate  height  as  the  plant  does  in  nature,  the 
Osiride  preserves  the  fixed  law  of  the  human  stature  about  six 
diameters  in  height.  The  foot,  too,  is  the  precise  copy  of  the  tuber 
root  of  the  plant. 

A  mixed  or  composite  order  grew  up  after  the  Grecian  conquest ; 
the  capitals  being  both  Osiride  and  foliated ;  specimens  of  which  are 
found  in  the  Isle  of  Philse,  at  Dendera,  at  Karnac,  and  at  Apolli- 
nopolis. The  special  knowledge  of  geometrical  proportions  known, 
to  the  Egyptian  is  seen  by  cutting  a  horizontal  section  of  one  of  the' 
columns.  The  depressions  or  grooves  in  the  reeded  shaft,  and  the 
periphery  of  the  capital  are  found  to  be  included  within  a  series  of 
overlying  squares  inscribed  in  a  circle ;  showing  the  nicety  with  which 
every  part  of  the  surface  of  the  shaft  and  capital  was  calculated 
from  the  centre  of  the  column. 

The  cornice  of  the  Egyptian  temples  was  formed  by  a  large  cap 
stone,  which  projected  over  and  in  front  of  the  wall,  a  distance  equal: 
to  about  one-half  its  height.  It  was  carved  with  a  single  cavetto,^ 
whose  curve  began  at  one-half  its  elevation  and  turned  upwards  and 
outwards  to  its  top.  In  striking  the  sweep  of  the  curve  in  the  Egyp- 
tian cornice  one-half  the  height  of  the  whole  cornice  stone  was  made] 
the  radius  of  curvature ;  while  in  some  modern  copies  of  the  Egyp-j 
tian  cornice  the  circular  sweep  extends  from  top  to  bottom  of  the] 
cornice  stone,  and  the  radius  taken  is  the  entire  height  of  the  stoneJ 


EGYPTIAN   TOMBS   AND   ROCK-HEWN   TEMPLES.  387 

A  striking  contrast  is  observable  between  Egyptian  and  Grecian 
architecture  in  this;  that  while  the  Greeks  employed  the  more  elabo- 
rate curves  of  the  conic  sections,  as  the  ellipse  and  parabola,  in 
elaborating  architectural  ornaments,  the  Egyptians  used  only  the 
simpler  curve  of  the  circle.  A  plain  fillet  or  band  was  cut  along 
the  top  of  the  cavetto,  and  an, ornamental  bead  ran  along  its  base. 
The  bead  also  ran  down  the  corners  of  the  wall  in  the  more  finished 
structures  of  the  later  ages  of  Egyptian  Art. 

Sect.  4.  The  Structure  of  Egyptian  Tombs,  the  FAgADE  of  Rock-hewn 
Temples  and  the  Labyrinth. 

The  tombs  of  Egypt  are  immense  and  extended  specimens  of 
architecture  beneath  ground.  Those  back  of  the  large  cities  of 
Egypt  are  excavated  into  the  side  of  the  limestone  clifis  which  form 
the  two  walls  of  the  ravine  in  which  the  river  Nile  and  its  alluvial 
banks,  not  more  than  eight  or  ten  miles  in  extreme  width,  consti- 
tuting the  soil  of  Egypt,  lie.  This  soft  stone  was  cut  into  large  halls 
with  lateral  passages  and  rooms  along  each  passage.  The  face  of 
the  walls  was  covered  with  a  mortar  cement,  alluded  to  by  Moses  in 
Egypt,  and  by  Daniel  in  Babylon,^  which  hardened  so  as  to  receive 
the  nicest  touches  of  the  chisel ;  and  the  walls  thus  prepared  were 
covered  with  sculptures  and  paintings  presenting  all  the  scenes  of 
active  business  life.  The  numberless  chambers  were  each  in  succes- 
sion filled  with  the  coffins  of  the  dead  placed  on  their  feet  in  a  stand- 
ing posture;  and  were  then  successively  walled  up,  till  the  whole 
range  was  occupied.  The  king  under  whose  reign  the  tomb  was 
excavated,  was  laid  at  the  bottom  of  the  entrance-passage  in  a  sarco- 
phagus; and  his  name  in  hieroglyphics  was  written  at  the  portal. 
Finally  the  exterior  entrance  in  the  mountain  was  closed  by  an 
immense  stone,  and  the  desert  sand  heaped  over  it.  Such  tombs  had, 
of  course,  no  exterior  architectural  character. 

In  Nubia,  above  Egypt,  where  the  harder  sandstone  both  required 
and  allowed  it,  immense  rock-hewn  temples,  with  columns  and  archi- 
tectural ornaments  cut  in  the  solid  rock,  were  executed  in  the  style 
of  Egyptian  art.  The  most  celebrated  of  these,  a  type  among  rock- 
hewn  temples,  is  that  called  Aboo  Simbel,  about  one  hundred  and 
eighty  miles  above  Syene,  on  the  Nile.  It  is  dedicated  to  Athor, 
called  by  the  Greeks,  Aboccis,  the  sacred  cow.  In  the  fagade  of  the 
temple  are  two  colossal  seated  statues,  the  most  beautiful  in  all 


I 


*  Dent,  xxvii.  2,  4 ;  Dan.  v.  5. 


i 


388  ART   CRITICISM. 

Egypt,  about  sixty  feet  high.  The  length  of  the  arm  from  the 
elbow,  which  can  be  readily  measured  since  they  are  buried  in  the 
sand  to  the  lap,  is  fifteen  feet  from  the  inner  side  at  the  elbow  to  the 
end  of  the  middle  finger.  Several  statues  in  complete  relief  are  cut 
in  the  fayade,  which  is  about  ninety  feet  high,  forming  wonders  of  I 
art.  The  depth  of  the  grand  inner  hall,  which  is  adorned  with  eight 
Osiride  columns,  each  seventeen  feet  eight  inches  in  height,  without 
the  cap  and  pedestal,  is  ninety  feet ;  while  there  are  interior  cham- 
bers extending  back  a  distance  of  two  hundred  feet. 

The  famed  Labyrinth  is  the  most  remarkable  specimen  of  the 
underground  architecture  of  the  ancient  Egyptians.  It  was  situated 
on  the  south  side  of  that  rich  bosom  of  cultivated  land,  on  the  West 
of  the  Nile,  called  now  the  "  Fyoom,"  about  fifty  miles  above  ancient 
Memphis,  embracing  an  area  of  about  forty  miles  from  east  to  west, 
and  thirty  from  north  to  south.  In  the  centre  of  this  rich  tract  of 
land  was  the  Lake  "Moeris,"  on  whose  shore  stood  the  Labyrinth. 
It  consisted  of  a  union  of  twelve  palace-temples  above  ground,  with 
twelve  corresponding  tombs  below  ground ;  including  in  all  one  thou- 
sand five  hundred  rooms.  A  pyramid  of  sun-baked  brick  originally 
four  hundred  feet  square,  and  the  ruined  remains  of  one  of  the 
palaces  about  six  hundred  by  three  hundred  feet,  now  remain  uncov 
ered.  The  poetic  picture  Virgil  gives  of  the  one  in  Crete,  built  by 
Dsedalus,  with  a  "  thousand  passages,"^  through  whose  windings  even 
the  artist  had  to  guide  himself  by  a  thread,  has  given  a  fabulous  air 
to  this  wonder  of  Egyptian  art. 

Sect.  5.  The  Obelisk  and  Pyramid  as  Ti'PES  of  the  Massive  in  the 
Architecture  of  Egypt. 

Two  features  of  Egyptian  architecture  peculiar  to  it  in  common 
with  that  of  Asia  are  the  obelisks  in  their  temple  structures  and  the 
Pyramids  among  their  tombs.  The  obelisks  which  were  placed  in 
pairs  before  temple  entrances  are  needles  of  red  granite  sloping  up- 
wards from  a  base  having  as  its  measure  about  one-twelfth  of  their 
height,  tapering  abruptly  at  the  top  to  a  pyramidal  point,  polished 
to  a  mirror-like  smoothness,  and  covered  with  hieroglyphics.  While 
scores  of  these  have  been  removed  to  distant  lands  and  cities,  only 
eight  of  these  favorite  objects  of  plunder  remain  in  all  Egypt.  Of 
those  removed  the  first  was  borne  off  by  Augustus  Caesar  to  Rome 
about  the  period  of  the  Christian  era ;  while  the  last  was  conveyed 


Virgil  .Eneid,  VI.  27;  ''mille  viis." 


EGYPTIAN   OBELISKS   AND    PYRAMIDS.  389 

by  Louis  Philippe  to  Paris  A.  D.  1836.  Publius  mentions  forty-two 
conveyed  to  Rome  alone  between  the  times  of  Augustus  and  of  Con- 
stantine;  and  Constantino  carried  several  to  Constantinople.  Of 
the  eight  that  are  now  left  in  Egypt,  two  are  found  at  Alexandria ; 
one  stands  lonely  at  Heliopolis ;  and  five  tower  at  Thebes,  four  in 
the  Grand  temple  of  Karnac,  and  one  in  that  of  Luxor.  The  largest 
pair  in  the  temple  of  Karnac  are  ninety-two  feet  high,  and  eight  feet 
in  diameter,  while  the  largest  removed  are  the  one  in  front  of  St. 
Peter's  at  Rome,  seventy-eight  feet,  and  that  at  Paris  seventy-six 
feet  high.  Those  at  Thebes  are  still  perfectly  mirror-like  in  polish 
after  the  lapse  of  ages;  but  Cleopatra's  Needle,  so  called  at  Alexan- 
dria, is  much  defaced  on  the  seaward  face  by  the  salt  spray.  A 
peculiar  specimen  of  the  knowledge  of  the  laws  of  optics  and  geo- 
metry possessed  by  the  Egyptian  artists  is  observed  in  the  single 
remaining  obelisk  of  Luxor;  as  also  of  its  companion  now  at  Paris. 
The  faces  have  a  convexity  of  surface  amounting  to  an  arc  of  3°, 
designed  manifestly  to  prevent  the  darkening  effect  of  the  complete 
shadow  which  otherwise  would  rest  upon  the  entire  face  at  the  same 
time,  and  thus  hide  the  sculptures  when  the  sun  was  for  a  short 
period  of  the  morning  and  evening  back  of  the  northern  face  so  as 
to  give  it  no  light. 

The  Pyramids,  as  their  internal  chambers,  the  bodies  of  kings 
found  there  in  modern  times,  and  the  testimony  of  Pliny  and  other 
ancient  writers  show,  were  tombs  of  Pharaohs.  The  form  of  the  Pyra- 
mid, like  that  of  the  obelisk,  represents,  as  its  name  from  the  Greek 
word  "fire,"  and  also  Plato's  allusions  intimate,  a  tongue  of  flame; 
the  emblem  of  the  spirit  ascending.  They  were  a  very  ancient  con- 
ception, and  laid  aside  in  the  advance  of  the  race;  the  first  and  largest, 
that  of  Cheops,  having  been  built  200  years  before  Abraham's  day,  and 
the  last  during  the  time  of  the  Hebrew  patriarchs.  The  existing  ones 
consist  of  three  groups  at  the  modern  villages  of  Ghizeh,  Sakkara, 
and  Dashoor,  back  of  Old  Memphis ;  the  first  great  city  of  Egypt, 
situated  just  at  the  head  of  the  Delta.  The  oldest  and  largest  of  the 
pyramids  may  serve  as  a  specimen  of  all.  It  was  764  feet  square  at 
the  base,  covering  over  thirteen  acres,  and  480  ft.  9  in.  in  height.  The 
slope  of  its  side  therefore  is  an  angle  of  51°  51';  a  steepness  of  incli- 
nation which  makes  it  diflicult,  and  even  dangerous  of  ascent.  This 
Pyramid  was  built  of  limestone  blocks ;  most  of  which  are  more  than 
thirty  feet  long  and  three  and  one-half  feet  thick.     In  rearing  this 

ge  pile,  the  architect,  as  Herodotus^  describes,  began  at  the  centre, 


f 


Heroflot.  II.  125. 


390  ART   CRITICISM. 

raising  the  blocks  by  machines  from  range  to  range  quite  to  the  top, 
and  worked  downwards  and  outwards,  adding  thus  one  step  in  each 
successive  layer  to  the  elevation  and  extension.  In  the  centre  of  the 
Pyramid  were  several  rooms,  which  were  so  located,  and  reached  by 
passages  so  circuitous  and  so  narrow,  descending  and  ascending  at 
jutting  angles,  each  of  which  allowed  a  closing  and-  concealing  door, 
that  future  entrance  was  next  to  impossible.  The  Pyramid  stands 
with  its  faces  due  North  and  South  and  East  and  AYest.  The  en- 
trance is  on  the  northern  face  about  one-fourth  of  the  distance  upward 
from  the  base;  and  it  was  placed  twenty-three  feet  to  the  east  of  the 
centre,  evidently  to  conceal  it  the  more  securely.  The  steps  formed 
by  the  projecting  layers  are  about  two  feet  broad  and  three  feet 
high ;  which  steps  were  originally  filled  up  by  triangular  or  pyra- 
midal blocks,  after  which  the  whole  was  finished  down  with  a  cement 
of  marble-like  hardness  and  smoothness.  The  entrance  passage 
declines  at  an  angle  of  27° ;  and  as  the  latitude  of  the  Pyramid  is 
about  30°,  this,  with  other  like  indications,  have  been  regarded  as 
an  index  to  the  Egyptians'  knowledge  of  Astronomy  as  well  as  of 
Geometry.  Early  historians  agree  in  the  statement  that  the  Pyra- 
mids were  designed  to  be  the  tombs  for  kings ;  but  ancient  tradition 
hints  a  theory  revived  by  modern  savans  that  the  granite  cased  inner 
vaults  were  meant  to  contain  standard  weights  and  measures.  Thus 
Prof.  P.  Smyth  of  Edinburg,  after  elaborate  observation  and  study 
on  the  ground,  regards  the  granite  sarcophagus  in  the  King's  Cham- 
ber as  a  standard  measure ;  and  the  seven  sides  of  the  Queen's  Cham- 
ber he  thinks  an  indication  of  the  division  of  days. 

Sect.  6.  The  History  of  Egyptian  Architecture;  the  Permanent 
Type,  massive  in  Material,  and  Permanent  in  its  rude  and  sombre 
cast;  its  simple  Massive  Originals;  its  Asiatic  Gorgeousness ;  its 
Grecian  Eefinement;  and  its  Roman  Grandeur. 

Egyptian  architecture,  having  a  long  history  and  well  preserved 
monuments,  furnishes  a  most  striking  exhibition  of  the  power  of 
national  conceptions  in  controlling  foreign  ideas  introduced,  and  of  pre- 
serving substantial  types  while  it  may  be  modified  in  external  aspect 
by  an  improved  civilization.  The  Egyptian  palace-temple  and 
tombs,  whether  under  Asiatic  or  European  rulers  of  varied  nation- 
alities, never  departed  from  the  general  plan  of  structure  and  prin- 
ciples of  design  already  considered.  Though  entirely  unlike  their 
own  religious  shrines,  Asiatic  wise  men  and  Grecian  and  Roman 
conquerors,  reared  temples  having  the  same  flat  roof  and  circular 


FOUR   ERAS   IN   EGYPTIAN  ARCHITECTURE.  391 

cornice,  with  porticoes  having  columns  of  one  of  the  three  Egyptian 
orders,  fronted  by  immense  open  courts  surrounded  by  colonnades, 
and  having  obelisks  and  colossal  standing  or  seated  columns  before 
their  portals,  as  well  as  avenues  of  guarding  sphynxes  leading  to 
their  outer  entrances.  All  the  foreign  possessors  of  the  land,  too, 
went  back  to  the  line  of  Desert  mountain  rock  into  which  to  cut 
their  tombs;  they  excavated  the 'branching  passages;  they  stuccoed 
and  carved  the  walls,  and  they  drew  pictured  and  painted  scenes  of 
life  in  a  style  perfectly  Egyptian ;  denationalizing  themselves  to  be- 
come ministers  to  ruder  conceptions. 

No  less  than  four  eras  are  distinctly  marked  in  the  history  of 
Egyptian  architecture.  The  first  is  the  age  of  rude  native  taste. 
As  if  the  spirit  of  the  men  who  built  the  tower  that  was  to  reach 
unto  heaven  had  followed  them  in  their  Western  emigration,  as 
already  intimated,  the  race  that  going  westward  from  the  Euphrates 
some  twenty-five  days  journey  to  the  rich  Delta,  renewed  in  the 
Pyramids,  only  a  century  or  two  later,  the  irreverent  and  vain  aspi- 
ration of  their  proud  but  humbled  ancestry.  The  very  extreme  of 
the  effort  at  massiveness  showed  itself  in  their  first  attempts.  A 
single  specimen  only  of  the  style  of  this  age,  the  pyramids  excepted, 
remains  to  preserve  its  features;  the  inner  shrine  of  the  great  temple 
at  Thebes.  This  shrine  is  of  sand-stone,  its  columns  are  plane  octa- 
gonal shafts,  quite  unlike  the  rounded  cylinders  of  the  succeeding 
age;  while  the  dimensions  of  the  room,  though  of  massive  material, 
are  more  cell-like  than  the  broader  structures  that  succeeded.  The 
Pyramids  at  Memphis  of  limestone,  and  their  inner  ceiling  of  granite, 
and  the  shrine  at  Thebes  of  sand-stone,  show  that  so  far  as  material 
was  concerned  the  Egyptian  type  was  fixed  from  the  first. 

The  second  era  was  one  which  we  may  perhaps  designate  as  that 
of  Asiatic  gorgeousness.  Presided  over  probably  by  that  race  who 
have  given  permanent  intellectual  renown  to  India,  this  era  of  early 
and  controlling  foreign  science  began  in  the  days  of  Joseph  with 
Osirtasen  L,  it  reached  a  noble  development  under  Thothmes  III.  of 
Moses'  day,  and  it  culminated  under  Osirei  and  his  famed  successors 
Remeses  I.  to  IV.  a  century  or  two  later.  Its  matchless  monuments 
at  Thebes  astound  the  modern  traveler  in  the  grand  hall  of  the  tem- 
ple of  Karnac,  the  Remesium  and  the  Memnonium,  as  well  as  in  the 
superior  tombs  back  of  that  proudest  city  of  ancient  Egypt.  Its 
type  is  embodied  in  one  of  that  forest  of  columns  in  the  grand  hall 
mentioned ;  each  twelve  feet  in  diameter  and  sixty-six  feet  high,  well 
proportioned  and  of  the  lotus-bud  or  robust  order,  and  all  covered 


392  ART   CRITICISM. 

with  the  richest  sculpture  aud  painting  from  summit  to  base;  that 
type  being  the  massive  native  Egyptian  in  material  with  Asiatic 
gorgeousness  in  adornment. 

The  third  or  Grecian  era,  had  the  favorite  centres  of  its  erections 
at  the  extremes,  Alexandria  on  the  Northern  and  PhilsB  at  the 
Southern  limit  of  the  land.  Its  grand  works  at  Alexandria  were 
the  Pharos,  or  light-house,  a  square  tower  of  white  marble  with  pro- 
jecting balconies,  the  Library,  Museum,  and  other  edifices  reared  by 
the  Ptolemies,  all  of  which  have  disappeared.  The  beautiful  tem- 
ples, well-preserved,  on  the  little  Isle  of  Philse,  in  the  river  channel 
here  greatly  narrowed,  more  entrancing  from  their  contrast  with  the 
unshapen  rocky  ledges  all  around,  are  truly  Egyptian  in  all  their 
features,  yet  having  a  light  grace  in  their  proportions  which  none 
but  a  Grecian  artist  could  have  given. 

The  last  and  Roman  era  has  its  two  grand  monuments  in  the  tem- 
ples of  Dendera  and  of  Esneh.  Both  are  simple  shrines,  without 
enclosing  courts,  pylons  or  obelisks;  but  loftier  and  grander  than 
any  earlier  covered  structure  in  Egypt.  That  at  Esneh  has  columns 
with  the  lotus  ca^^ital;  those  at  Dendera  are  Osiride;  both  have  a 
screen  exquisitely  wrought  in  a  sort  of  lattice  running  between  the 
outside  row  of  columns  and  rising  to  half  their  height.  The  zodiacs 
on  the  ceilings  seem  a  suggestion  of  the  Julian  period  in  astronomy. 
The  absence  of  surrounding  pylons,  though  retained  by  Greek  build- 
ers at  Thebes,  the  omission  of  obelisks  and  statues  in  front,  though 
Alexandria,  Rome  and  Constantinople,  were  filled  by  Roman  plun- 
derers with  these  memorials  of  past  Egyptian  grandeur,  are  marked 
features  of  the  independence  of  the  Roman  sway ;  while  the  perfectly 
Egyptian  style  and  idea  of  the  shrine  itself  is  an  interesting  com- 
ment on  Roman  policy,  which  not  only  recognized  but  adopted  the 
religion,  as  well  as  the  local  customs  and  State  institutions,  of  every 
conquered  nation. 

The  student  of  Egyptian  architecture  in  the  single  temple  of 
Karnac,  covering  a  half  square  mile,  has  before  and  around  him  an 
epitome  not  only  of  all  the  four  eras,  but  of  several  stages  in  some 
of  these  eras.  Commencing  at  its  central  shrine  and  proceeding 
outwards,  with  such  a  guide  as  Wilkinson,  not  only  the  native  Egyp- 
tian, the  Asiatic,  the  Grecian  and  Roman  ages,  but  the  improvement 
during  the  principal  of  these  eras  can  be  readily  traced.  This  is 
specially  conspicuous  in  the  second  era  the  age  from  Joseph  to  the 
successors  of  Moses.  In  the  Grecian  sway  may  be  seen  the  sad  me- 
mentoes of  Grecian  exasperation  at  the  stern  resistance  made  by  this 


THE   ARCHITECTURE   OF    ANCIENT   INDIA.  393 

great  and  proud  city,  then  at  the  zenith  of  its  power,  to  the  advance 
of  the  Macedonian  conquerors;  and  the  equally  sad  efforts  to  repair 
their  ravages  by  lighter  Grecian  restorations.  The  Roman  additions 
are  so  few  and  faint  as  to  indicate  the  decline  into  which  the  grand 
old  city  had  in  their  day  fallen;  only  justifying  slight  repairs. 

Sect.  7.   The  Architecture  of  India,   Eastern  Asia  and  Western 
America;  the  Declining  Phase  of  the  Massive  Style. 

As  in  sculpture  so  in  architecture  a  family  resemblance  in  art- 
execution,  of  growing  degeneracy  in  proportion  to  the  decreasing 
culture  of  each  succeeding  nation,  can  be  traced  eastward  from  Egypt 
through  India,  China,  and  Polynesia,  to  Mexico  and  other  parts  of 
America.  Its  ancient  relics  are  most  manifest  in  hither  India, 
Polynesia,  and  America;  but  in  farther  India  and  China  modern 
structures  are  degenerate  specimens  of  the  same  style. 

In  India  the  most  interesting  relics  of  ancient  architecture  are 
those  found  at  Elephanta  in  the  harbor  of  Bombay,  and  ast  Ellora, 
inland  from  Bombay,  already  referred  to  in  the  history  of  Asiatic 
sculpture.^  Near  the  landing  on  the  island  stand  the  remains  of  a 
colossal  elephant  thirteen  feet  long,  cut  from  a  dark  rock,  at  once 
suggesting  the  name  of  the  Island  and  the  home  of  this  gigantic  ani- 
mal. Climbing  about  half  way  up  a  steep  hill-side  some  distance 
back  from  the  shore,  a  spacious  entrance  to  a  rock-hewn  temple  opens 
sixty  feet  wide,  eighteen  feet  high,  supported  by  two  columns  in  antis, 
with  two  pilasters  behind  them.  Entering,  a  grand  hall  one  hundred 
and  twenty-three  feet  wide  and  one  hundred  and  thirty  feet  long 
is  found  cut  into  the  solid  rock,  with  rows  of  huge  columns  left 
by  the  architect  to  support  the  roof.  Opposite  the  entrance  is 
the  three-headed  Deity,  Brahma,  Vishnoo  and  Siva  already  de- 
scribed ;  while  within  numerous  statues  of  Siva  are  carved,  and 
the  walls  are  smoothed  into  panels  or  compartments  covered  with 
sculptures  in  relief  of  mythological  subjects.  At  Ellora  a  line  of 
similarly  excavated  temples  run  along  a  mile  and  a  half  on  a  hill-side ; 
there  being  from  twenty  to  thirty  in  number,  most  of  which  are  one 
hundred  feet  in  depth.  One  of  these  differs  from  the  rest  in  having  its 
roof  cut  high  into  the  rock,  sloping  upward  to  the  height  of  ninety- 
five  feet  in  the  style  of  Indian  pagodas.  In  penetrating  to  this  inner 
shrine  the  visitor  first  passes  through  a  portico  supported  by  massive 
columns,  behind  which  are  statues ;  he  next  enters  a  hall  called  the 
chapel  whose  excavated  roof  allows  two  obelisks  sixty  feet  high  to 

'  Book  III.  chap.  ii.  sect.  5. 
2  Z 


394  ART   CRITICISM. 

stand  in  it,  while  its  space  is  partly  occupied  by  two  gigantic  ele- 
phants and  numerous  statues;  yet  beyond  which  is  the  grand  pagoda 
just  mentioned.  Statues  of  deities  line  these  three  halls,  and  the 
walls  are  covered  with  sculptures  of  mythological  incidents,  with 
lions,  tigers,  elephants,  and  other  animals  of  the  country.  The  entire 
structure,  though  like  the  Egyptian  in  massiveness,  is  quite  unlike 
to  that  type  in  its  sculptures ;  while  its  high  conical  vaulted  roof 
varies  from  the  Pyramid,  as  does  the  pagoda,  in  having  a  rounded 
dome-like  instead  of  a  triangular  sided  peak. 

In  farther  India,  or  Burmah,  the  pagoda,  so  favorite  a  style  of 
sacred  architecture  in  all  Southern  and  Western  Asia,  is  found  in  its 
grandest  type.  The  pagoda  is  a  steep-sided  cone  or  pyramid  in 
shape,  composed  of  numerous  stories,  built  one  over  the  other,  each 
as  they  rise  falling  back  of  the  one  next  below  about  one-half  or 
two-thirds  the  distance  of  its  own  height;  the  projecting  portions 
of  each  descending  stage  having  covered  balconies  running  around 
the  structure,  the  columns  of  each  of  which  balconies  rest  on  the 
back  wall  of  the  one  projecting  before  it  next  below.  The  Burmese 
pagodas  are  generally  square,  sloping  upwards  in  back-sett  stages, 
like  the  steps  of  the  Egyptian  Pyramid  when  its  facing  stones  are 
removed,  resembling  the  Pyramid  of  Sakkhara.  The  proportionate 
height  as  compared  with  the  breadth  of  base,  is  much  greater  than 
in  the  Pyramid  which  gives  a  steeper  slope.  One  at  Ava  the  old 
capital  of  Burmah,  is  one  hundred  and  sixty  feet  high  with  a  base 
two  hundred  and  thirty-six  feet  in  diameter;  while  another  in  Pegu 
is  three  hundred  and  sixty-one  feet  high,  and  its  base  only  three 
hundred  and  ninety-five  feet  broad.  The  former  has  in  the  colon- 
nade of  its  first  stage  eight  hundred  and  two  columns  of  sandstone, 
each  five  feet  high. 

In  China,  the  houses  of  the  common  people  are  small,  low,  and 
crowded  together ;  as  in  modern  India  they  now  are,  and  as  doubt- 
less they  were  in  ancient  Egyptian  towns.  The  interesting  pecu- 
liarity of  the  Chinese  houses  is  the  bell-shaped  flare  of  their  curved 
roofs  in  the  style  of  a  tent  with  pavilioned  covering.  Granite  is  the 
favorite  building  stone  for  larger  structures,  the  marble  of  China 
being  of  coarse  texture;  while  brick  forms  a  considerable  portion  of 
their  larger  buildings.  The  pagoda  is  in  China,  as  in  India,  the 
structure  on  which  architectural  taste  is  expended.  The  most  noted 
is  the  famous  porcelain  tower,  so  called,  built  at  Nanking  between 
the  years  A.  D.  1412  and  1431 ;  which  unfortunately  was  destroyed 
in  1856  during  the  sack  of  the  city  by  the  revolutionary  leader, 


POLYNESIAN  AND  ANCIENT  AMERICAN  ARCHITECTURE.     395 

Thai-p'hing.  This  pagoda  was  octagonal  in  form,  two  hundred  and 
thirty-six  feet  high,  built  of  brick,  and  then  covered  with  plates  of 
porcelain.  From  its  spire  and  projecting  balconies  forty-four  bells 
of  sweet  tone  suspended  by  chains,  kept  up  a  musical  chime  as  they 
swung  with  the  wind.  The  Chinese  wall  is  the  wonder  of  this  land 
as  a  specimen  of  massive  building.  It  was  built  along  a  line  of 
nearly  one  thousand  five  hundred  miles  in  extent,  being  originally 
designed  as  a  defence  from  the  Tartars.  Its  foundations  were  gener- 
ally of  granite,  and  its  upper  portions  often  of  softer  stone  and  of 
brick.  It  was  sufficiently  broad  for  six  horsemen  to  ride  abreast  on 
its  summit;  it  rose  from  fifteen  to  thirty  feet  in  height,  varying  with 
the  shape  of  the  ground ;  and  was  dotted  with  towers  rising  from 
fifteen  to  twenty  feet  above  the  wall. 

In  the  Islands  of  the  Pacific,  Ellis  and  others  have  found  in  an- 
cient relics  of  architecture  what  they  regarded  striking  resemblances 
to  the  style  of  Burmah  and  Egypt.  In  the  island  called  Atehura  is 
a  pyramid  with  an  oblong  base  and  apex ;  its  height  being  fifty  feet, 
its  base  two  hundred  and  seventy  feet  long  and  ninety-four  wide, 
while  its  apex  is  tapered  to  one  hundred  and  eighty  feet  long  and  six 
feet  wide.  In  the  island  of  Tonga  Taboo  is  a  tomb  built  of  immense 
stones  which  must  have  been  brought  in  floats  from  another  island. 
Other  islands  have  similar  relics.  In  ancient  America  the  researches 
of  Humboldt,  and  more  lately  of  Stephens,  reveal  a  decided  resem- 
blance between  the  ancient  remains  of  massive  architecture  here 
found  and  those  of  Egypt.  Humboldt  speaks  of  them  as  of  a  style 
of  building  which  seems  in  Asia  to  indicate  the  very  dawn  of  civili- 
zation. These  edifices  were  all  of  the  same  form,  though  of  different 
dimensions;  they  were  pyramids  with  several  terraces,  whose  sides 
stood  exactly  in  the  direction  of  the  meridian  and  of  the  parallel  of 
the  place.  The  teocalli,  or  shrines  of  the  deities,  were  raised  in  the  midst 
of  a  square  walled  enclosure ;  which,  somewhat  like  the  periholos  of  the 
Greeks,  contained  gardens,  fountains,  the  dwellings  of  the  priests  and 
sometimes  arsenals ;  since  each  house  of  a  Mexican  divinity,  like  the 
ancient  temple  of  Baal-Berith,^  taken  by  Abimelech,  was  a  strong 
place.  A  great  stair-case  led  to  the  top  of  the  truncated  pyramid ;  and 
on  the  summit  of  the  platform  were  one  or  two  chapels,  built  like 
towers,  which  contained  the  colossal  idols  of  the  divinity  to  whom  the 
teocalli  was  dedicated.  Humboldt  then  notices  the  pyramid  of  Cho- 
lula  having  a  base  one  thousand  four  hundred  and  twenty-six  feet 


'  See  Judg.  ix.  46-52. 


396  ART   CRITICISM. 

broad,  four  times  as  large  as  that  of  Cheops,  and  one  hundred  and 
sixty-two  feet  high,  with  four  stories;  two  pyramids  of  Teotihuacan, 
the  path  to  which  is  called  Micoatl,  the  path  to  the  dead;  one  of 
which  is  six  hundred  and  seventy-six  feet  broad  at  base,  and  one 
hundred  and  eighty  feet  high,  and  another  one  hundred  and  forty- 
five  feet  high.  These  truncated  pyramids  he  compares  with  the  ter- 
races of  that  at  Sakkhara,  Egypt;  and  he  cites  the  " hieroglyphical 
sculpture"  covering  the  steps,  as  another  feature  of  resemblance. 
Humboldt  regarded  the  pyramids  of  Peru,  as  so  like  in  style  to  those 
of  Egypt,  that  they  must  have  been  built  by  a  people  who  had  been 
affected  either  directly,  or  indirectly  by  the  culture  of  Egypt.  At 
Copan,  standing  in  a  fertile  valley  in  ancient  times  in  Honduras, 
Stephens  traced  the  outline  of  a  fortress-like  structure  whose  perpen- 
dicular front  wall  along  the  river  side  was  six  hundred  and  twenty- 
four  feet  long,  rising  from  sixty  to  ninety  feet  in  height ;  whose  side 
and  back  walls  rose  in  pyramidal  style  with  retiring  steps,  reaching 
a  height  varying  from  thirty  to  one  hundred  and  forty  feet  above 
the  debris;  the  whole  being  built  of  roughly  hewn  stone.  These 
architectural  peculiarities  united  to  those  of  its  sculpture  reminded 
the  explorer  constantly  of  his  previous  researches  in  Egypt. 

Sect.  8.  The  Architecture  of  Arabia,  Palestine,  Syria,  Assyria,  and 
Persepolis  ;  the  advancing  phase  of  the  massive  style. 

As  intimated  in  tracing  the  progress  of  the  art  of  sculpture,  so  in 
following  up  the  history  of  architecture  in  the  countries  on  the  east- 
ern borders  of  the  Mediterranean,  the  successive  influence  of  the 
many  cultured  nations,  which  have  here  in  different  ages  held  sway, 
is  to  be  carefully  discriminated. 

Passing  from  Egypt  into  the  peninsula  of  Mt.  Sinai,  tombs  are 
constantly  observed  during  four  'or  five  days  of  travel  cut  into  the 
mountain  sides  by  the  Egyptians,  having  on  their  portals  the  hiero- 
glyphics of  their  kings,  and  precisely  resembling  those  of  Egypt 
itself;  this  people,  who  sought  immortality  for  the  soul  by  careful 
preservation  of  the  body,  having  come  to  these  undisturbed  moun- 
tain glens  for  the  greater  security  of  their  buried  dead.  Going 
farther  into  Arabia  Petrsea,  the  rock  city  of  Petra  reveals  many 
indications  that  an  influence  came  from  Egypt  to  shape  the  style  of 
architecture.  The  massive  proportions  of  the  rock-hewn  temple 
front,  the  flat  roof  of  the  larger  temple  and  the  pyramidal  roof-peak 
of  other  temples,  are  unmistakable  marks  of  early  Egyptian  taste. 

As  is  evident  from  sacred,  as  well  as  secular  history,  long  before 


ARCHITECTURE   OF   THE    HEBREW    TEMPLES.  397 

the  occupation  of  the  eastern  border  of  the  Mediterranean  by  the 
Hebrews,  this  section  of  country  had  been  filled  with  sacred  edifices. 
Jacob,  the  ancestor  of  this  people,  reared  a  "pillar"  at  the  grave  of 
his  favorite  wife ;  and  also  built  a  rude  sacred  pile,  which  he  called 
Bethel,^  or  house  of  God,  and  which  able  antiquaries  suppose  to  have 
been  copied  as  far  west  as  the  British  Isles  in  structures  like  that  of 
Stonehenge,  named  by  the  ancient  Celts  Bothel.  The  temples  of 
Baal  in  the  centre  of  the  land  afterwards  occupied  by  the  Israel- 
itish  tribes,  of  Ashtaroth  in  the  north,  and  of  Dagon  in  the  South, 
were  immense  structures,  with  flat  roofs  accommodating  thousands, 
spacious  enough  to  be  a  reservoir  for  the  offal  of  a  city  when  de- 
stroyed and  desecrated  by  the  conquerors;  they  had  massive  porti- 
coes and  supporting  columns  sustaining  their  roofs,  underneath  which 
votive  offerings  were  suspended;^  and  these  temples  Lucian  says  "the 
Phoenicians  built  in  the  Egyptian  style,  though  the  people  were  of 
Dorian  origin." 

In  the  history  of  Hebrew  architecture  the  temple  of  Solomon  at 
Jerusalem,  built  by  a  Phoenician  architect  after  Egyptian  models,  is 
chief  in  interest.  Reared  on  the  little  conical  peak  between  Mount 
Zion  and  Mount  Olivet  called  Moriah,  as  the  narrow  summit  did 
not  furnish  space  for  the  wide  court  of  an  Egyptian  temple,  Solomon 
built  an  embanking  wall  around  the  base  of  the  hill,  which  rising 
from  sixty  to  one  hundred  feet,  enclosed  an  area  one-fourth  of  a  mile 
square.  Into  the  broad  deep  space  between  the  hill-side  and  this 
surrounding  wall,  large  arched  passages  and  side  chambers  were 
built,  over  which  earth  was  heaped  up  to  the  level  of  the  hill  sum- 
mit; forming  thus  an  open  level  area  above  one-fourth  of  a  mile 
square.  This  area,  in  time,  was  covered  with  a  green  sward  on 
which  cattle  could  browze,  and  with  trees  which  furnished  a  shade 
for  the  thousands  of  people  that  thronged  there. 

Near  the  centre  of  this  area  stood  the  temple  structure;  which 
was  sixty  cubits  or  ninety  feet  long,  twenty  cubits  or  thirty  feet 
broad,  and  thirty  cubits  or  forty-five  feet  high.  In  front  of  the  main 
building  was  a  portico  twenty  cubits  or  thirty  feet  long,  correspond- 
ing with  the  breadth  of  the  house,  and  projecting  ten  cubits  or  fifteen 
feet  in  width  before  the  house.  This  portico  and  the  tower  above  it 
rose  one  hundred  and  twenty  cubits  or  one  hundred  and  eighty  feet  in 

K*  See  Gen.  xxviii.  18 ;  xxxv.  7,  14,  compare  Deut.  xxvii.  2,  6,  8,  and  Josh. 
\  20;  viii.  30,  32. 
»  See  Judg.  vi.  25;  xvi.  25-30;  1  Sam.  v.  2-5;  xxxi.  10;  2  Kings  x.  25-28. 


398  ART   CRITICISM. 

height ;  and  the  porch  was  supported  by  two  columns  cast  in  brass 
whose  height  was  eighteen  cubits  or  twenty-seven  feet,  and  their  cir- 
cumference twelve  cubits  or  eighteen  feet,  giving  a  diameter  of  about 
six  feet.  The  shaft  of  these  columns  was  surmounted  by  an  elabo- 
rately carved  capital  five  cubits  or  seven  and  a-half  feet  in  entire 
height;  four  cubits  of  the  lower  portion  of  the  capital  being  covered 
with  carved  "lily  work,"  while  the  other  cubit  was  adorned  with 
rows  of  pomegranates,  the  reverse  of  the  bell  or  pear  in  shape,  two 
hundred  in  number  being  clustered  upon  each  capital.  Behind  the 
main  building,  and  connected  to  it  was  "the  oracle,"  or  "holy  of 
holies,"  having  the  equal  proportions  of  twenty  cubits  in  length, 
breadth,  and  height.  The  doors,  floors,  and  ceilings  were  of  cedar,  fir, 
and  olive  woods ;  and  the  entire  inner  surface  of  the  holy  of  holies,  as 
well  as  of  many  portions  of  the  larger  house,  was  overlaid  with  gold. 

The  sides  of  the  main  building  had  wings,  or  lateral  projections, 
built  up  to  and  morticed  into  its  walls ;  and  these  were  divided  into 
chambers  three  stories  in  height.  At  some  distance  from  the  main 
building  and  around  it,  a  large  area  or  court-yard  was  enclosed  by 
walls  built  of  three  courses  of  hewn  stone  or  about  fifteen  feet  in 
height,  against  which  wall- covered  rooms  and  open  colonnades  with 
supporting  columns  were  built ;  this  inner  area  thus  enclosed  being 
the  "Court  of  the  Israelites."  Around  the  outer  wall  also  of  the 
main  area,  colonnades  looking  inward  also  ran ;  this  outer  and  larger 
space  being  the  "  Court  of  the  Gentiles."  The  rooms  on  the  walls 
of  the  temple  were  for  the  officiating  priests,  and  for  the  purposes  of 
a  "College,"  in  which  were  gathered  the  young  pupils  called  "sons 
of  the  prophets ;"  while  the  colonnades  were  places  of  resort  for  pro- 
menade and  for  social  converse. 

In  the  architectural  decorations  of  the  Hebrew  temple,  as  well  as 
in  its  sculpture  already  considered,  we  find  the  idea  of  the  Egyptian 
architect,  modified  by  the  introduction  of  the  palm-tree,  the  pome- 
granate, and  the  cherubim  which  Were  Jewish  conceptions.  The 
tombs,  too,  about  Jerusalem  present  the  same  general  characteristics. 
Thus  the  tomb  of  Zacharias,  cut  from  the  solid  rock,  is  a  cubical 
base  about  twenty  feet  in  length,  breadth,  and  height,  and  capped 
by  a  pyramid  about  twelve  feet  high.  The  temples  and  other  struc- 
tures of  Syria  both  in  the  North  and  South  of  the  country  have  the 
same  fundamental  characteristics. 

It  should  be  remembered  that  the  temple  rebuilt  by  Ezra  about 
B.  C.  520,  was  substantially  that  of  Solomon  so  far  as  style  was  con- 
cerned; while  the  magnificent  edifice  reared  by  Herod  the  Great 


ARCHITECTURE  OF  ANCIENT  SYRIA,  ASSYRIA  AND  PERSIA.  399 

about  B.  C.  16,  while  in  the  maiu  after  the  old  model,  and  perhaps 
enclosing  the  older  shrine  in  its  added  superstructures,  was  Roman  in 
its  columnar  decorations;  features  belonging  to  the  later  age  yet  to 
be  noticed.  The  essential  point  to  be  observed  is,  that  in  their  ori- 
ginal structure  Syrian  edifices  were  Egyptian  in  idea,  but  in  execu- 
tion more  subject  to  improvement  introduced  by  superior  European 
races.  This  characteristic  is  specially  manifest  in  the  ruins  of 
Baalbek,  most  commanding  for  the  massiveness  of  material  employed 
in  their  structure.  The  city  is  probably  the  Baal-Gad  mentioned 
by  Joshua,^  situated  in  the  valley  between  the  Lebanon  ranges  near 
the  foot  of  Mt.  Hermon.  The  remains  are  of  three  ages ;  the  immense 
foundations  of  the  great  temple  which  are  of  most  ancient  origin; 
the  ruins  of  three  or  four  porticoes  and  colonnades  which  are  of  the 
later  Greek  Corinthian ;  and  a  small  octagonal  structure  of  yet  later 
times,  evidently  of  Roman  structure.  In  the  foundation  are  rows  of 
stones  larger  than  in  any  known  structure;  three  of  these  being 
sixty-three  or  sixty-four  feet  long,  twelve  feet  wide,  and  twelve  feet 
thick,  all  of  which  were  raised  twenty  feet  from  the  ground,  and 
built  into  the  wall  of  the  temple.  The  relation  of  these  remains  to 
the  Egyptian  type  is  indicated  by  the  distinctive  emblem  of  the 
winged  globe  with  encircling  asps  sculptured  on  its  walls. 

Passing  eastward  to  the  Euphrates  and  thence  up  the  valley  of 
this  great  river,  and  along  its  tributaries  into  Persia,  a  line  of  archi- 
tectural remains  kindred  to  their  sculptured  ornaments  already  con- 
sidered, fixed  in  their  general  form  yet  improving  in  ornamental 
finish  may  be  traced.  The  description  of  Babylon  given  by  Grecian 
and  Roman  writers,  sixty  miles  in  circumference,  having  in  it  a  single 
palace  six  miles  in  circuit,  within  which  were  successive  enclosures 
with  embattled  walls,  towers,  and  gate-ways,  give  precisely  the  pic- 
ture of  Thebes  and  its  palace-temple  called  Karnac ;  while  the  exca- 
vations of  Layard  reveal  the  same  general  internal  as  well  as 
external  structure.  Turning  northward,  again,  to  Persepolis,  where 
Persian  art  controlled  the  form  as  well  as  finish  of  architecture,  the 
massiveness  of  the  Egyptian  is  found  united  to  almost  Grecian 
grace.  Fergusson^  has  no  hesitation  in  affirming  that  the  Greek 
architects  borrowed  the  Ionic  capital,  first  used  by  them  in  Asia 
Minor,  from  the  Persians;    as  they  also   obtained    from  the  same 

Kiurce  "  the  graceful  ornament  commonly  called  the  honey-suckle," 
hich  was  so  extensively  used  in  Greece.     On  the  other  hand,  he 


400 


ART  CRITICISM. 


remarks,  that  in  Assyrian  structures  invested  with  a  sacred  character, 
the  lotus,  or  lily,  was  used  as  an  alternating  ornament  upon  cornices. 
The  Old  Testament  reader  will  mark  the  Egyptian  characteristic  of 
the  pylon  or  gate-way  alluded  to  by  the  prophet  Isaiah  in  foretelling 
the  Persian  conquest  of  Babylon.^ 


CHAPTEE    III. 


GRECIAN   architecture;    CHARACTERIZED  BY  MATHEMATICAL   EX- 
ACTNESS   IN    FORMS    AND    DELICATE   GRACE   IN   ADORNMENT. 

The  massive  structures  reared  by  the  Egyptians  showed  a  general 
knowledge  of  mathematical  laws  which  control  relations  of  parts 
and  give  shape  to  figures  as  a  whole.  The  Greeks  themselves  pro- 
fessed to  have  derived  from  the  Egyptian  wise  men  the  genius  of 
their  knowledge  both  of  Geometry  and  Astronomy.  But  the  rudi- 
ments of  that  science,  which  with  Egyptian  sages  was  only  the  foun- 
dation of  an  art  for  the  annual  re-measurement  of  their  field  boun- 
daries whose  land-marks  were  every  year  swept  away  by  the  Nile's 
inundation,  and  of  fixing  as  crudely  by  the  change  of  the  earth's 
place  among  the  stars  in  its  yearly  revolution  the  recurrence  of  seed- 
time and  harvest,  of  festivals  and  dates  important  in  history  and 
jurisprudence,  became  in  the  mind  of  such  a  pupil  as  Pythagoras 
the  perfected  measurement  of  the  curves  of  the  conic  sections,  and 
the  fixing  of  the  sun  as  the  centre  of  a  system  of  planets  with  orbits 
harmoniously  proportioned  in  diameter.  The  nicety  of  this  perfected 
exact  science  entered  into  the  work  of  Greek  artists;  and  every 
straight  line  in  architecture,  as  every  curved  line  in  sculpture,  was 
calculated  and  executed  with  the  rarest  precision. 

As  the  peculiar  characteristic  of  the  Greeks  in  sculpture,  when 
compared  with  the  Egyptian,  was  the  giving  of  life  and  expression, 
and  the  embodiment  of  manifest  motion,  so  his  peculiar  genius  and 
culture  begat  within  the  Greek  architect  a  yearning  to  attain  in 
architecture  an  ideal  beauty  with  which  Egyptian  grossness  was  at 
war.  This  native  temperament  conspiring  with  favoring  external 
causes,  such  as  the  nature  of  their  country,  and  the  fineness  of  their 


Isa.  xlv.  1,  2. 


AFFECTED   BY   SURFACE   OF   COUNTRY    AND   CLIMATE.     401 

material  for  works  of  art,  made  the  creations  of  the  Greeks  in  temple 
architecture  as  full  of  life  as  was  the  statue  in  the  enclosed  shrine; 
so  that  the  architect  spoke  as  intelligibly  as  the  sculptor. 

Sect.  1.   The  Influence  of  face  op  Country  and  climate  in  giving 
character  to  the  general  cast  op  grecian  architecture. 

The  Egyptian  cities  were  built  upon  plains  with  walls  of  coarse 
lime-stone  and  sand-stone  brought  from  the  Desert  range  a  few  miles 
distant  from  their  river.  The  Greeks  lived  in  a  mountain  region ; 
their  citadels  were  perched  on  rocky  promontories  jutting  up  preci- 
pitously from  the  plain,  as  the  Acropolis  of  Athens  and  Corinth; 
and  their  temples  were  separate  structures,  either  sheltered  in  the 
guarded  Acropolis  enclosure,  or  nestled  unguarded  on  the  plain 
below.  Standing  thus  unenclosed,  unlike  the  Egyptian  temple  which 
had  but  one  approach,  they  were  finished  on  all  sides  alike,  having 
columns  extending  entirely  around  the  shrine.  Their  roofs  were  not 
flat,  as  in  the  land  of  "no  rain,"  but  sloped  gently  from  the  centre 
to  the  sides.  They  rose  to  a  small  height,  and  had  neither  tower, 
obelisk,  or  lofty  pylon,  since  they  were  sufficiently  conspicuous  on 
the  rocky  heights  made  to  serve  as  their  pedestal. 

The  chief  charm  of  the  Grecian  temple  was  its  gable  entrance 
portico  at  each  end,  adorned  with  either  a  single  or  double  row  of 
graceful  columns  surmounted  by  coping  stones  forming  a  uniting 
beam  or  crown  running  along  their  top ;  above  which  rose  the  roof- 
peak  sloping  gently  upward,  in  whose  tympanum  or  ear-like  recess 
was  grouped  the  most  elaborate  sculpture. 

Of  these  features,  Athens  furnished  the  complete  exhibition  in 
three  of  its  world-famed  temples.  On  the  rocky  height  of  the 
Acropolis  stood  the  Parthenon;  with  only  its  tympanum  and  the 
caps  and  cornice  of  its  portico  appearing  above  the  low  fortress 
walls ;  the  most  perfect  specimen  of  the  Doric  or  most  ancient  order. 
The  temple  of  Theseus,  the  chaste  and  complete  embodiment  of  the 
second  or  Ionic  order  sat  like  a  bird  spreading  her  wings  over  her 
young  upon  a  gentle  knoll  rising  between  the  Acropolis  and  the 
Piraeus.  Lastly  upon  the  level  plain  under  the  Acropolis,  and  towards 
Hymettus  was  nestled  the  more  gorgeous  temple  of  Jupiter,  a 
monument  of  the  last  or  Corinthian  order. 

Sect,  2.  The  Material  used  by  Grecian  Architects  'as  affording 

FACILITY  for  FINISH  IN  THEIR  WORK. 

In  nothing  is  the  contrast  between  Egyptian  and  Grecian  art  more 

34  *  3  A 


402  ART   CRITICISM. 

manifest  than  in  the  character  of  the  material  furnished  to  their 
hand  in  their  several  native  homes.  Both  wrought  in  stone;  but 
while  the  Egyptian  used  an  impure,  uncrystaline  and  grayish  limestone 
for  the  erection  of  pyramids  and  for  the  foundation  of  temples,  a 
soft  yellow  sandstone  for  temple  walls,  and  a  coarse-grained  and  red- 
dish granite  for  statues,  obelisks,  and  inner  shrines,  everything  wrought 
by  the  Grecian  architect  was  of  the  purest  and  finest  white  marble. 
It  is  doubtless  true  of  the  fine,  as  it  is  of  the  useful  arts,  that  the 
convenience  of  securing  material  suggests  and  prompts  the  idea  of 
its  use.  As  the  rude  natives  of  Central  Africa  make  sword  hilts  of 
ivory  and  ebony,  and  toy-baskets  of  rushes,  as  the  Arabs  on  the  Eed 
Sea  make  broad  ornaments  for  the  breast  of  mother-of-pearl,  and  the 
Islanders  of  the  Pacific  work  beads  of  coral,  so  the  artists  of  Greece 
and  Italy  formed  their  laws  of  taste  in  conformity  to  the  delicate 
texture  of  their  marble.  The  neighboring  quarries  of  Pentelicus 
and  Hymettus,  close  by  Athens,  gave  a  peculiar  spring  to  Athenian 
genius;  or  centred  the  gathering  of  Grecian  artists  at  this  point; 
while  the  abundance  of  the  finest  statuary  marble  in  almost  every 
section,  both  of  Greece  and  of  Italy,  gave  tone  to  their  architecture 
as  to  their  sculpture. 

Sect.  3.  Early  development  of  the  peculiar  ideal  of  Grecian  Archi- 
tecture. 

The  style  of  Grecian  architecture,  as  well  as  sculpture,  was  an 
original  and  national  conception  and  creation.  Herodotus  says, 
indeed,  that  "  the  first  gods  adored  in  Greece  came  from  Egypt  ;"^  yet 
the  statues  of  Dsedalus  were  instinct  with  life  and  action  in  distinc- 
tion from  the  mummy-like  forms  executed  by  Egyptian  sculptors. 
Pliny,  too,  speaking  of  the  labyrinth  of  Crete,  says  that  Dsedalus 
who  was  the  first  great  architect,  as  well  as  sculptor  of  Greece, 
"closely  imitated  in  this  structure  the  celebrated  labyrinth  of 
Egypt ;"  yet  the  earliest  temples  executed  by  Grecian  architects  were 
as  distinct  in  their  type  as  those  of  the  day  of  Phidias. 

The  beautiful  and  romantically  situated  temple  of  Jupiter  Pan- 
hellenicos  is  one  of  the  oldest  and  best  preserved  specimens  of 
ancient  Grecian  architecture;  and  it  is  a  monument  of  the  early 
perfection  of  the  true  Grecian  ideal  in  this  department  of  art.  It 
stands  on  the  elevated  eastern  shore  of  the  Island  of  Egina,  some 
twenty  miles  south  of  the  Piraeus,  or  port  of  Athens,  at  a  point 


Herodot.  II.  50. 


THE  THREE   ORDERS  OF  GRECIAN   COLUMNS.  403 

which  commands  a  panoramic  view  of  Greece;  the  promontory  of 
Sunium  rising  over  the  sea  at  the  southeast ;  Athens,  Thebes,  Sala- 
mis,  with  the  mountains  of  Macedon  towering  beyond  at  the  north ; 
Corinth  just  visible  at  the  west;  and  the  mountains  of  Argos  in  the 
distance  at  the  south.  It  is  certainly  one  of  the  oldest  temples  of 
Greece;  and  is  accredited  by  Pausanias  before  the  Trojan  war.  Its 
columns  are  of  the  oldest  and  most  massive  order;  six  on  each  end, 
and  twelve  including  the  corner  ones  on  each  side,  making  in  all 
thirty-two;  all  of  which,  except  four,  still  stand  with  their  archi- 
traves above  resting  upon  them.  The  wonderful  preservation  of 
such  an  isolated  and  entirely  unguarded  structure  seems  a  striking 
comment  on  the  reverence  man  pays  to  religion  separated  from  the 
state,  and  to  its  shrines  w^hen  used  purely  for  religious  devotion.  It 
is  a  precious  and  speaking  relic  for  the  lover  of  art,  bearing  testi- 
mony to  the  early  spring  of  a  pure  taste  in  Grecian  architecture. 

Sect.  4.  The  ideas  originating  the  three  orders  of  Grecian  Columnar 

Architecture. 

While  the  general  characteristics  of  architectural  works  still  pre- 
served in  Greece  are  perfectly  uniform  in  all  their  main  features 
from  the  earliest  ages,  three  distinct  orders  of  columns  of  different 
proportions,  and  more  or  less  elaborate  in  the  carvings  of  their  capi- 
tols  have  existed  in  Grecian  columnar  architecture.  These  orders 
have  little  or  no  relation  to  the  advance  of  genuine  taste  and  skill 
in  Greece;  since  the  three  are  all  found  in  the  same  age  at  Athens; 
while  the  purest,  the  most  truly  immortal  specimen  of  Grecian  archi- 
tecture, the  Parthenon,  is  of  the  oldest,  or  more  properly  most  mas- 
sive order.  The  three  orders  are  the  Doric,  Ionic,  and  Corinthian; 
whose  general  features  and  ideas  are  thus  concisely,  as  well  as  beau- 
tifully presented  by  Thomson  in  his  poem  on  Liberty: 

"  First  unadorned 
And  nobly  plain,  the  manly  Doric  rose ; 
Th'  Ionic  then,  with  decent  matron  grace 
Her  airy  pillars  heaved  ;  luxuriant,  last 
The  rich  Corinthian  spread  her  wanton  wreath." 

The  proportions  of  the  man,  matron,  and  maid,  thus  hinted,  re- 
ceived only  comparative  exactness  among  the  ancients  who  built 
cabins  of  the  unhewn  trunks  of  trees.  In  the  Greek  colonies  of 
Asia  Minor  to  the  eastward  of  Greece,  whose  people  surpassed  even 
those  of  the  mother  country  in  art  and  science,  the  Doric  order 
received  its  fixed  proportions,  those  of  the  figure  of  man,  whose 


404  A  TIT   CRITICISM. 

height  is  six  times  the  measure  of  his  foot  or  lower  hase ;  and  its 
name  Doric  was  derived  from  the  ancient  Greek  colonists  called 
Dorians,  who  made  the  shores  of  Asia  over  against  Greece  famous 
by  such  structures  as  the  world-renowned  temple  of  Diana  at  Ephe- 
sus.  Of  the  principle  entering  into  the  proportions  of  this  column 
Vitruvius  says:^  "They  sought  that  medium  which  should  make 
these  columns  sufficiently  strong  to  sustain  the  front  of  the  edifice, 
and  at  the  same  time  should  render  them  agreeable  to  the  view.  In 
order  to  do  this  they  took  the  measure  of  the  foot  of  man,  which  is 
the  sixth  part  of  his  height;  upon  which  measure  they  formed  the 
height  of  their  column."  "  Thus  the  Doric  column  was  first  intro- 
duced into  edifices  having  the  proportions  as  to  strength  and  beauty 
of  a  man."  In  his  letters,  Michel  Angelo  says:  "It  is  a  matter  cer- 
tain that  the  members  of  architecture  depend  on  the  members  of 
man."^  The  Ionic  column  is  so  called,  because  it  originated  as  Vitru- 
vius records  in  the  Ionian  Islands  on  the  west  of  Greece.  Its  proper 
proportions  are  a  height  equal  to  eight  diameters  of  its  lower  base. 
Vitruvius  states,  moreover,  that  this  order  received  its  modulus  from 
the  female  figure,  whose  foot,  more  delicate  than  man's,  is  but  one- 
eighth  of  her  height;  and  he  adds  the  following  in  illustration  of  the 
principle  which  originated  the  Ionic  order.  "They  sought  to  intro- 
duce a  new  order  of  columns  by  giving  to  them  the  proportions  of 
the  female  figure;  and  that  they  might  be  emblematical  of  female 
delicacy,  the  height  of  the  columns  was  eight  times  the  lowest 
diameter.  Bases  also  were  given  them  in  imitation  of  sandals,  and 
volutes  were  sculptured  in  the  capitals  in  allusion  to  the  ringlets 
which  fell  down  on  either  side  of  the  face."  "And  thus"  he  con- 
tinues "were  two  species  of  orders  invented;  one  representing  the 
strength  and  simplicity  of  man;  the  other  the  fine  proportions  and 
the  elegance  of  woman." 

The  Corinthian  column  originated  as  its  name  indicates  at  Corinth  ; 
the  "lumen  Grsecise,"  or  "eye  of  Greece,"  as  the  Komans  called  it. 
The  proportions  of  the  shaft  in  this  order  vary  from  eight  to  ten 
diameters  of  the  lower  part  of  the  shaft  as  the  measure  of  its  height. 
The  capital  is  the  special  characteristic  of  the  order.  It  is  modelled 
as  Vitruvius  states,  in  its  proportions  and  ornamentation  after  the 
figure  of  the  young  female  just  arrived  at  maturity;  whose  form  is 


'  Vitruvius  Cic.  Archit.  Sect.  IV.  Chap.  1. 

»  Mich.  Ang.  Let.  17,  "  E  cosa  certa,  che  le  membra  dell'  architettura  dipen- 
dono  dalle  membre  dell'  uomo." 


THE   THREE   ORDERS   AS  TYPES   IN   ARCHITECTURE.       405 

more  slender,  and  whose  person  is  more  appropriately  ornamented 
than  the  matron's.  A  confirmation  of  the  general  idea  entering  into 
the  three  orders  of  Architecture,  is  found  in  Vitruvius'  statement  as 
to  the  suggestion  of  the  Corinthian  order  to  Callimachus,  the  worthy 
compeer  of  Phidias,  who  was  employed  not  only  at  Athens,  but  by 
the  rival  city  of  Corinth  in  the  adornment  of  their  Acropolis.  "A 
virgin  of  Corinth  just  as  she  had  attained  to  a  marriageable  state 
was  attacked  by  a  disorder  whose  effects  proved  fatal.  After  her 
interment,  the  vases  which  were  the  objects  of  her  admiration  when 
alive  were  collected  by  her  nurse  and  deposited  in  a  basket,  which 
she  placed  upon  the  grave,  after  covering  it  with  a  tile  to  protect  it 
from  the  weather.  The  basket  was  accidentally  placed  over  the 
roots  of  an  acanthus.  The  natural  growth  of  the  plant  being  turned 
aside  by  the  pressure  upon  it,  the  middle  leaf  and  the  cauliculi  ap- 
peared in  the  spring  around  the  bottom  of  the  basket.  The  cauliculi 
attaching  themselves  to  the  external  surface  grew  upwards  until 
their  progress  was  arrested  by  the  angles  of  the  tile  projecting  over 
the  basket,  which  caused  them  to  incline  forwards  and  assume  a 
spiral  form.  At  this  stage  of  its  growth,  Callimachus,  who  from  his 
great  genius  and  talent  for  sculpture  was  called  Catateehnos  by  the 
Athenians,  chancing  to  pass  by  the  spot,  observed  the  basket  and  the 
beauty  of  the  young  foliage  about  it.  Pleased  with  its  fanciful  and 
novel  appearance,  he  adopted  it  in  the  columns  which  he  afterwards 
employed  in  the  edifices  of  Corinth,  having  first  instituted  laws  for 
the  proportions  of  the  order,  which  was  thence  called  Corinthian." 
To  a  certain  class  of  students  in  art  this  statement  of  Vitruvius  has 
semed  a  mere  conceit ;  as  have  the  traditions  recorded  by  Herodotus 
the  historian  of  Egypt  and  of  Plutarch  the  biographer  of  Grecian 
and  Roman  heroes  to  many  students  of  History,  and  as  has  the  sug- 
gestion of  the  falling  apple  to  Newton,  and  the  theory  of  Aristotle  as 
to  motion  to  a  kindred  class  of  students  in  Natural  Science.  A  more 
comprehensive  and  careful  scholarship  however  makes  the  works  of 
such  minds  as  Herodotus  and  Aristotle,  and  of  Vitruvius  and  Plu- 
tarch, to  be  more  appreciated  both  for  the  facts  they  recorded  and 
the  conclusions  they  have  deduced  from  the  facts  they  witnessed. 

Sect.  5.  The  Three  Grecian  orders  as  comprehensive  types  of  true 
Proportion  and  Adornment  in  every  age  and  class  op  Archi- 
tecture. 

As  the  master-pieces  of  Grecian  sculpture  because  of  their  perfec- 
tion as  ideals  have  been  models  for  all  time,  so  are  the  three  orders 


406  ART   CRITICISM. 

of  Grecian  columnar  architecture,  because  of  their  exhaustive  analy- 
sis, comprehensive  types  for  the  successful  study  of  all  succeeding 
architectural  works.  The  proportions  of  the  male  and  female  human 
form  adopted  in  all  ages  as  the  model  for  Divine  beings,  and  thus 
recognized  as  perfect  in  art  may  vary  in  actual  stature,  breadth  and 
length  of  limb;  as  the  Laplanders  are  low,  the  English  corpulent, 
and  the  Arab  from  deceiving  fulness  in  dress  short-limbed.  Yet,  as 
the  Greeks  believed  there  is  a  canon,  or  rule  of  perfection  in  the  pro- 
portion of  human  frames  taken  as  models  both  in  statuary  and 
architectural  adornment,  so  there  are  types  of  universal  truth  and 
beauty,  allowing  on  the  one  hand  wide  variety  in  pure  Grecian 
buildings,  and  restricting  on  the  other  hand  architects  in  every  class 
of  structures ;  which  types  the  Greeks  believed  they  had  embodied 
in  their  first  orders. 

There  are  important  restrictive  principles  inherent  in  the  three 
orders  of  columnar  architecture  as  executed  by  the  Greeks  which  must 
be  guides  in  the  executing  or  the  criticizing  of  architectural  works  of 
any  age  or  class.  In  many  ancient  and  more  modern  structures  no 
columns  are  introduced ;  yet  the  proportions  belonging  tp  porticoes 
of  different  orders  of  columns,  and  to  each  individual  column,  are 
indications  of  laws  of  symmetry  for  unadorned  structures;  just  as  a 
robed  statue  must  conform  to  the  symmetry  of  the  nude.  When 
introduced,  moreover,  these  orders  should  control  the  architect  not 
as  arbitrarily  fixed  standards  to  be  mechanically  copied ;  but  as  em- 
bodying all  the  principles  in  nature  which  can  enter  into  the  archi- 
tect's designs;  an  idea  which  has  been  ably  developed  in  Oral  Lec- 
tures by  T.  U.  Walter,  LL.  D.,  the  American  architect. 

As  the  letters  of  the  alphabet  were  nearly  complete  among  the 
Greeks  and  Romans,  as  the  tones  in  the  musical  scale  were  in  the 
earliest  times  all  discovered  and  fixed  so  that  there  can  be  neither 
more  nor  less  of  these  tones  in  number,  nor  any  combination  of  them 
essentially  new,  and  as,  yet  again,  the  elements  of  the  physical  world 
and  of  man's  intellectual  and  moral  nature  when  analyzed  have  in 
every  age  been  seen  to  be  the  same,  so  in  the  principles  of  columnar 
architecture  the  Grecian  artists  reached  an  exhaustive  analysis  which 
allows  no  additional  type  to  be  conceived.  As,  however,  in  lan- 
guage, music,  physics  and  metaphysics,  there  may  be  a  new^  study  of 
details,  and  new  arrangement  of  parts,  so  in  architecture  there  may 
be  new  groupings  of  previously  recognized  harmonies,  and  an  intro- 
duction of  new  emblems  selected  from  the  productions  of  diflferent 
climes. 


VARIATIONS   IN   ARCHITECTURAL   TYPES.  407 

The  Greeks  themselves  have  left  no  two  specimens  even  of  the 
same  order  alike  in  all  their  parts;  the  number,  proportions  and 
adornment  of  columns  being  always  varied  with  the  use,  the  loca- 
tion, the  size,  and  the  general  surroundings  of  the  structure.  Thus 
the  Doric  or  robust  order  has  at  Psestum  in  Italy  four  diameters 
as  its  modulus,  and  the  portico  of  the  Agora  at  Athens  six ;  while  in 
the  monument  of  Lysicrates,  and  the  tower  of  Andromicus,  the 
foliated  ornaments  of  the  Corinthian  capitals  belong  to  flowers  most 
unlike.  Moreover,  as  we  shall  see  in  its  place,  the  so-called  Tuscan 
order  is  but  a  modification  of  the  Doric,  and  the  Composite  a  similar 
modification  of  the  Corinthian ;  both  having  originated  in  the  less 
chastened  taste  of  the  Romans.  Even  in  the  Gothic  we  shall  find 
that  artists  succeeded  just  so  far  as  they  recognized  the  canon  of 
Proportion  established  by  the  Greeks  in  their  orders;  while  the 
revived  Grecian  of  Michel  Angelo,  now  the  ruling  type  in  all  great 
works  of  modern  architecture,  settles  the  principle  so  far  as  the  deci- 
sions of  the  greatest  artists  can  establish  it. 

This,  their  own  canon,  guided  the  ablest  Greek  artists,  who  were 
the  master  spirits  controlling  mere  Grecian  builders  placed  under 
them.  Thus  in  the  Parthenon  elevated  on  the  Acropolis,  where  the 
Robust  order  seemed  to  be  demanded  because  it  was  to  be  seen  at 
such  a  distance  that  the  finer  ornaments  would  be  lost,  the  Doric 
order  was  used  by  Phidias ;  while  in  the  sheltered  vale  below  stands 
the  temple  of  Jupiter  situated  so  as  only  to  be  seen  near  at  hand, 
and  therefore  finished  with  the  slighter  proportions  and  more  elabo- 
rate ornament  of  the  Corinthian.  The  same  principle  of  adaptation 
has  led  American  architects  to  give  to  the  porticoes  of  the  former 
U.  S.  Bank  in  Philadelphia,  to  the  Custom  House  at  New  York, 
and  to  the  Patent  Ofiice  at  Washington,  the  two  latter  modelled 
directly  after  the  Parthenon,  the  form  of  the  plain  and  massive 
Doric,  because  those  attributes  seemed  adapted  to  the  business  pur- 
pose for  which  they  were  constructed.  This  same  principle  belong- 
ing to  the  new  orders  has  led  the  Architect  of  the  Girard  College, 
that  finest  specimen  of  Grecian  architecture  in  America,  modelled 
though  it  is  after  the  Doric  Parthenon,  to  select  the  elaborate  Corin- 
thian capital  in  a  building  seen  only  close  at  hand  and  on  a  plain, 
whose  richness  may  typify  the  bounty  of  the  founder,  and  its  grace  the 
charity  that  prompted  this  gift  of  Humanity  and  of  Art;  while  in 
the  U.  S.  Capitol,  designed  to  be  the  gathering  place,  the  Union 
Hall,  for  men  of  all  the  States,  the  same  artist  has  inwrought  into 
the  ornaments  of  Corinthian  capitals,  the  corn  of  the  Northern  Sec- 


408  ART  CRITICISM. 

tions,  the  tobacco  of  the  Middle  Latitudes,  and  the  cotton  of  the  Gulf 
States. 

Sect.  6.  The  arrangement  of  columns,  with  their  intercolumniations 
ON  which  the  designation  of  styles  in  Grecian  Architecture  is 

FOUNDED. 

The  true  dimensions  of  a  Greek  temple,  according  to  Vitruvius* 
are  that  its  width  should  be  half  its  length.  Temples  may  have  one 
or  more  rows  of  columns ;  these  columns  may  be  placed  only  in  front, 
or  both  in  front  and  in  rear,  or  on  all  four  sides  of  the  temple;  and 
they  may  be  differently  arranged  and  bestowed  as  to  their  number 
and  the  width  of  spaces  between  them.  According  to  their  varied 
modification  in  the  columnar  arrangements  thus  hinted,  the  style  of 
the  edifice  is  determined;  the  word  style  being  derived  from  the 
Greek  stylos,  a  pillar  or  column. 

According  to  the  adjustment  as  constituent  parts  of  the  building 
which  columns  are  made  to  assume,  temples  are  divided  in  the  fol- 
lowing manner.  The  simplest  is  the  temple  in  antis,  from  the  Greek 
word  anti,  before ;  the  end  of  the  edifice  forming  its  front,  and  only 
a  recess  being  left  in  the  centre  for  columns ;  in  which  usually  one 
pair,  sometimes  two  pairs  may  be  made  to  stand.  The  second  class 
has  a  portico  in  front  alone ;  and  is  called  pro-style ;  the  third  has  a 
portico  at  both  ends,  and  is  named  amphi-style ;  and  the  fourth  has  a 
colonnade  on  all  sides  and  is  termed  peri-style;  these  names  being 
successively  derived  from  the  Greek  prepositions  pro,  amphi,  and  peri, 
with  the  noun  stylos.  According,  again,  to  the  intervening  distances 
of  the  columns,  called  inter columniation,  there  are  five  different  styles. 
Those  having  their  columns  one  and  one-half  diameters  apart  are 
named  pyenostyle,  or  close  set,  from  pycnos,  the  clenched  fist ;  those 
two  diameters  apart  systyle,  or  near-set,  from  syn  together ;  those  two 
and  one-half  diameters  eustyle,  or  well-set,  from  eu,  well  or  beauti- 
fully; those  three  diameters  diastyle,  or  open-set,  from  dia,  through 
or  between;  and  those  four  diameters  areostyle,  or  wide-set,  from 
araios,  broad.  According,  once  again,  to  the  number  of  columns  in 
the  front  row  of  the  portico,  temples  were  designated  tetrastyle, 
hexa-style,  octostyle,  etc.,  i.  e.  four-columned,  six-columned,  eight- 
columned,  etc. 

The  names  derived  from  the  words  pteros,  a  wing,  and  properly 
applied  to  circular  buildings  or  edifices  with  wings  after  the  later 


Ciy.  Archit.,  Sect.  I.,  Chap.  4. 


AND    ESSENTIAL   PARTS.         409 

Roman  style,  originated  among  the  Romans,  and  by  them  were  also 
applied  even  to  Grecian  buildings;  not  only  to  their  edifices  with 
wings,  such  as  the  agora  or  market,  but  also  to  rectangular  temples 
having  no  wings  proper.  A  temple  having  a  single  row  of  columns 
on  all  sides  was  called  monopteral,  or  single-winged ;  one  having  two 
rows  on  all  sides  was  named  dipteral  or  double-winged;  and  one 
having  one  row  of  columns  and  a  corresponding  row  of  pilasters,  or 
half-columns  fastened  upon  and  projecting  from  the  sides  of  the 
building  was  called  pseudo-dipteral,  or  false  double-winged. 

A  temple  having  an  open  or  unroofed  centre  was  called  hypcethral, 
from  upo,  under,  and  aither,  the  air.  All  these  varied  classifications, 
giving  evidence  of  that  thorough  study  and  that  comprehensive  gen- 
eralization which  characterize  the  reductions  of  thorough  science,  are 
just  indices  of  the  exhaustive  analysis  to  which  the  Greeks  had  sub- 
jected every  department  of  science  and  art;  as  well  as  the  practical 
skill  with  which  the  Romans,  learning  from  the  Greeks  used  their 
applications  to  architecture. 

Sect.  7.  The  several  parts  op  the  Greek  Temple  and  their  finish, 
conspiring  to  give  its  characteristic  grace  to  grecian  architec- 
TURE. 

Approaching  now  any  one  of  the  numberless  Greek  temples,  we  find 
everywhere  a  unity  amid  the  variety  to  which  the  many  styles  and 
orders  mentioned  give  rise.  There  are  three  parts  of  every  structure 
in  any  style  of  architecture,  and  in  a  pure  Grecian  edifice  of  which  the 
temple  is  the  just  type  a  fourth,  whose  technical  character  and  ex- 
pression have  been  adopted  for  all  time,  and  have  been  applied  to 
every  variety  of  architecture.  These  three  portions  are  the  columns 
with  their  parts ;  the  entablature,  or  table  resting  upon  and  uniting 
the  columns ;  and  the  pediment,  or  angle  of  the  roof  whose  slanting 
sides  rest  as  with  two  feet  upon  the  entablature :  to  which  must  be 
added  the  platfot^m,  or  surrounding  ground-steps. 

The  main  parts  of  the  column  are  the  base  or  foot,  the  shaft  or 
body,  and  the  capital  or  head.  The  base  of  the  columns  is  either 
square  or  round ;  if  perfectly  plain  it  is  a  square  plinth ;  if  carved, 
it  is  necessarily  rounded.  The  Doric  column  has  properly  no  base ; 
the  Ionic  base  is  a  rounded  and  slightly  projecting  foot;  the  Corin- 
thian, though  it  allows  more  elaborate  workmanship,  yet  even  in  the 
most  gorgeous  specimens  of  this  most  elegant  order  admits  no  pro- 
jecting ornament  against  which  the  foot  of  the  passer-by  might 
strike. 

35  3  B 


410  ART   CRITICISM. 

The  form  of  the  shaft  is  a  striking  specimen  of  the  science  which 
lay  at  the  foundation  of  the  Greek's  idea  of  beauty.  The  idea  that 
the  curve  is  the  line  of  beauty,  was  carried  out  in  their  architecture 
as  in  nature.  As  there  is  not  in  the  vertical  or  upward  lines  of 
nature  a  right  line,  as  the  taper  of  the  hillock,  the  mountain-peak, 
and  even  of  the  granite  crag  and  pinnacle,  assumes  from  the  wear 
of  the  elements  a  rounded  line  of  elevation,  as  well  as  of  horizontal 
circuit,  as  the  tree-top  and  trunk  are  never  straight  cones,  but  curves 
of  hyperbolic  or  parabolic  form,  so  all  the  uprights  in  Grecian  archi- 
tecture have  a  curve,  so  slight,  indeed,  that  like  that  of  the  tree  it 
denies  its  reality  to  the  ordinary  eye,  but  yet  reveals  itself  to  the 
searching  analysis  of  the  architect's  measuring  gauge.  The  measure, 
or  modulus  of  the  column,  and  indeed  of  all  portions  of  the  entire 
Grecian  temple  are  taken  from  the  lower  diameter  of  the  shaft,  as 
Vitruvius  teaches.  For  accurate  proportioning  the  radius  or  half- 
diameter  was  made  the  module ;  and  this  was  subdivided  into  sixty 
minutes,  or  equal  minute  parts.  By  application  of  this  nice  measure 
to  the  shaft  of  the  column  at  different  successive  heights,  passing 
from  the  base  upward,  it  will  be  found  to  taper  not  in  a  straight 
slope,  but  in  a  parabolic  curve. 

The  fluting  of  the  shaft  may  have  had  a  subordinate  end  relating 
to  the  idea  of  utility ;  but  it  had  the  higher  end  of  artistic  beauty 
and  of  scientific  skill.  The  flute  is  the  concave  of  the  reed ;  so  named 
from  the  wind  instrument  made  from  the  reed  and  called  flute.  The 
Doric  and  the  Ionic  columns  may  be  left  unfluted ;  or  they  may  be 
fluted  only  at  the  top,  leaving  the  space  at  the  bottom  up  to  which 
the  nice  edges  of  the  fluting  might  be  exposed  to  injury  an  unbroken 
cylinder.  When  fluted,  the  grooves  of  the  Doric  are  made  to  meet 
each  other,  leaving  only  a  sharp  intervening  edge.  In  the  Ionic,  the 
flutes  are  set  farther  apart,  or  have  a  cavity  of  sharper  curvature, 
leaving  a  narrow  fillet  or  central  band  running  up  and  down  between 
the  flutes.  The  Corinthian  column  is  always  fluted ;  its  flute  being 
separated  as  in  the  Ionic  by  fillets  or  bands.  Vitruvius  refers  to 
Homer's  mention,^  that  when  Minerva  entered  the  hall  of  Ulysses, 
"she  leaned  her  spear  against  the  tall  column  within  the  polished 
railing,  wherein  were  many  others ;"  and  he  suggests  that  the  flutes 
of  columns  in  the  porticoes  of  palaces  and  temples  were  originally 
designed  as  supports  against  which  the  warrior  might  lean  his  spear 
as  he  left  it  outside  the  edifice.     The  reasoning  of  Vitruvius  after- 


'  Homer,  Odyssey,  I.  127. 


PHILOSOPHICAL   ADAPTATIONS   IN   COLUMNS.  411 

wards,  shows  that  as  in  the  early  suggestions  of  rude  men  about  the 
proportions  of  columns,  at  first  derived  from  tree-trunks,  but  in 
advanced  times  modeled  after  the  studied  proportions  of  the  human 
figure,  the  most  perfect  of  the  Creator's  works,  so  this  simple  use  to 
which  flutes  might  be  put  by  the  warrior,  was  subordinate  to  the 
artist's  idea  of  magnifying  the  apparent  dimensions  of  columns,  as 
well  as  of  adding  to  the  grace  of  their  outline. 

The  extent  to  which  philosophic  study  was  carried  by  Grecian 
architects  in  their  works  is  illustrated  by  the  following  statements 
of  Vitruvius,^  as  to  the  adjustment  of  the  diameters  of  columns  to 
the  laws  of  perspective,  of  optics,  and  of  proportion.  "  The  columns 
at  the  angles  of  buildings  should  have  their  diameters  enlarged  by  a 
fiftieth  part,  because  being  from  their  situation  more  immediately 
contrasted  with  the  light,  they  hence  appear  less  than  the  others.  The 
deception  to  which  the  sight  is  liable  should  be  counteracted  by 
means  suggested  by  the  faculty  of  reasoning."  "  The  diminution  of 
the  shaft  in  its  taper  from  the  top  to  the  bottom  is  to  be  thus  regu- 
lated. If  the  height  of  the  shaft  be  fifteen  feet,  the  upper  diameter 
should  be  five-sixths  of  the  lower;  if  the  shaft  be  from  fifteen  to 
twenty  feet  high,  the  upper  should  be  eleven-thirteenths  of  the  lower ; 
if  thirty  feet  high,  the  proportion  should  be  thirteen-fifteenths ;  if 
from  thirty  to  forty  feet  high  the  diminution  should  be  one-seventh ; 
if  from  forty  to  fifty  feet  high  the  decrease  should  be  one-eighth." 
The  reason  for  this  diminishing  proportion  is  thus  stated.  "  To  the  eye 
the  diameter  of  the  column  diminishes  as  its  height  increases ;  hence  to 
preserve  the  same  apparent  proportion  of  the  diameters  it  becomes 
necessary  to  increase  that  of  the  upper  portion  of  the  shaft.  The  eye 
alone  is  the  judge  of  beauty;  and  where  a  false  impression  is  made 
upon  it  through  the  natural  defects  of  vision,  we  must  correct  the 
apparent  want  of  harmony  in  the  whole  by  instituting  particular  pro- 
portions in  particular  parts."  "  If  the  width  of  the  temple  be  more  than 
one-half  its  length  the  proportion  should  be  apparently  restored  thus. 
Columns  should  be  placed  within  and  opposed  to  those  between  the 
antse.  These  should  be  of  correspondent  height ;  but  their  diameters 
should  be  less  in  the  following  proportions :  if  the  columns  in  front 
be  eight  times  their  diameter  in  height,  the  inner  ones  should  be  nine 
diameters;  if  the  exterior  be  nine  or  ten  diameters  in  height,  the 
interior  should  preserve  a  proportionate  augmentation.  The  differ- 
ence in  the  bulk  of  the  columns  will  not  be  apparent  because  they 


•  Civ.  Archit.,  Sect.  T.,  Chap.  2. 


412  AET  CRITICISM. 

will  not  be  seen  contrasted  with  the  light.  If  notwithstanding  they 
should  appear  too  slender,  the  number  of  flutings  should  be  increased. 
Thus  if  the  columns  in  front  have  twenty-four  flutes,  the  inner  ones 
may  have  twenty-eight,  or  even  thirty-two ;  so  that  what  is  in  fact 
taken  from  the  bulk  may  be  restored  by  the  additional  number  of 
flutings.  This  optical  deception  arises  from  the  idea  of  greater  mag- 
nitude which  is  impressed  by  the  transit  of  the  visual  rays  over  a 
greater  surface.  For  if  the  peripheries  of  two  circles  of  equal 
diameter,  one  of  which  is  fluted  and  the  other  not,  be  measured  by  a 
line  which  is  made  to  be  in  contact  with  every  point  of  the  periphe- 
ries, the  length  of  the  line  will  not  be  the  same  in  both  cases ;  because 
in  one  it  has  been  made  to  touch  every  point  in  the  concave  surfaces 
of  the  flutings  in  the  intervals  between  the  strise  (or  fillets.)  Since 
this  deception  therefore  may  be  accomplished,  it  is  allowable  to  make 
columns  which  are  in  confined  situations  and  little  exposed  to  the 
light  less  massive  than  the  others,  because  their  want  of  bulk  may  be 
rendered  imperceptible  by  augmenting  the  number  of  flutings  as 
circumstances  may  require."^ 

Passing  from  these  considerations  as  to  the  shaft,  the  capitals  of 
Grecian  columns  present  themselves  as  the  next  study.  There  are 
general  characteristics  belonging  to  the  capitals  of  all  the  three 
orders.  The  capital,  as  the  column,  has  properly  three  divisions  of 
its  parts ;  an  upper  and  a  lower  tablet  and  the  moulding  between. 
In  the  Doric  capital  the  lower  tablet  is  wanting ;  as  the  base  is  want- 
ing in  the  Doric  column.  The  moulding  of  the  Doric  is  a  plain 
ovolo ;  a  curve  named  from  its  egg  shape,  and  limited  in  size  to  a 
quadrant,  whether  the  curve  be  a  quarter  of  a  circle,  of  an  ellipse, 
of  a  hyperbola,  or  of  a  parabola.  The  ovolo  of  the  Doric  moulding 
has  always  the  curve  of  a  parabola,  or  hyperbola,  never  of  a  circle; 
the  design  being  to  reflect  light  to  the  eye  looking  from  below  in  the 
most  perfect  manner. 

The  Ionic  moulding  consisted  of  two  volutes,  or  scrolls,  represent- 
ing the  curls  of  hair  on  each  side  of  the  female  head ;  between  which 
was  a  band,  like  the  fillet  worn  on  the  brow  of  Grecian  women, 
having  as  pendants  from  it  two  egg-shaped  ovals,  separated  by  trian- 
gular tongues,  these  pendants  seeming  to  be  the  ornaments  of  jew- 
elry strung  upon  the  fillet.  In  the  original  Ionic,  as  employed  in 
the  Asiatic  provinces  of  Greece,  the  capital  had  but  two  faces,  a  front 
and  rear  face,  while  at  the  side  the  volutes  rounded  downward  and 


Civ.  Archit.,  Sect.  I.,  Chap.  4. 


THE   ENTABLATURE   AND   ITS   PARTS.  413 

inward  like  the  smooth  combed  puffs  behind  the  curls  of  female  hair; 
and  the  capital  thus  constructed  had  a  finished  character  because  it 
was  always  placed  between  antce  or  other  columns,  and  never  at  a 
corner.  In  Greece  proper,  however,  where  the  Ionic  column  was 
used  in  porticoes,  it  was  necessary  for  the  sake  of  harmony  to  give  its 
moulding  when  standing  at  a  corner,  a  side,  as  well  as  a  front  face; 
a  modification,  as  we  shall  see,  still  farther  extended  by  the  Roman 
architect. 

The  moulding  of  the  Corinthian  was  a  bell-shaped  basket  as  a 
foundation,  overlaid  with  intertwining  stalks  and  leaves  of  the 
favorite  acanthus,  or  of  some  other  plant ;  as  of  the  fern  or  the  olive. 
The  upper  points  of  the  leaves  and  stalks  were  represented  as  bent 
downwards  into  curls  from  the  resistance  of  the  tablet  or  tile  laid 
above  them;  but  the  pure  Grecian  was  free  from  the  interlarded 
ovals  and  stiff  curling  horns  introduced  afterwards  by  the  Romans 
into  the  Corinthian  moulding. 

Above  the  columns  the  entablature  is  the  second  study  in  the  Gre- 
cian temple.  The  entablature  is  to  the  range  of  columns  what  the 
capital  is  to  the  single  column;  it  is  the  coping  or  capping  of  the 
entire  work.  The  greater  or  less  elaborateness  of  its  finish  was  made 
to  correspond  with  that  of  the  columns  in  the  same  edifice.  The 
entablature  consists  of  three  parts;  the  architrave,  frieze,  and 
cornice. 

The  architrave,  from  arche  and  trabs,  or  main-beam,  is  the  timber 
or  row  of  stones  laid  immediately  upon  the  caps  of  columns,  and 
uniting  them  together.  It  projects  slightly  in  front  of  the  columns, 
whose  capitals  are  its  rests.  In  the  Doric,  the  architrave  is  plain ; 
but  in  the  Ionic  and  Corinthian  it  is  more  or  less  elaborate. 

The  frieze,  so  called  from  the  verb  freeze  or  frizzle,  to  be  contracted, 
is  the  middle  and  retired  member  of  the  entablature ;  corresponding 
to  the  shaft  of  the  column,  whose  surface  is  depressed  behind  its  base 
and  capital.  The  surface  of  the  frieze  is  divided  into  compartments, 
or  panels,  separated  by  small  squares  cut  into  three  perpendicular 
bars  with  grooves  between,  and  called  triglyphs,  or  "  Doric  triglyphs," 
as  originating  in  the  Doric  or  primitive  order.^     One  of  these  is 

i laced  over  each  column,  and  one  or  more  between  the  columns ; 
rhich  squares  project  in  front  of  the  depressed  face  of  the  frieze  and 
epresent,  according  to  Vitruvius,  the  projected  ends  of  the  rafters  in 
be  log  cabin  after  which  the  Doric  order  is  modeled.  The  inter- 
•  "Awpt/frtf  rpiyXxxpas" — Euripides  Orestes,  1372. 
35- 


414  ART   CRITICISM. 

vening  spaces  between  the  triglyphs  are  called  the  metopes ;  from 
meta  and  ope,  openings-between.  These  spaces  were  originally  left 
open,  and  hence  called  opai ;  as  is  intimated  by  Euripides/  when  he 
represents  Pylades  as  urging  Orestes  to  scale  the  wall  of  the  Doric 
temple  of  Diana,  at  Tauris,  and  entering  by  the  opening  between 
the  triglyphs  to  seize  and  bear  off  the  statue  of  the  goddess.  His 
words  are :  "  When  the  eye  of  darkening  night  shuts  in,  bringing  all 
our  skill  to  the  endeavor,  we  must  hazard  the  attempt  to  take  the 
polished  image  from  the  temple.  The  access  is  between  the  triglyphs 
where  the  open  space  allows."  These  openings  were  afterwards  filled 
with  slabs,  as  in  the  Parthenon ;  and  being  protected  by  the  frame 
around  they  were  filled  with  sculpture  in  relief,  so  that  the  metopes 
of  the  frieze  became  one  of  the  richest  portions  of  the  entire  front 
of  a  Grecian  temple. 

The  cornice,  or  corona,  is  the  projecting  crown  serving  as  the  coping 
or  cap  of  the  entablature.  The  cornice  is  divided  into  its  three  parts ; 
and  these  again  in  elaborate  specimens,  each  into  their  three  subdivi- 
sions ;  this  tripartite  division  of  the  Greeks  being  carried  into  the  mi- 
nutest parts  of  their  work.  Underneath  the  projecting  cornice  are 
always  to  be  noted  the  mutules  or  square  blocks  corresponding  to  the 
triglyphs  over  the  columns,  and  having  on  their  face  small  circular 
pendants  called  drops,  because  representing  the  rain  drops  hanging 
over  the  triglyphs  whose  grooves  serve  as  gutters  for  their  descent. 
In  later  periods  of  the  history  of  architecture  modillions  and  brackets 
take  the  place  of  the  mutules  and  triglyphs. 

Yet  above  the  entablature,  as  the  third  characteristic  study  of 
Grecian  Architecture,  is  the  pediment.  The  base  of  the  pediment  is 
the  upper  part  of  the  entablature ;  the  sloping  sides  of  the  gable  or 
roof-angle  rest  upon  the  cornice,  projecting  forward  even  with  it  and 
being  finished  in  harmony,  if  not  in  perfect  uniformity  with  the  cor- 
nice. The  central  triangular  space  called  the  tympanum,  or  drum, 
set  back  even  with  the  frieze  and  offering  a  deep  and  sheltered  niche 
for  sculpture,  was  regarded  as  the  feature  of  the  Grecian  temples 
which  gave  to  it  a  celestial  aspect,  and  made  the  earthly  house  a  fit 
residence  for  heavenly  beings.  To  this  effect  Cicero  remarks,  speak- 
ing of  the  "  fastigium,"  or  roof-peak  of  the  Capitol  at  Kome,  "  This 
same  roof-peak  of  the  Capitol  and  of  other  edifices,  not  grace,  but 
necessity  itself  constructed.  •  For  when  the  reason  of  the  case  had 


(.    .    .    .    "etffij    rpiyXitpoiv    ottol    Kzvdv    Seiiag    Kad^ivai") — Euripides    Iphig. 

Tauris,  118. 


THE   GENERAL   STRUCTURE   OF   THE   PARTHENON.         415 

suggested,  how  from  each  side  of  the  house  the  water  should  be  made 
to  glide,  thus  securing  utility  to  the  temple,  the  idea  of  dignity  at- 
tached to  the  roof-peak ;  so  that  if  in  heaven  a  Capitol  should  be 
erected,  where  rain  could  not  occur,  it  would  seem  that  it  would  be 
regarded  as  not  possessing  dignity  without  a  roof-peak."^  Another 
indication  of  the  philosophic  spirit  that  guided  the  Greek  architect 
is  intimated  in  the  following  statement  of  Vitruvius,  as  to  the  for- 
ward inclination  which  was  to  be  given  to  the  entablature  and  pedi- 
ment. "All  the  members  placed  above  the  capitals  of  the  columns, 
as  the  architrave,  frieze,  cornice,  tympanum,  etc.,  ought  to  be  inclined 
forward  each  the  twelfth  part  of  its  height;  since,  if  a  person  look- 
ing at  the  face  of  an  edifice  conceives  that  two  lines  separate  from 
the  eye,  one  of  which  touches  the  bottom  the  other  the  top  of  the 
object  of  vision,  it  is  certain  that  which  touches  the  top  is  the  longer; 
and  the  farther  up  one  line  extends,  the  more  it  makes  the  upper 
part  appear  to  tip  backward ;  so  that  if  the  members  which  form  the 
face  of  the  upper  portion  are  made  to  lean  a  little  forward,  the  whole 
appears  to  be  perfectly  upright  and  plumb." 

It  deserves  final  mention  that  the  platform  or  steps  which  form 
the  ascent  to  the  Grecian  temple  adds  greatly  to  its  beauty.  Unlike 
the  Egyptian  temple  the  floor  of  the  Grecian  temple  was  raised  some 
feet  above  the  ground ;  and  the  broad  and  easy  flight  of  steps  up  to 
that  floor,  with  their  slant  as  graceful  as  that  of  the  roof-peak, 
formed  as  it  were  a  chaste  pedestal  on  which  the  fair  structure  stood. 
In  a  prostyle  temple  these  steps  went  up  only  on  one  end  in  front  of 
the  one  portico;  but  in  a  peristyle  structure  they  sloped  up  with 
their  beautiful  slant  on  all  sides.  To  some  eyes  this  surrounding 
ascent,  admirably  illustrated  in  several  specimens  at  the  American 
capital,  is  the  most  charming  feature  in  Greek  architecture. 

Sect.  8.  The  Parthenon  as  the  Embodiment  of  Grecian  genius  in 

Architecture. 

The  Parthenon  or  temple  of  Minerva,  the  Virgin  patron  of  Athens, 
is  perhaps  the  completest,  as  it  was  the  most  finished  specimen  of 
Grecian  architecture.  Standing  as  it  does  on  the  lofty  rock  of  the 
Acropolis,  in  a  position  where  it  is  exposed  to  the  rudest  blasts  which 
sweep  over  the  plains  of  Attica,  its  low  massy  Doric  columns  when 
seen  in  the  distance,  seem  to  be  happily  chosen  as  the  order  of  its 


'  "Ut,  etiamsi  in  coelo  statueretur,  ubi  imber  esse  non  posset,  nullani  sine  fas- 
tigio  dignitatem  habiturnm  fuisse  videatnr." — Cic.  de  Orat.  L.  III.  c.  xlvi. 


416  ART  CRITICISM. 

architecture;  while  its  graceful  roof,  sloping  upward  at  an  angle  of 
only  14°,  one  might  imagine  to  have  been  designed  to  court  the 
hurrying  gales  only  slightly  to  kiss  its  gently  inclined  face  as  they 
slide  quickly  and  easily  over  it.  As  the  observer  draws  near  the 
rocky  height  the  temple  is  lost  for  awhile  to  sight ;  till  climbing  the 
steep  carriage  ascent  and  passing  into  the  Acropolis  enclosure  through 
the  Propylsea,  an  avenue  of  covered  porticoes  whose  rare  beauty 
forms  a  fitting  entrance  to  this  shrine  of  Grecian  art,  the  whole  peer- 
less structure  in  one  enchanting  view  breaks  on  his  gaze.  The  tem- 
ple stands  about  two  hundred  feet  back  from  the  Propylsea,  about 
one  hundred  feet  to  the  right,  and  raised  some  twenty  feet  above  the 
beholder,  presenting  its  southwest  corner  to  his  gaze;  thus  giving  the 
completest  view  possible,  the  eye  taking  in  at  the  same  glance  its 
entire  length,  breadth,  and  height.  It  is  now  sadly  shattered  and 
dilapidated,  its  centre  having  been  torn  open  by  a  Venetian  bomb 
A.  D.  1687;  but  the  large  portion  yet  standing,  together  with  the 
particular  descriptions  of  such  men  as  Vitruvius  who  saw  it  in  the 
days  of  the  first  Roman  emperor,  and  of  Sir  Geo.  Wheeler  who  visited 
it  as  late  as  A.  D.  1676,  bring  all  its  glory  fresh  before  the  gaze  of  the 
modern  traveler. 

This  peerless  model  is  pure  Doric;  the  proportions  of  its  columns 
being  six  diameters  in  height,  each  having  twenty  flutes  without 
intervening  fillets,  no  base  being  introduced,  and  the  moulding  of  the 
capital  being  a  simple  ovolo.  It  is  peristyle  having  columns  on  ail 
sides ;  and  monopteral  as  the  surrounding  colonnade  is  but  a  single 
row  of  columns.  It  is  octo-style,  having  eight  columns  in  front;  and 
pycno-style,  as  the  intercolumniations  are  one  and  a  half  diameters 
of  the  columns.  It  is  hypsethral,  having  its  inner  shrine  open  to  the 
heavens;  from  whose  floor  the  colossal  Minerva  lifted  her  majestic 
form  thirty-eight  feet,  stretching  her  spear  still  upward  till  its  point 
caught  the  beams  of  the  morning  sun  as  it  rose  above  Mt.  Hymettus, 
and  glanced  over  the  temple  wall  into  the  shrine,  open  as  it  was  to 
the  heavens.  The  entablature,  with  the  pediment  above,  was  all 
that  genius  and  art  could  make  it ;  the  architrave  plain  and  chaste ; 
the  metopes  of  the  frieze  filled  with  the  richest  sculpture  in  relief; 
the  cornice  rich  though  chaste;  and  the  tympanum  of  the  pediment 
ornamented  with  the  majestic  statuary  already  described.^  Finally 
the  exquisitely  graceful  slope  of  the  low  graded  steps  ascending  upon 


See  Book  III.,  Chap,  iii.,  Sect.  4. 


SPECIAL   MEASUREMENTS   IN   THE   PARTHENON.  417 

all  sides  to  the  colonnade  of  the  temple  gave  a  finished  air  of  eleva- 
tion and  stability  to  the  entire  structure. 

The  entire  length  of  the  structure  was  217  feet  and  its  breadth  98^ 
feet,  thus  meeting  substantially  Vitruvius'  suggestion  as  to  the  pro- 
portions appropriate  for  a  temple.  The  exact  measurements  of  other 
principal  parts  are  here  given.  The  lower  diameter  of  the  columns 
6  feet  1.8  inches;  upper  diameter  4  feet  9.75  inches ;  height  of  the 
entire  column  34  feet  2.8  inches ;  of  the  capitals  2  feet  9.9  inches ; 
of  the  entire  entablature  12  feet  1.95  inches;  of  the  architrave  4  feet 
5.1  inches;  of  the  frieze  4  feet  5.05  inches;  of  the  cornice  3  feet  3.8 
inches;  projection  from  the  axis  of  the  column  of  the  abacus  3  feet 
3.775  inches;  of  the  architrave  2  feet  10.9  inches;  and  of  the  cornice 
5  feet  9.125  inches.  The  intercolumniations  were  7  feet  4  inches  at 
the  base,  and  7  feet  11.5  inches  above;  varying  of  course  according 
to  the  taper  and  upward  slant  of  the  columns. 

These  minute  measurements  indicate  two  general  facts  which  are 
the  embodiments  of  two  fundamental  principles.  The  rigid  science 
which  determined  the  proportions  requisite  to  strength  and  beauty 
in  Grecian  structures  were  not  a  fixed  mechanical  measure  or  pattern 
after  which  the  architect  or  sculptor  was  to  copy ;  they  were  hints 
from  nature  serving  as  a  model  from  which  genius  might  draw  prin- 
ciples to  guide  it.  As  no  tree  or  man  has  a  fixed  measure  of  dimen- 
sion, either  absolute  or  relative,  so  no  two  Grecian  edifices  are 
modelled  one  after  another;  nor  is  any  one  rigidly  conformed  to  any 
fixed  measure.  This  is  strikingly  seen  in  comparing  any  of  the 
details  above  given  as  to  the  measurements  of  the  Parthenon. 

A  careful  measurement  of  the  columns  of  the  Parthenon  reveals 
the  fact  that  their  upward  taper  is  a  parabolic  curve,  so  slight  how- 
ever as  not  to  be  perceptible  to  the  eye  of  the  observer.  The  long 
sweep  of  the  platform  on  which  the  foot  of  the  columns  of  the  colon- 
nade rests  curves  upward,  so  that  the  centre  of  the  longest  range,  or 
that  on  the  sides  of  the  temple,  is  elevated  twenty  inches  above  the 
level  of  the  ends  of  the  same  range,  the  centre  of  the  end  range  or 
of  the  platform  in  front  and  rear  of  the  temple  being  correspondently 
raised ;  the  effect  of  which  is,  in  conformity  with  the  laws  of  curvi- 
linear perspective  already  considered,^  to  give  to  the  eye  as  it  courses 
over  the  curved  surface  the  impression  of  greater  extent.  Each 
column  is  made  up  of  twelve  separate  blocks  of  marble,  each  of  which 
is  therefore  about  three  feet  high ;  the  outer  side  of  the  block,  or  the 


'  Book  II.,  Chap,  ii.,  Sect.  8, 
3  C 


418  ART  CRITICISM. 

side  most  remote  from  the  temple  wall,  being  cut  about  one  inch 
thicker  than  the  inner  side,  so  as  not  only  to  offset  the  slope  of  the 
platform,  but  to  give  the  column  a  graceful  slant  inwards.  These 
blocks  have  on  their  faces  an  inner  ring  of  surface  deeply  indented ; 
a  second  and  concentric  ring  more  slightly  indented ;  while  a  third 
and  the  outer  ring  of  surface  was  polished  to  the  most  exquisite 
smoothness  and  conformity  to  the  face  of  the  block  laid  upon  it. 
When,  now,  the  blocks  were  placed  one  above  the  other  they  united 
so  closely  and  firmly,  both  from  the  vacuum  in  their  centre  and  the 
perfect  contact  of  the  exterior  of  their  faces,  that  when  fluted  the 
junctures  escaped  the  eye ;  and  they  became  also  so  welded  that  they 
would  break  at  any  other  point  instead  of  at  their  juncture,  while, 
too  they  had  an  elastic  resistance  to  an  earthquake's  shock  which  a 
column  solid  throughout  could  not  afford. 

To  minutely  describe  every  particular  of  the  wonderful  science 
entering  into  the  art  of  the  Grecian  architect,  would  be  as  endless  as 
was  the  ever-widening  study  and  ever-growing  perfection  of  the  artist 
himself. 

Sect.  9.  A  Historic  Notice  op  Grecian  Architects  and  of  their  works 

TILL,  the  decline  OF  THEIR  ArT. 

The  history  of  Grecian  architecture,  as  of  sculpture,  begins  with 
Daedalus,  who  flourished  before  the  Trojan  war.  Though  an  Athe- 
nian by  birth,  his  first  great  labors  were  in  the  island  of  Crete,  then 
under  the  reign  of  the  famous  Minos ;  whence  he  visited  Sicily,  Sar- 
dinia, and  the  coast  of  Italy.  His  great  works  in  architecture  were 
a  labyrinth  and  temple  in  Crete,  a  river-reservoir,  and  a  mountain- 
fortress  in  Sicily,  several  palaces  in  Sardinia,  and  temples  of  Apollo 
at  Capua  and  Cannse,  in  Southern  Italy.  The  very  enumeration  of 
these  works  indicates  that  Egyptian  ideas  of  architecture  to  a  con- 
siderable extent  prevailed;  at  least,  that  the  distinctive  Grecian 
style  was  not  yet  fixed. 

The  next  stage  of  this  history,  at  a  period  which  cannot  be  defi- 
nitely fixed,  is  that  of  the  introduction  of  the  orders  of  Greek 
columnar  architecture.  To  this  age  belongs  the  exquisite  gem  of 
ancient  Grecian  architecture  already  alluded  to,  the  temple  called 
Panhellenicon,  on  the  Island  of  Egina.  The  earliest  architect 
expressly  mentioned  as  using  the  Doric  order  is  Daphnis  of  Miletum, 
a  port  of  Asiatic  Greece,  near  to  Ephesus ;  who,  aided  by  Pseonius 
of  Ephesus,  erected  a  temple  at  Miletum,  of  the  Doric  order.  As 
this  Pseonius  assisted  Chersiphron,  the  architect  of  the  early  grand 


THE  ERAS  OF  PROGRESS  IN  GRECIAN  ARCHITECTURE.      419 

temple  of  Diana  at  Ephesus,  which  was  of  the  Ionic  order,  it  is 
evident  that  these  two  orders  grew  up  together.  The  era  of  these 
finished  architects  is  apparently  as  early  as  the  first  Olympiad  or 
about  B.  C.  776. 

The  era  of  the  discussions  as  to  the  propriety  of  the  use  of  these 
orders  constitutes  the  next  advance  in  the  establishment  of  Greek 
styles  of  architecture.  The  names  of  some  of  the  writers  on  archi- 
tecture in  this  age,  and  their  arguments,  are  preserved  by  Vitruvius, 
the  architectural  critic  of  the  Augustan  age.  Among  them  were 
Tarchesius  and  Pytheus;  the  latter  of  whom  contended  that  the 
Doric  order  of  columns  was  not  adapted  to  sacred  edifices,  "because 
deceptions  and  inconsistent  proportions  are  executed  in  this  order." 
It  seems  to  have  become  a  settled  principle  among  Greek  architects 
that  the  Ionic  was  from  the  characteristic  features  of  its  capital  pro- 
perly employed  only  in  antis,  where  its  face  alone  was  presented  in 
perspective  view ;  and  yet  this  order  was  used  in  full  porticoes  re- 
quiring corner  exposures  and  side  views  of  the  capital.  During  this 
period  probably  lived  that  Hermogenes  commended  by  Vitruvius, 
both  in  his  architectural  works  and  his  other  writings,  as  having 
greatly  contributed  to  establish  correct  taste  in  the  early  ages  of 
Grecian  Architecture. 

The  culminating  era  of  the  Doric,  during  the  rebuilding  of  Athens 
under  Pericles,  beginning  about  B.  C.  450,  was  the  next  succeeding, 
and  some  would  regard  it  the  most  advanced  stage  of  Grecian  archi- 
tecture. Phidias  was  made  by  Pericles  the  general  superintendent 
of  the  extensive  work  of  restoration  and  rebuilding;  but  Ictinus, 
assisted  by  Callicrates,  seems  to  have  been  chief  among  the  archi- 
tects proper.  The  Parthenon,  which  was  the  peerless  master-work 
of  all  time  in  the  Doric  order,  seems  to  have  been  finished  in  the 
eighty-fifth  Olympiad,  or  about  B.  C.  438,  the  third  year  of  that 
Olympiad;  since  this  was  the  era  of  the  inauguration  of  the  majestic 
statue  of  Minerva  by  Phidias,  the  chief  ornament  of  the  matchless 
temple.  From  that  era  dates  the  triumphant  establishment  of  that 
chaste  order  as  the  acme  to  which  the  highest  culture  directs  the 
architect,  and  which  the  most  chastened  taste  makes  the  people's 
choice. 

The  introduction  of  the  Corinthian  order,  some  years  after  the  age 
of  Phidias  and  of  the  triumph  of  the  Doric  order,  was  the  last,  if 
not  the  climactic  stage  of  advance  in  Grecian  architecture.  Calli- 
machus,  its  author,  was  in  the  age  succeeding  Phidias,  the  compre- 
hensive genius  in  art.     He  excelled  as  a  sculptor,  an  engraver,  and 


420  ART   CRITICISM. 

a  painter;  while  he  was  also  an  architect.  In  illustration  of  his 
general  excellence  as  an  artist,  Vitruvius  states,  that  on  account  of 
the  elegance  and  finish  of  his  workmanship  in  marble,  he  was  called 
by  the  Athenians  "  Katatechnos,"  or  the  elaborate.  Of  his  special 
invention,  the  Corinthian  order  of  columns,  after  relating  the  inci- 
dent of  the  basket  and  acanthus,  which  suggested  to  the  artist  the 
idea,  the  same  writer  records,  "He  made  columns  after  this  model  at 
Corinth,  and  from  it  established  laws  of  symmetry ;  a  model  which 
fixed  the  distribution  of  details  in  the  finish  of  works  of  the  Corin- 
thian order."  The  earliest  introduction  of  Corinthian  columns 
whose  date  is  fixed,  is  their  employ  in  the  ninety-sixth  Olympiad, 
about  B.  C.  395,  by  the  artist  Scopas,  in  the  porticoes  of  a  temple  of 
Minerva,  built  at  Tegea,  in  Arcadia.  This  order  which  became  such 
a  favorite  in  Greece  generally,  and  in  the  provinces  especially,  seems 
to  have  been  slow  in  gaining  admission  into  Athens.  It  was  under 
Antiochus  Epiphanes,  and  through  Koman  influence,  that  about  B. 
C.  175,  the  temple  of  Jupiter  Olympus  on  the  plain  under  the  Acro- 
polis, was  erected  after  the  Corinthian  order ;  while  the  little  gem 
called  the  Choragic  Monument,  so  exquisite  a  specimen  of  the  same 
style,  was  a  work  of  a  still  later  date. 

No  single  example  of  Grecian  columnar  architecture  gives  a  more 
comprehensive  view  of  the  progress  of  the  art  among  the  Greeks 
than  the  celebrated  Temple  of  Diana,  at  Ephesus.  The  rude  wooden 
image  of  the  goddess,  Egyptian  in  its  symbolic  devices  and  Asiatic 
in  its  profuse  and  tawdry  decorations,  kept  its  place  from  the  earliest 
to  the  latest,  hid  behind  a  veil  in  three  successive  structures  reared  as 
its  shrine.  The  first  and  rude  original  edifice  alluded  to  by  Pau- 
sanias,  had  probably  the  characteristics  of  the  Asiatic  style  in  its 
architecture.  The  second,  of  the  Ionic  order,  was  begun  about  776 
B.  C,  by  Chersiphron  and  his  son  Metagenes,  and  was  completed  by 
Demetrius,  assisted  by  Pseonius.  Built  on  marshy  ground,  its  foun- 
dations were  laid  in  beds  of  charcoal  well  rammed;  its  floor  was 
raised  so  as  to  give  a  surrounding  platform  of  ten  steps ;  its  length 
was  four  hundred  and  twenty-five  feet,  and  its  breadth  two  hundred 
and  twenty ;  its  peripteral  portico  embraced  one  hundred  and  twenty- 
seven  columns  sixty  feet  high,  and  each  composed  of  one  block  of 
Parian  marble ;  and  their  finish  was  Ionic  in  its  caps  and  flutes ;  the 
doors  were  of  the  durable  cypress,  and  the  ceiling  of  cedar;  and  the 
whole  exterior  was  enriched  with  the  most  costly  decorations,  and 
the  interior  stored  with  the  rarest  treasures  of  art.  With  no  con- 
fessed motive  but  to  immortalize  himself,  a  wretch  named  Herostra- 


PK ACTIO AL   END   EULING   ROMAN   ARCHITECTS.  421 

tus  secretly  set  it  on  fire,  and  destroyed  all  except  the  blackened 
walls.  In  his  eastern  expedition,  Alexander  the  Great  found  it  in 
this  ruined  condition,  and  directed  Dinocrates,  the  future  architect 
of  Alexandria,  to  rebuild  it  with  more  than  its  former  magnificence. 
Restored  and  made  the  treasure-house  of  the  gems  of  art  left  by 
such  sculptors  as  Praxiteles  and  Scopas,  and  of  such  painters  as  Parr- 
hasius  and  Apelles,  it  continued  even  for  ages  after  the  Christian 
era,  one  of  the  glories  of  the  world. 

After  the  time  of  Alexander,  no  special  notice  is  found  of  eminent 
Greek  architects.  From  that  period,  however,  Greek  artists  were  in 
foreign  employ;  and  their  genius  and  culture  served  to  adorn  struc- 
tures modeled  after  inferior  standards.  In  Persia,  as  in  Asia  Minor, 
where  the  superior  Indo-European  stock  predominated,  at  a  very 
early  day  Grecian  taste  controlled  in  architecture;  as  an  instance  of 
which  we  learn,  that  about  B.  C  550,  Memnon,  a  Greek  architect, 
was  employed  to  erect  a  magnificent  palace  for  Cyrus,  the  king  of 
Persia,  at  Ecbatana.  In  Egypt,  on  the  contrary,  the  Asiatic  taste 
prevailed;  the  pagoda-shaped  tower  of  Pharos,  built  by  Sostratus, 
as  we  know  from  the  ancient  description  of  the  structure,  and  the 
beautiful  temples  on  the  Isle  of  Philse,  as  we  can  see  in  their  ruins, 
being  not  at  all  Grecian,  except  in  the  superior  naturalness  of  their 
sculptured  devices,  and  in  the  purer  style  of  their  columnar  deco- 
rations. 


CHAPTER    IV. 


ROMAN  ARCHITECTURE ;  CHARACTERIZED  BY  STATELINESS  IN  DIMEN- 
SIONS AND  PROFUSE  ELEGANCE  IN  ORNAMENTATION. 

While  the  Greeks  lived  in  the  ideal,  the  Romans  were  always 
eminently  practical.  The  tendency  of  the  Greek  mind  led  them  in 
their  architecture  to  make  material  ends  subordinate  to  spiritual 
conceptions ;  but  the  whole  drift  of  Roman  aspiration  was  to  secure 
in  their  edifices  objects  of  utility,  while  they  added  whatever  measure 
of  beauty  the  design  of  each  would  allow.  The  Greeks  ruled  the 
world  by  their  intellectual  superiority;  and  their  philosophy  and 
religion  gave  the  animating  conception  to  all  their  works  of  art. 
The  Roman  ruled  by  the  sword ;  their  State  was  more  to  them  than 

36 


422  ART   CRITICISM. 

their  religion;  and  as  their  favorite  statues,  according  to  Cicero's 
mention,  were  armed  warriors,  so  their  edifices,  for  whatever  pur- 
pose erected,  would  answer,  should  occasion  call,  for  fortresses.  It 
was  not  to  be  expected  that  such  a  people  would  excel  in  the  first 
two  Arts  of  Design;  and  the  Romans  had  no  sculptors  or  painters 
that  added  any  excellence  to  Grecian  art.  In  architecture  they  were 
the  people  to  originate  new  principles,  to  invent  new  styles,  and  to 
employ  new  methods. 

The  first  exhibition  of  Roman  genius  displayed  itself  in  giving 
strength  to  their  works.  They  did  not  like  the  Egyptians,  aim  at 
mere  massiveness ;  heaping  up  piles  of  stone  for  which  no  purpose 
of  utility  seemed  to  call;  but  they  sought  just  that  amount  of  mas- 
siveness which  strength  required,  and  they  showed  in  the  manner  of 
their  putting  stones  together,  rather  than  in  the  number  piled  upon 
each  other,  their  characteristic  practical  aim.  Hence  their  earliest 
as  well  as  latest  triumphs  in  architecture,  which  were  true  types  of 
their  genius,  were  military  constructions  such  as  bridges,  aqueducts, 
and  other  kindred  works ;  emblems  of  a  people  in  motion  rather  than 
at  rest.  When  afterwards,  houses  for  a  people  at  home,  and  not  in 
the  moving  camp,  at  peace  and  not  in  war,  began  to  be  reared,  they 
took  character  from  the  spirit  of  the  builders ;  and  practical  science, 
the  medium  between  the  ideal  art  of  the  Greek  and  the  gigantic 
emptiness  of  the  Egyptian,  gave  strength,  the  medium  between  grace 
and  massiveness  to  their  structures. 

When  the  age  for  added  refinement  came,  their  efibrt  at  finish 
showed  itself  in  what  Cicero  calls,  "a  manly  and  robust  ornament.' 
It  added  to  the  light  grace  of  the  Grecian  columnar  capitals  details 
designed  to  furnish  greater  strength,  and  the  capacity  to  sustain  a 
greater  superincumbent  weight.  This  increase  of  details  naturally 
tended  to  an  excess  of  ornament ;  a  fault  into  which  the  Greeks  were 
not  liable  to  be  betrayed,  as  Pope  in  his  Essay  on  Criticism  thus  inti- 
mates ; 

"  Hear  how  learned  Greece  her  useful  rules  indite, 
When  to  repress  and  when  indulge  our  flights." 

The  Roman  decorator  of  architectural  forms  when  once  his  fancy 
had  taken  wings  did  not  know  where  to  check  its  range.  In  this  art, 
especially  their  own,  the  Romans  aimed  at  ornamentation  too  ex- 
cessive to  comport  with  the  chasteness  of  the  grand  style  of  the 
Greeks,  for  which  the  Latin  tongue  supplied  a  designation  in  the 
word  elegant.     These  two  characteristics,  strength  and  elegance,  and 


CURVED  GROUNDPLOTS,  THE  ARCH  AND  DOME.     423 

their  application  by  the  Romans  to  different  classes  of  structures 
reared  in  their  own  city  and  in  other  climes,  and  that  in  succeeding 
ages  of  culture  and  of  decline,  hint  a  natural  division  of  the  subject 
of  Roman  Architecture. 

Sect.  1.  The  Introduction  of  Curved  Lines  in  groundplot  and  ele- 
vation, GIVING  breadth  AND  STATELINESS  TO  EOMAN  ARCHITECTURE. 

As  we  have  observed  the  two  classes  of  lines  of  beauty  are  straight 
lines  of  proportionate  length,  and  curved  lines  of  regular  sweep.  In 
every  possible  exquisite  execution  of  the  latter  in  sculpture  the 
Greeks  were  masters ;  while  by  the  mathematical  nicety  with  which 
in  architecture  they  used  the  former,  they  left  no  room  for  improve- 
ment, attaining  in  fact  to  such  perfection  in  rectangular  temple- 
fronts  that  Cicero  said  they  could  not  be  improved  in  Heaven  itself. 
The  Romans  first  dignified  by  its  noble  development,  the  employ  of 
curved  lines,  not  simply  in  the  ornaments  of  capitals  and  cornices, 
in  which  both  the  Egyptians  and  Greeks  had  used  curves,  but  also 
in  the  groundplot  and  in  the  elevation  of  edifices.  This  feature  the 
Greek  architect  manifestly  introduced  to  secure  the  two  ends  of 
spaciousness  and  elegance. 

Among  all  the  specimens  of  Grecian  architecture,  except  in  the 
early  Pelasgic  relics  to  be  hereafter  noticed,  no  edifice  is  found  whose 
groundplot  is  not  a  rectangle.  No  line  of  a  Grecian  structure  was 
circular,  or  visibly  curvilinear,  except  their  columns  and  such 
column-like  structures  as  the  Choragic  Monument  at  Athens.  Nearly 
all  their  architectural  works  proper  were  temples ;  and  these  had  a 
rectangle  for  a  base.  The  Romans,  however,  not  simply  for  conve- 
nience, but  evidently  from  a  principle  of  taste  took  two  of  the  curves 
of  the  Conic  Sections,  the  circle  and  the  ellipse,  either  entire  or  of 
half  size,  as  their  groundplots  for  larger  and  grander  edifices ;  while 
they  also  retained  the  Greek  rectangle  for  many  of  their  buildings. 
The  Pantheon,  and  the  tomb  of  Marcellus,  now  the  Castle  of  St. 
Angelo,  still  standing  in  all  their  strength  and  elegance  at  Rome, 
are  noble  specimens  of  a  complete  circle  as  a  groundplot;  the  Coli- 
seum, the  most  majestic  pile  in  the  world,  has  an  entire  and  perfect 
ellipse  as  its  base;  while  many  of  the  smaller  Roman  temples  are 
circular,  and  most  of  their  amphitheatres  either  semielliptical  or 
semicircular  in  ground-outline. 

The  Egyptians  even  under  a  flat  roof  and  straight  lintel,  secured 
considerable  breadth  of  hall  and  door-way,  sometimes  even  thirty 
feet,  by  the  immense  length  of  the  overlapping  stones  which  they 


424  ART   CRITICISM. 

raised  and  laid  across  their  side-walls;  but  the  practical  Roman 
could  not  think  of  such  a  waste  of  labor.  The  Greeks  from  the 
necessity  of  their  climate,  used  a  sloping  roof  as  a  water  shed,  giving 
its  slant  for  beauty's  sake  the  slightest  possible  rise;  occasioning 
thus,  however,  an  almost  direct  outward  thrust,  to  overcome  which 
without  sacrificing  chasteness  by  the  introduction  of  outside  props 
they  built  up  inner  supporting  walls,  whose  intervention  allowed 
a  limited  breadth  of  interior.  The  Romans  wished  broad  gate 
and  door-ways,  and  lofty  spreading  roof-elevation,  without  the  clumsy 
Egyptian  method  of  securing  the  former,  and  vastly  beyond  any 
invented  power  to  attain  the  latter;  and  they  dared  to  use,  if  they 
did  not  invent,  the  circular  arch,  by  which  the  former  end  was  accom- 
plished, and  the  dome  by  which,  for  all  the  world  and  for  all  time,  the 
latter  aim  was  realized. 

The  Brahmins  of  India,  knew  in  their  adopted  Southern  home, 
perhaps  carried  from  their  primaeval  Northern  birth-place  as  a  race, 
the  principle  of  the  circular  arch ;  and  understanding  the  law  of  its 
constantly  pressing  and  dislocating  lateral  thrust,  they  embodied 
their  objection  to  its  use  in  larger  edifices  in  the  maxim,  "the  arch 
never  sleeps."  All  the  so-called  arches  used  by  the  ancient  and 
modern  Asiatics  have  been  straight  arches,  formed  by  leaving  a 
space  in  the  stone  wall  for  a  door  or  window  up  to  its  height,  and 
then  inserting  longer  stones  in  the  wall  above,  so  that  each  should 
overlap  its  fellow  below  until  the  ends  advancing  from  both  sides 
met,  and  thus  closed  the  open  space.  The  tapering  domes  of  Asiatic 
pagodas  sometimes  supposed  to  be  curved  domes  were  formed  by 
laying  shorter  corner  beams  across  the  four  right  angles  of  the  square 
base  of  the  dome,  then  yet  shorter  ones  across  the  eight  obtuse  angles 
of  the  new  base  thus  formed;  and  so  continually  multiplying  the 
sides  and  angles,  diminishing  all  the  while  the  diameter  of  the 
straight  dome  till  it  came  to  an  apex.  In  the  circular  arch,  how- 
ever, whose  surface  is  a  half  cylinder,  the  junctures  of  each  added 
course  of  stones  must  lie  in  the  plane  of  the  axis  of  the  cylinder 
cutting  its  surface ;  the  faces  of  the  stones  of  each  course  being  so 
cut,  each  being  thicker  at  the  outside  than  at  the  inside  of  the  arch, 
that  in  passing  from  the  base  to  the  apex  of  the  arch  the  upper  faces 
will  have  a  slope  more  and  more  downward  and  inward,  varying 
through  90°  degrees  from  horizontal  to  perpendicular  in  each  half 
of  the  arch ;  while  each  added  course  tilts  inward  further  than  the 
course  next  below  it,  till  the  two  sides,  rising  together,  and  supported 


THE   ORIGIN   OF   PILASTERS   AND   THEIR   USE.  425 

temporarily  from  below,  meet,  and  receiving  the  central  key-stone 
are  sustained  by  their  own  pressure  against  each  other. 

In  the  dome,  again,  which  is  the  surface  of  a  hemisphere,  or  curved 
surface  of  double  curvature,  while  the  junctures  of  the  upper  and 
lower  faces  of  each  course  of  stones  conform  to  the  law  of  the  arch 
just  stated,  the  junctures  of  the  side  faces  must  lie  in  planes  coin- 
cident with  the  axis  of  the  hemisphere,  and  perpendicular  to  its  base ; 
so  that  when  laid,  the  entire  circuit  of  the  upper  faces  of  the  courses 
shall  lie  in  the  superficies  of  the  slant  height  of  a  series  of  cones 
whose  bases  diminish  in  the  ratio  of  the  circles  both  inner  and  outer 
of  the  courses  of  stones,  while  their  axes  increase  in  the  same  ratio,  and 
lie  in  the  axis  of  the  hemisphere.  In  the  dome,  each  course  of 
stones,  by  the  force  of  gravity  acting  in  one  line  downward,  is  sup- 
ported when  laid  completely  around  by  the  pressure  of  its  faces  on 
each  other,  and  is  in  itself  a  self-supporting  double  arch.  As  there 
is  in  the  arch  and  dome  both  a  downward  and  outward  pressure, 
there  must  be  in  its  foundation,  whether  that  foundation  be  the  solid 
ground  or  the  walls  of  an  edifice  on  which  the  arch  or  dome  is  to  be 
elevated,  both  a  mass  and  disposition  of  material,  which  shall  secure 
an  upward  and  lateral  support  and  bracing  adequate  to  serve  as  a 
counterpoise  to  the  crush  and  the  thrust.  The  very  earliest  great 
architectural  works  of  the  Romans  show  their  thorough  and  practical 
understanding  both  of  the  nice  theory,  and  of  the  nicer  execution 
essential  to  the  successful  use  of  the  curved  line  for  purposes  of 
elevation. 

Sect.  2.  Modifications  of  the  Greek  columnar  orders;  giving  in- 
creased PROFUSION  of  elegant  ORNAMENTATION  TO  EoMAN  EDIFICES. 

As  an  immediate  consequence  of  the  circular,  or  elliptical  ground- 
plot  to  secure  breadth,  and  of  the  dome  to  attain  elevation,  modifica- 
tions of  the  methods  of  columnar  decorations  as  used  by  both  the 
Egyptians  and  the  Greeks  became  essential  for  the  Romans.  The 
plain  walls  of  a  rectangular  building  have  a  chaste  beauty  requiring 
no  ornamentation.  How  blank  and  inelegant  the  walls  of  a  circular 
edifice  become  without  some  exterior  adornment,  the  contrast  between 
the  unadorned  Pantheon,  and  the  elaborately  ornamented  Coliseum 
walls  strikingly  illustrates.  The  necessity  for  columnar  additions  in 
such  structures  became  at  once  apparent.  From  necessity  the 
Roman  architect  resorted  to  two  modifications  of  the  Grecian  style ; 
the  use  in  buildings  of  one  story  or  more  of  pilasters  or  half  columns 
merely  projecting  from  the  exterior  wall,  instead  of  complete  columns 

36*  3D* 


426  ART   CRITICISM. 

standing  out  as  supports  of  a  portico  at  some  distance  from  that  wall ; 
and  the  employ  in  all  buildings  of  more  than  one  story  of  columns 
of  different  orders. 

The  first  of  these  modifications  gave  rise  to  several  distinct  subor- 
dinate features.  Since  around  a  circular  edifice  it  is  impossible  with-  j 
out  an  added  portico  roof  to  have  columns  proper,  and  that  because 
the  dome-roof  must  rest  directly  on  the  side  walls  of  the  edifice  and 
cannot  project  beyond  them  so  as  to  cover  a  portico,  the  Romans 
resorted  to  pilasters,  or  half  columns,  built  into,  or  fastened  upon  the 
wall;  which  pilasters  required  only  a  slightly  projecting  cornice,  as  J 
is  seen  in  the  Coliseum.  As  this  method,  however,  did  not  give 
sufificient  prominence  to  the  entrance,  a  purely  Grecian  portico  with 
columns,  entablature,  and  pediment,  was  projected  in  front  of  a  cir- 
cular edifice,  as  in  the  Pantheon.  In  smaller  edifices,  moreover,  as 
in  the  little  circular  shrines  like  that  of  Vesta  at  Rome,  the  light 
roof  was  of  wood ;  whose  timbers  extending  over  the  wall  formed  a 
projecting  rotunda,  sustained  by  a  circlet  of  delicate  Corinthian 
columns.  Behind  these  columns,  both  in  the  Grecian  portico  and 
the  Roman  rotunda,  pilasters  corresponding  to  a  second  row  of 
columns  were  fastened  upon  the  circular  wall.  Carrying  this  idea 
still  farther,  the  walls  of  rectangular  buildings  were  ornamented  with 
false  pilasters ;  mere  flat  slabs  carved  with  the  flutes,  the  cap  and  the 
base  of  a  column  fastened  to  the  plain  straight  wall  in  place  of  thej 
rounded  half  column  projected  from  the  circular  wall. 

These  modes  of  ornamentation,  never  allowed  by  Greek  simplicity, 
were  universally  adopted  in  the  ordinary  architecture  of  the  Romans ; 
as  they  are  a  marked  feature  in  almost  every  variety  of  building  in 
modern  times.  The  modification  of  the  styles  of  Grecian  columnar 
architecture  just  considered,  was  made  necessary  by  the  extent  of 
groundplot,  sought  by  the  Romans,  giving  increased  breadth  of  open 
interior  and  requiring  a  circular  wall  on  which  should  rest  the  cir- 
cular roof.  A  second  modification  aflfecting  the  orders  of  Grecian 
columnar  architecture  arose  from  the  increased  height  required  by 
the  elevation  necessary  in  the  construction  of  the  dome  as  a  roof. 
The  Grecian  temple  had  only  one  story,  and  its  single  tier  of  columns, 
all  of  the  same  order,  rose  to  the  eaves  of  the  building ;  an  elevation 
seldom  exceeding  forty  feet,  and  calling,  therefore,  for  columns 
seldom  exceeding  about  thirty-six  feet  in  height  by  six  feet  in 
diameter.  The  greater  elevation  of  the  Roman  edifice  demanded 
additional  stories  with  as  many  separate  tiers  of  columnar  decora- 
tions; the  exterior  walls  of  the  Coliseum,  for  instance,  having  four 


THE   TRUE   ROMAN   COLUMNAR   ORDERS.  427 

such  stages  of  elevation.  The  question  seems  to  have  arisen  to  the 
Roman  mind  whether  true  taste  would  allow  the  same  order  of 
columns,  or  pilasters,  to  be  used  in  successive  stages  one  above  the 
other,  or  would  require  a  change  in  the  orders  in  each  succeeding 
tier.  Grecian  taste  might  have  approved  the  reform  upon  the  Roman 
method  made  at  a  later  day  by  Michel  Angelo ;  who  taught  that  the 
same  order  of  columns  should  be  employed  in  the  decoration  of  a 
building  having  several  stages  of  elevation.  The  Romans'  less  chas- 
tened love  of  simplicity  sought  variety  of  decoration ;  used  different 
orders  of  columns  at  different  elevations;  and  since  the  three  Gre- 
cian orders  did  not  furnish  the  variety  their  method  demanded,  they 
invented  two  additional  ones,  going  beyond  the  exhaustive  analy- 
sis which  the  early  philosophy  of  even  Egyptian  builders  had 
settled. 

The  Tuscan  order  was  nothing  else  than  the  improvement  of  the 
carpenter's  plain  gate-post  boxed  and  capped.  Vitruvius,  the  Roman 
architect,  gives  as  the  proportions  of  this  order,  fixed  by  art,  the  fol- 
lowing: the  height  to  be  seven  diameters;  the  taper  of  the  shaft  to 
be  equal  to  one-fourth  of  the  diameter  from  the  bottom  to  the  top ; 
the  base  to  be  of  two  parts,  the  lower  and  broader  having  an  eleva- 
tion of  one-half  the  diameter  of  the  shaft;  the  capital  to  have  the 
same  height  as  the  base,  though  the  breadth  of  neither  base  nor 
capital  was  fixed.  The  plainness  of  the  Tuscan  has  made  it  to  be 
almost  universally  used  in  modern  times  in  Roman  or  Grseco-Roman 
buildings  for  the  decoration  of  basement  stories,  the  portion  of  their 
edifices  which  the  Greeks  entirely  hid  by  surrounding  steps ;  while 
in  Romanesque  buildings  this  order  is  occasionally  introduced  in  the 
columns  of  the  main  portico.  The  Doric,  susceptible  of  greatly 
varied  proportions,  was  used  by  the  Romans  extensively  in  arcades, 
whose  elevation  often  allowed  only  the  height  of  a  half  column ;  and 
for  this  purpose,  as  well  as  for  uniformity,  when  interposed  between 
two  tiers  of  columns  of  different  orders,  the  Roman  Doric  had  a  base 
added  to  it.  The  Ionic  was  made  stouter  than  the  Grecian  order ;  a 
third,  or  side  face  being  given  to  the  outside  or  corner  columns  in  an 
Ionic  portico,  which  required  that  the  corner  curls  should  run  into 
one  and  project  diagonally  from  the  cap  half-way  between  the  front 
and  side  lines  of  the  entablature.  Though  not  favorite  among  the 
Romans  the  Ionic  column  was  usually  made  to  intervene  between  the 
Doric  and  Corinthian  when  three  or  more  stages  of  elevation  were 
employed.  To  the  Corinthian  capital  decorated  by  the  Greeks  with 
thin  leaf-work,  in  order  that  the  capital  might  seem  adequate  to  the 


428  ART   CRITICISM. 

heavier  weight  imposed  upon  the  column,  the  Romans  added  strong 
curved  or  spike-shaped  stems  often  called  horns;  whose  stout  form, 
though  opposed  to  lightness,  was  not  only  an  apparent,  but  a  real  ar- 
chitectural support.  Yet  again,  as  in  order  to  increase  the  variety  of 
their  columnar  decorations  the  Romans  had  introduced  an  order,  the 
Tuscan,  below  the  plainest  of  the  three  Grecian,  so  they  added  one, 
the  Composite,  more  elaborate  than  the  most  ornamental  of  the 
Greeks.  The  capital  of  the  Roman  Composite  unites  to  the  volutes 
of  the  Ionic  capital  projected  at  four  corners,  the  interposed  foliate 
decorations  borrowed  from  the  Corinthian  order.  In  the  Coliseum 
the  lower  stage  is  Doric,  the  second  Ionic,  the  third  Corinthian,  the 
fourth  Composite. 

Sect.  3.  Varied  Classes  of  Buildings  and  Modes  of  Structure  re- 
quired BY  THE  CIRCUMSTANCES,  CHARACTER  AND   HABITS  OF  THE  RoMAN 

People. 

The  climate  of  Rome,  so  much  more  inclement  from  its  latitude 
than  that  of  most  Grecian  cities,  required  in  general  walls  and  roofs 
more  enclosed.  Since  the  Roman  people,  too,  like  the  Greeks,  were 
a  nation  of  princes,  they  required  in  their  social  gatherings  for  varied 
purposes,  edifices  both  broad  and  elevated ;  and  this  added  a  new 
difficulty  to  be  surmounted  in  the  wall  and  roof  enclosure  of  their 
public  buildings.  The  four  principal  demands  of  social  life  for  which 
the  Romans  needed,  like  other  cultured  people,  a  provision  in  their 
edifices,  Avere  these;  the  supply  of  their  material  wants  by  markets  and 
clustered  shops,  the  meeting  of  their  governmental  exigencies  in  the 
basilica,  the  satisfying  of  their  intellectual  and  aesthetic  nature  in  the 
theatre  and  amphitheatre,  and  the  feeding  of  their  religious  cravings 
in  their  temples.  Each  of  these  took  its  peculiar  national  charac- 
teristics from  the  circumstances,  character  and  habits  of  the  Roman 
people. 

The  Greeks  from  the  genial  tempei-ature  of  their  climate  could 
have  the  market  stalls  and  ware  rooms  around  their  agora  much 
more  open  and  less  clustered  than  was  required  in  the  close  built 
city  of  Rome  exposed  to  cold  winds  and  rains  from  the  neighboring 
plains  and  not  distant  mountains.  Their  Forum  therefore  was  sur- 
rounded by  arcade  buildings  whose  basement  accommodated  the 
venders  of  heavier  articles  particularly  of  all  kinds  of  provisions ;  while 
the  upper  lofts  and  balconies  favored  the  pursuits  of  tradesmen  in 
lighter  and  more  delicate  wares  required  for  clothing  and  personal 
ornament.     These  arcades  demanded  the  style  of  columnar  decora- 


ROMAN  BATHS,  BASILICA  THEATRES  AND  AMPHITHEATRES.  429 

tion  already  referred  to.  Again,  the  same  severe  climate,  not  to  say 
the  different  ideas  of  propriety  which  the  necessity  for  more  ample 
clothing  in  both  sexes  cultured,  forbade  the  Greeks'  free  resort  to 
the  river-side,  and  to  the  sea-shore  for  bathing.  The  baths  of  the 
Komans  were  extended  if  not  elevated  structures,  whose  heavy  weight 
of  water-tanks  required  strong  supporting  arches.  These  material 
wants,  receiving  shape  from  the  circumstances  and  habits  of  the 
people,  were  controlling  in  their  influences  on  architectural  features. 

The  Roman  people  proper  were  all  patrician  in  their  own  esteem ; 
each  senator  and  high  oflicer  was  a  virtual  king,  and  the  Greek 
name  for  royal  or  kingly  dignity  was  naturally  applied  to  the  chief 
audience  hall  of  the  many  statesmen  whom  the  best  days  of  the  Repub- 
lic called  forth,  and  whose  influence  indeed  the  first  Emperor  could  not 
materially  affect.  From  being  at  first  a  hall  in  the  mansion  of  the 
patrician  statesmen,  the  basilica  became  a  separate  edifice.  It  usu- 
ally consisted  of  a  central  hall,  long  and  sufficiently  narrow  to  sup- 
port the  steep  roof  that  covered  it ;  on  each  side  of  which  hall  wings 
one  story  in  height  were  built,  giving  double  or  treble  breadth  of 
area  for  the  audience  room.  The  walls  of  the  central  and  higher  por- 
tion necessarily  open  at  bottom  so  as  to  make  the  wings  an  unob- 
structed portion  of  the  main  ground-floor,  were  supported  each  by  a 
row  of  short  strong  columns  set  sufficiently  far  apart  not  to  obstruct 
the  view  and  hearing  of  the  auditory;  while  arches  thrown  from 
column  to  column  sustained  the  wall  between  and  above  the  columns. 
These  rows  of  columns,  giving  at  once  strength  and  elegance  to  the 
interior,  were  of  different  orders;  though  the  plainer  Tuscan  and 
Doric  were  preferred  by  the  old  Romans.  A  Grecian  portico  to 
shelter  the  entrance  was  added ;  and  the  basilica,  thus  constructed, 
became,  as  we  shall  see,  the  first  chosen  model  for  Christian  places 
of  religious  audience  and  devotion. 

The  theatre  and  amphitheatre,  usually  of  immense  area  to  accom- 
modate the  crowds  that  thronged  them,  were  necessarily  uncovered, 
except  by  tent  cloths  serving  the  individuals  and  family,  as  screens 
from  the  sun's  heat  and  the  falling  rain.  The  number  and  size  of 
these  structures,  scattered  from  Rome  as  a  centre  throughout  Italy, 
is  at  the  same  time  a  memorial  of  the  devotion  of  the  Roman  people 
to  the  rude  and  often  brutal  sports  of  the  arena ;  while  they  are  also 
monuments  of  the  grandeur  of  the  Roman  conception  of  architectu- 
ral proportions. 

The  temples  of  the  Romans  were  many  of  them  after  the  general 
Crrecian  type  as  to  form,  though  more  elaborate  and  loaded  with 


430  ART   CRITICISM. 

arcliitectural  decoration ;  as  is  seen  in  the  remains  of  several  now 
scattered  along  the  Koman  Forum.  Many  also  of  their  temples 
were  of  a  circular  form ;  with  hemispherical  domes  as  roofs.  Of  this 
the  little  temples  of  Vesta,  near  Tivoli,  and  on  the  Tiber  in  Kome, 
not  more  than  twelve  feet  in  diameter,  designed  for  a  single  deity, 
and  the  Pantheon,  or  Temple,  consecrated  after  the  Roman  idea  of 
appropriation  in  religion  as  in  everything  else  to  all  gods,  one  hun- 
dred and  thirty-two  feet  in  diameter,  are  interesting  relics.  The 
wonder  of  Roman  genius  in  these  structures,  however,  is  the  science 
shown  in  their  elevation,  rather  than  the  practical  adaptation  real- 
ized in  their  groundplot.  Unlike  the  theatres  and  amphitheatres 
just  mentioned,  and  the  tombs  next  to  be  considered,  the  circular 
temples,  even  the  immense  Pantheon,  were  spanned  by  arched  roofe. 
As  we  shall  see,  never  has  human  skill  surpassed  that  old  structure ; 
for  the  daring  of  Michel  Angelo  in  his  conception  of  the  dome  of 
St.  Peter's,  could  find  no  bolder  expression  than  this,  that  he  would 
"hang  the  Pantheon  in  the  air." 

The  Romans  were  cosmopolitan  among  other  things  in  the  form 
of  their  tombs;  yet  they  had  a  native  taste  corresponding  with  their 
general  characteristics,  as  seen  in  their  temple  architecture.  While 
there  are  without  the  gates  of  the  city  one  or  two  towering  pyramids, 
meant  to  imitate  the  Egyptian  taste  in  funereal  monuments,  and 
along  the  Appian  way,  near  Rome  as  well  as  at  Pompeii,  num- 
berless Grecian  and  other  foreign-built  tombs,  there  are  several  cir- 
cular towers  reared  as  tombs,  which  show  the  universal  fondness  of 
the  Romans  for  the  curved  line  in  architecture.  One  of  these,  the 
tomb  of  Cecilia  Metella,  on  the  Appian  way  south  of  the  city,  one 
hundred  feet  in  diameter,  and  another,  the  Mausoleum  of  Hadrian, 
on  the  north  bank  of  the  Tiber,  now  the  Castle  of  St.  Angelo,  two 
hundred  feet  in  diameter,  are  monuments  of  the  grandeur  of  Roman 
conceptions  and  the  elegance  they  sought  as  an  element  of  their 
architecture. 

Sect.  4.  History  of  Koman  Taste  in  Architecture  ;  the  curvilinear 
Etruscan  under  the  kings  ;  the  rectangular  and  columnar  Gre- 
cian under  the  Republic  and  earlier  Emperors  ;  and  the  adapta- 
tion OF  BOTH  THESE  TO  THE  NEW  FAITH  UNDER  CHRISTIAN  EmPERORS. 

There  are  three  marked  periods  in  the  history  of  architecture  in 
Rome ;  corresponding  very  nearly  to  th'fe  three  great  periods  in  lier 
political  history.  The  first  is  the  age  of  Etruscan  art ;  beginning 
before  Rome  was  founded  and  extending  through  the  history  of  her 


ETRUSCAN   ARCHITECTURE   IN   ITALY.  431 

kiugs ;  during  which  the  type  of  her  architecture  was  native,  origi- 
nating in  the  early  Greco-Asiatic  associations  of  the  primitive 
Romans.  The  second  is  the  age  of  prevailing  Grecian  taste,  corre- 
sponding nearly  to  the  age  of  the  Republic,  and  culminating  under 
the  first  Emperor;  during  which  there  was  a  growing  fondness  for 
Greek  columnar  ornamentation.  The  third  began  early  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  Empire,  developing  itself  fully  in  its  declining  years; 
during  which  time  foreign  ideas  were  gaining  more  control  until 
entirely  distinct  styles,  especially  in  Church  architecture,  all  of  them 
having  Roman  characteristics,  grew  up  in  distant  sections  of  the 
Empire. 

The  Etrurians,  who,  at  an  era  prior  to  authentic  history,  entered 
Italy  and  after  driving  back  the  Umbrians,  the  native  inhabitants, 
into  the  mountain  valleys  to  the  north  and  east,  settled  in  the 
region  between  the  rivers  Tiber  and  Arno,  seem  to  have  come  from 
Lydia,  on  the  western  coast  of  Asia  Minor,  about  the  twelfth  century 
before  Christ.  Upon  the  fall  of  Troy,  the  conquered  heroes  from 
the  same  Asiatic  coast  sought  the  Etruscan  asylum ;  sung  by  Virgil 
in  his  jEneid,  a  poem  founded  upon  historic  facts.  As  this  people 
brought  with  them  a  high  order  of  art  in  sculpture,  so  they  did  in 
architecture.  The  Etruscans  built  tombs  that  have  remained  to  this 
day  as  monuments  of  their  skill  in  architecture ;  while  most  of  their 
works  above  ground  located  in  their  own  territory  have  disappeared. 
These  tombs  were  circular  and  arched  above;  their  temples  were  of 
two  kinds,  circular  and  rectangular,  as  Vitruvius  states;  while  the 
specimens  of  their  secular  architecture  remaining  are  of  the  same 
two  classes,  the  rectangular  being  the  type  that  prevailed  in  Greece, 
the  circular  at  Rome.  The  largest  and  one  of  the  oldest  tombs  left 
by  them,  covered  above  by  a  tumulus,  or  mound  of  earth,  like  those 
now  standing  near  the  site  of  ancient  Troy,  and  much,  too,  like  the 
barrows  or  mounds  now  found  so  extensively  along  the  American 
rivers  in  the  Mississippi  valley,  is  found  at  the  little  town  of  Vulci; 
below  which  tumulus  is  a  circular  arched  dome  not  less  than  240 
feet  in  diameter,  and  120  feet  in  height.  An  impressive  specimen 
of  their  grand  ideas  in  architecture  above  ground  is  seen  in  the  rock- 
hewn  amphitheatre  of  Sutri;  which  in  form  is  an  ellipse  of  slight 
eccentricity,  having  as  its  diameters  295  and  265  feet.  At  the 
founding  of  Rome,  B.  C.  753,  the  Etruscan  builders  were  em- 
ployed as  architects.  The  oldest  of  their  known  works  at  Rome 
is  the  Cloaca  Maxima,  or  great  Sewer,  a  work  executed  as  early 
as  B.  C.  616;   consisting  of  a  circular  arched  underground   pas- 


432  ART   CRITICISM. 

sage  extending  from  the  Forum,  or  market,  as  a  drain  to  the 
river  Tiber.  The  interior  diameter  is  about  fourteen  feet;  giving 
an  altitude  of  about  seven  feet,  or  sufficient  for  loaded  carts  to  drive 
through.  The  arch  consists  of  double  concentric  rows  of  stones, 
about  five  feet  long  and  three  and  a-half  feet  in  thickness ;  which, 
though  laid  without  cement,  have  retained  their  place  and  preserved 
the  passage  uninjured  for  2500  years.  Their  second  work  of  note 
was  the  temple  to  Jupiter  of  the  Capitol,  standing  on  the  Capitoline 
Hill,  dedicated  about  B.  C.  507 ;  and  probably  about  the  same 
age,  the  Pantheon,  or  temple  of  all  Gods,  which  is  a  circular 
structure  with  an  exterior  diameter  of  144  feet,  interior  of  132  feet, 
the  walls  being,  therefore,  six  feet  thick,  while  the  height  of  the 
centre  of  the  dome  built  on  the  walls  is  also  132  feet.  The  close 
of  this  age  of  native  Etruscan  seems  to  have  corresponded  nearly 
to  that  of  the  termination  of  the  line  of  Roman  kings,  or  about 
B.  C.  530. 

After  the  establishment  of  the  Republic,  Grecian  in  its  idea,  and 
having  the  twelve  tables  made  up  chiefly  of  the  laws  of  Solon 
as  its  code,  more  of  a  Grecian  influence  came  in  to  modify  the  native 
taste  in  architecture.  The  two  Greek  settlements  in  Italy,  Etruria 
in  the  north,  and  Magna  Grecia  in  the  south,  had  already  sent  forth 
a  leavening  influence  throughout  Italy.  As  early  as  about  B.  C. 
500,  we  find  Greek  artists  employed  at  Rome;  and  probably  their 
presence  created  a  taste  for  Grecian  columnar  architecture.  This 
taste  showed  itself  in  structures  of  a  rectangular  form  with  Greek 
columns  or  pilasters  as  modified  by  the  Romans;  and  also  in  the 
addition  of  Grecian  porticoes  to  earlier  Etruscan  buildings.  This 
Grecian  culture,  growing  in  the  best  days  of  the  Republic,  culminated 
under  the  first  emperor  Augustus,  about  B.  C.  31.  A  few  years  later 
the  theatre  of  Marcellus  was  built,  the  portico  of  the  Pantheon 
w^as  added,  and  several  of  the  rectangular  temples  whose  noble 
columns  in  ruins  now  line  the  extent  of  the  old  forum,  were  reared; 
works  whose  few  sad  relics  justify  Suetonius'  judgment  as  to  the  boast 
of  the  first  proud  emperor,. "  That  he  had  found  the  city  built  of 
brick,  and  he  left  it  built  of  marble."  The  ruthless  destruction  of  a 
portion  of  the  city  by  fire,  caused  by  Nero,  called  for  new  erections ; 
and  the  Coliseum  built  under  Vespasian,  the  Arch  of  Titus,  the 
Basilica  and  column  of  Trajan,  the  magnificent  works  of  Hadrian 
of  which  the  temple  of  Jupiter  Olympus  is  a  noble  specimen,  the 
arch  of  Septimius  Severus,  the  Baths  of  Caracalla,  and  finally  the 
Basilica  of  Maxentius,  following  each  other  at  Rome,  in  succeeding 


ROMAN   ARCHITECTURE  AFFECTED   BY   CHRISTIANITY.     433 

ages  down  to  A.  D.  306,  are  indications  how  long  the  purer  taste  of 
Greece  lingered  in  its  refining  influence  under  the  reign  of  the 
Roman  emperors.  The  noblest  of  these  was  the  Coliseum,  an  ellip- 
tical amphitheatre,  with  its  diameters  620  and  513  feet,  having  an 
exterior  wall  elevated  to  the  height  of  157  feet,  adorned  with  four 
stages  of  pilasters,  rising  in  as  many  stories,  the  first  Doric,  the 
second  Ionic,  the  third  Corinthian,  and  the  fourth  Composite  quite  to 
the  top  of  the  surrounding  walls ;  furnished  within  with  seats  supported 
by  arcades  and  sloping  downward  from  the  giddy  height  of  the 
exterior  wall  to  the  elliptical  ring  of  the  arena  in  the  centre ;  which 
seats  would  accommodate  107,000  spectators. 

At  the  introduction  of  Christianity  a  new  modifying  influence 
began,  whose  eflfect,  though  slight  for  a  century,  gradually  became 
more  manifest,  until  under  Constantine  it  became  controlling  in  its 
sway.  The  new  religion,  requiring  men  to  meet  in  smaller  or  larger 
assemblies,  not  to  adore  the  deity  through  an  enshrined  image  and 
within  the  enclosure  of  that  shrine,  but  to  worship  an  everywhere 
present  God,  and  to  listen  to  the  teachings  of  His  word  by  its  ap- 
pointed expounders,  naturally  led  Christians  at  first  to  meet  any- 
where, according  as  convenience  ofiered  a  gathering  place.  At  first 
their  assemblies  were  small,  and  in  the  atrium  of  a  private  house; 
then,  as  their  own  numbers  and  their  hearers  who  were  not  Christians 
increased,  in  a  public  hall,  or  under  a  colonnade  such  as  the  Stoics 
frequented.  When  they  began  to  have  fixed  places  for  their  simple 
worship,  the  structure  least  costly  and  best  adapted  was  the  basilica 
in  which  the  Romans  were  wont  to  gather  for  popular  harangues  on 
secular  topics.  When  afterwards  the  religion  of  Christ  became  the 
State  religion,  and  temples  of  their  varied  deities,  alike  the  circular 
Pantheon  and  the  rectangular  temple  of  Jupiter,  were  devoted  to 
Christian  purposes.  Christian  Churches  naturally  took  either  one  of 
the  general  forms  of  which  these  now  consecrated  temples  were 
models.  The  special  consideration  of  the  leading  types  among  these 
forms,  all  of  which  grew  out  of  Roman  styles  of  architecture  demand 
a  new  chapter  for  their  development. 

Sect.  5.  Influence  of  the  Roman  Civil  Domination  on  the  Styles 
OF  Architecture  in  the  Roman  Provinces. 

Power  with  the  sword  has  less  influence  than  intellectual  supe- 
riority in  modifying  and  transforming  the  tastes  of  a  people.  The 
conqueror  himself  will  be  the  transformed  party  when  the  conquered 
is  the  master  mentally;  as  it  proved  with  conquering  Roman  and  the 

37  3  E 


434  ART   CRITICISM. 

conquered  Greek,  with  the  subjugating  Mohammedan  and  the  sub- 
ject Christian.  Rome  had  no  native  superior  skill  in  sculpture  or 
painting  to  transmit  to  other  nations.  She  had,  however,  an  archi- 
tectural genius  peculiarly  her  own ;  and  its  marks  are  in  our  age 
better  preserved  in  some  of  the  remote  and  retired  provincial  towns, 
in  their  day  little  thought  of,  than  in  the  relics  of  what  was  then 
called  "the  eternal  city."  This  influence  was  partly  the  result  of 
her  civil  power ;  which  extended  not  simply  to  the  east  and  south 
covering  Western  Asia  and  Northern  Africa,  where  the  Greek  con- 
queror had  preceded  them,  but  also  to  the  north  and  west  throughout 
all  Europe.  The  peculiar  Roman  stamp  on  provincial  architecture 
was  mainly  the  result  of  the  peculiar  notions  of  the  Romans  as  to  reli- 
gion ;  that  every  land  and  people  had  its  own  gods  and  its  religion, 
which  were  not  simply  the  best,  but  the  only  ones  for  them :  an  idea 
which  led  this  sagacious  as  well  as  powerful  people  not  only  to  tole- 
rate, but  even  to  adopt  in  each  new  country  they  conquered  the  social 
customs,  civil  institutions,  and  religious  superstitions  of  every  nation 
newly  subjugated;  doing  this  not  simply  from  motives  of  wise  policy 
and  principles  of  sound  philosophy,  but  from  genuine  allegiance 
to  truth  and  right. 

The  relics  of  Roman  architecture  found  in  the  provinces  show  no 
less  than  three  distinct  fields  in  which  that  people  were  enabled  to 
advance  on  the  old  ideas  that  prevailed  before  their  coming.  It  is 
instructive  to  observe  that  amid  the  hoary  and  long  before  stereo- 
typed civilization  of  Asia  and  Northern  Africa  it  was  utterly  impos- 
sible for  either  Grecian  or  Roman  art  to  introduce  any  of  its  methods. 
Not  a  Grecian  or  Roman  column  appears  in  any  of  the  temples  of 
Egypt  erected  by  the  Ptolemies  or  the  Caesars;  and  as  we  have 
observed,  the  only  impress  of  the  superior  genius  then  brought  into 
this  field  is  found  in  superior  finish  given  to  Egyptian  forms. 

In  Arabia  Petrsea,  Palestine  and  Syria,  however,  true  Roman  colum- 
nar decorations  are  met.  Though  the  pure  Greek  taste  would  allow 
no  mingling  of  styles,  and  therefore  as  it  could  not  compromise  could 
not  rule,  the  Roman  method  permitted  just  the  variety  found  in  these 
mentioned  relics.  The  Doric  and  Corinthian  pilasters,  capped  by 
the  flat  Egyptian  abacus  or  the  four-faced  slope  of  the  Egyptian 
pyramid,  as  well  as  the  circular  arch  so  frequent  at  Petra,  demon- 
strated what  history  attests  that  these  structures  were  perfected, 
though  not  begun  by  the  Roman  emperors.  The  Golden  gate-way 
on  the  east  of  the  temple  area  at  Jerusalem,  with  its  circular  arch 
and  Corinthian  pilasters,  and  also  the  tombs  in  the  Valley  of  Jeho- 


ARCHITECTURE   IN   THE   ROMAN   PROVINCES.  435 

shaphat  with  their  Ionic  pilasters  and  their  four-faced  and  conical 
pagoda-shaped  tops,  show  by  their  architectural  relics  as  plainly  as 
by  the  descriptions  given  by  Josephus  of  Herod's  temple,  whose 
peerless  elegance  drew  forth  ieven  Christ's  eulogy,'  that  these  struc- 
tures were  executed  by  Roman  artists  between  the  times  of  Herod 
the  Great  and  of  Adrian,  the  two  Roman  re-builders  of  Jerusalem. 
The  clear  imprint  of  history  stereotyped  on  architectural  monuments 
is  yet  more  impressive  at  Baalbeck ;  for  no  one  can  glance  a  moment 
at  the  long  range  of  Corinthian  columns  standing  there  upon  and 
amid  old  Asiatic  foundations,  or  even  can  examine  the  rudest  en- 
graving of  them,  without  being  assured  of  their  Roman  origin.  The 
old  past  of  Roman  elegance  in  architecture  lives  before  the  admiring 
traveler  as  on  the  spot  he  weighs  testimony  gathered  from  coins, 
from  the  pages  of  Josephus  and  of  Pliny  and  from  the  chronicles  of 
an  early  Christian  bishop  of  Antioch,  that  Baalbeck  under  the  Gre- 
cian name  of  Heliopolis  was  made  the  head  of  a  Roman  colony  by 
Julius  Csesar,  that  it  was  guarded  by  a  Roman  garrison  under 
Augustus,  and  that  by  Antonine  the  Pious,  at  the  era  when  the 
Roman  columnar  style  was  fixed,  a  magnificent  temple  to  Jupiter 
was  here  erected. 

Passing  from  Africa,  where  Roman  influence  in  architecture  was 
slight,  through  Asia  where  it  was  during  its  day  controlling,  we  find 
its  third  sphere  of  influence  in  Northern  and  Western  Europe.  As 
Rome  the  captor  had  received  the  refinement  of  Greece  when  that 
people  superior  in  culture  was  conquered,  so  when  she  conquered 
Barbarian  tribes  in  Spain,  Gaul,  Germany  and  Britain,  she  first  car- 
ried her  arts  with  her  to  these  people  as  vanquished  and  subject ; 
and  they  when  in  turn  they  became  Rome's  conquerors,  bore  her 
special  art,  that  of  architecture,  with  them  to  the  North.  We  shall 
find  that  even  in  distant  Britain,  the  remotest  and  most  isolated  of 
all  her  conquests,  Roman  ideas  in  architecture  took  such  early  and 
permanent  hold  of  the  popular  mind  that  not  only  did  the  Roman 
round  arch  become  from  the  first  a  favorite  feature  of  Saxon  secular 
architecture,  but  the  Saxon  people  as  early  as  the  Eighth  Century 
were  found  petitioning  their  ecclesiastical  authorities  to  have  their 
churches  built  "more  Romano,"  in  the  Roman  method. 


Mark  xiii.  1,  2. 


436  ART  CRITICISM. 


CHAPTER    V. 

SACRED   ARCHITECTURE,   AS   CONTROLLED   BY   THE  SPIRITUAL  WOR- 
SHIP AND  THE  PRACTICAL  CHARITY  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  FAITH. 

The  religion  of  Christ,  as  we  are  taught  by  its  great  exj^ounder  to 
the  nations  of  European  stock,  "is  the  wisdom  of  God  and  the 
power  of  God  unto  salvation"  for  mankind.  It  won  its  way,  it  con- 
quered the  world,  first  by  convincing  the  intellect  of  its  theoretic 
truth,  and  second  by  showing  in  men's  lives  its  practical  grace ;  the 
Greek,  after  much  thought  and  reluctant  surrendering  of  his  previous 
philosophies,  being  mastered  by  its  superior  "wisdom;"  while  the 
Roman,  though  long  hesitating  and  waiting  to  see  the  full  test  of  its 
strength,  at  length  availed  himself  of  its  all-subduing  "power." 
During  the  first  century  of  its  quiet  spread  there  were  "not  many," 
though  some,  of  the  "wise"  of  Greece  and  of  the  "mighty"  of  Rome 
that  hailed  its  advent ;  but  in  the  second  century  the  best  of  Grecian 
intellect  was  won  to  it ;  in  the  third  century  the  proudest  Romans 
acknowledged  its  claims;  and  early  in  the  fourth  century  it  was 
accepted  by  the  State  that  controlled  the  world  as  the  power  that 
was  to  rule  among  the  nations.  Of  this  series  of  general  facts  as  to 
the  spread  of  Christianity,  the  emptying  of  the  Schools  of  Alexan- 
dria, then  the  centre  of  Grecian  learning,  by  the  Christian  School  of 
Origen,  the  writings  of  such  men  as  Justin  the  Martyr,  the  alterna- 
tion of  a  patronizing  court  paid  to  the  adherents  of  the  Christian 
faith  and  of  bitter  opposition  arrayed  against  them  by  the  Roman 
emperors  from  Trajan  to  Constantine,  and  finally  the  edict  of  tolera- 
tion A.  D.  306  and  the  public  embracing  of  the  conquering  faith  by 
the  monarch  of  the  Roman  world  A.  D.  323,  are  sufficient  testimony. 
Among  the  marked  indications  of  the  early  influence  of  the  new 
faith,  however,  the  history  of  Christian  sacred  architecture  is  perhaps 
the  clearest ;  since  its  monuments  may  still  be  seen. 

Living  under  the  Roman  civil  sway,  and  proud  as  their  great 
apostle  even  was  of  the  claim,  "I  am  a  Roman  citizen,"  it  was 
natural  that  the  early  Christians  should  in  things  not  inconsistent 
with  their  religious  principles  follow  Roman  ideas.  The  Romans, 
as  we  have  seen,  not  only  tolerated  but  adopted  as  legitimate,  the 
religion  of  every  land  and  people  brought  under  their  sway,  allowing 
Paul  to  preach  in  his  own  hired  house  at  Rome,^  and  permitting 


'  Acts  xxviii.  30,  31. 


FEATURES  AND  ERAS  OP  CHRISTIAN  SACRED  EDIFICES.      437 

Christians  to  meet  for  religious  worship  in  any  place  they  chose. 
The  teaching  of  their  Master  that  it  was  not  in  Mt.  Gerizim  nor  at 
Jerusalem,  not  in  the  synagogue  nor  in  the  temple,  but  on  the  sea- 
shore or  the  mountain-side,  in  houses  for  public  or  private  uses,  that 
his  worship  was  to  be  maintained,  prepared  his  followers  to  adopt 
the  place  which  comfort  or  convenience  invited.  The  influx  of  men 
of  Grecian  taste,  at  a  later  era  into  the  Christian  Church,  reacting 
upon  Christ's  principle  that  the  magnificent  temple  where  the  thought- 
less would  gather  was  the  special  centre  for  his  Gospel  invitations 
and  the  world's  acceptance  of  them,  led  to  the  adoption  when  their 
pecuniary  resources  allowed  of  the  form  most  adapted  to  gatherings 
for  the  purpose  of  audience,  and  to  a  style  of  decoration  most  fitted 
to  draw  the  mind  of  the  unimpressible  into  the  channel  most  open  to 
the  flow  of  gospel  sentiment. 

The  two  main  characteristics  of  sacred  architecture  as  it  gradually 
assumed  fixed  form  under  the  influences  mentioned,  were  the  securing 
of  breadth  of  groundplot  to  give  space  for  large  audiences ;  and  the 
attaining  of  loftiness  of  elevation  to  make  the  place  of  worship  con- 
spire to  the  exalted  sentiment  of  the  Christian  faith.  The  styles  of  art 
prevailing  in  the  three  distinct  regions  where  Christianity  had  its  early 
seat,  led  to  three  preferred  styles  of  Church  Architecture;  the  Koman- 
esque  dominant  in  Rome,  Italy,  and  Southern  Europe;  the  Byzantine 
favorite  at  Constantinople,  or  old  Byzantium,  and  in  the  East;  and  the 
Gothic  prevalent  in  Northern  and  Western  Europe,  the  region  whence 
the  Goths  poured  down  upon  Rome.  In  respect  to  time,  Christian 
scholarship  has  suggested  a  division  of  the  history  of  Sacred  Archi- 
tecture into  three  eras ;  first,  the  classical  era,  the  age  prior  to  Con- 
stantine  from  A.  D.  100  to  A.-  D.  323,  during  which  a  rigid  copying 
of  old  forms  without  special  adaptation  to  new  ideas  in  art  proper 
prevailed ;  second,  the  age  of  the  Romanesque  proper  and  of  the  By- 
zantine, from  A.  D.  323  to  A.  D.  692,  during  which  the  rivalries  of 
the  Eastern  and  Western  Empire  stimulated  a  rivalry  for  architec- 
tural supremacy  in  the  two  branches  of  the  Christian  Church, 
which  culminated  in  the  supreme  excellence  of  the  Byzantine  style 
under  Justinian  A.  D.  527  to  A.  D.  565 ;  and  third,  the  age  of  the 
Gothic  from  A.  D.  692  to  A.  D.  1400,  beginning  with  the  settlement 
of  the  Ostrogoths  in  Northern  Italy,  culminating  in  Charlemagne's 
friendly  rivalry  with  Haroun  el-Rashid  the  Muhammedan  Solomon 
in  science  and  art,  in  institutions  of  learning  and  in  every  species  of 
refinement,  and  extending  to,  though  not  ending  with  the  revived 
Grecian  of  the  architects  of  Venice,  Pisa  and  Florence,  perfected  by 


438  ART  CRITICISM. 

Michel  Angelo  in  the  incomparable  Church  of  St.  Peter's  at  Eome. 
In  the  full  survey  of  these  three  leading  types,  there  will  necessarily 
be  added  a  survey  of  the  Saracenic  or  Muhammedan  sacred  archi- 
tecture ;  of  the  revived  classic  as  illustrated  in  such  structures  as  St. 
Peter's  of  Rome,  and  St.  Paul's  of  London ;  and  of  the  multiform  and 
varied  styles  introduced  by  the  spirit  of  individual  freedom  and  of 
Church  independence  which  originated  in  the  period  of  the  Reforma- 
tion of  Religion  in  Northern  and  Western  Europe. 

Sect.  1.  The  Romanesque  Style  of  Church  Architecture;  founded  on 
that  of  the  eoman  basilica. 

The  word  Romanesque,  though  like  other  words  familiar  in  the 
history  of  art,  as  grotesque  and  Arabesque,  having  a  French  termi- 
nation, is  not  French  in  original  application.  These  words,  origi- 
nating in  the  Latin,  had  an  Italian  and  even  a  Grecian  and  Oriental 
application  before  they  passed  through  the  medium  of  the  French 
tongue  into  our  English  vernacular.  As  the  modern  Greek  lan- 
guage, though  coming  back  now  to  the  purity  of  the  ancient  classic 
standards,  was  half  a  century  ago  called  Romaique  from  the  specially 
modifying  influence  which  Roman  conquest  and  succeeding  Italian 
supremacy  had  for  ages  exerted  upon  the  spoken  tongue  of  old 
Greece,  so  the  Roman  cast  given  to  the  earliest  style  of  archi- 
tecture which  became  fixed  as  a  model  for  Christian  sanctuaries,  was 
called  in  very  early  histories  of  Christian  art  Romanesque,  to  dis- 
tinguish it  from  later  fixed  and  finished  styles. 

As  already  intimated,  the  Roman  basilica,  at  first  the  atrium  or 
principal  entrance  hall  of  the  Roman  private  mansion,  having  a 
central  elevation  of  two  stories  into  which  rooms  on  both  sides  and 
of  two  stories  looked,  was  a  natural  gathering  place  of  the  early 
Christians  for  their  reading  and  hearing  of  the  word  of  religious 
truth ;  as  also  it  had  been  the  Roman  patrician's  audience  hall  for 
address  to  those  whom  he  would  influence  on  any  topic  of  the  day. 
As  this  private  audience  room  of  the  Roman  patricians  grew  into  the 
dimensions  of  the  hall  called  in  the  Greek  basilicon,  having  a  central 
portion  two  stories  high,  of  any  length  desired,  and  of  a  breadth 
thirty  feet  or  more,  such  as  a  self-supporting  roof  would  allow,  while 
added  wings  gave  an  entire  groundplot  of  triple  width,  so  it 
was  natural  that  the  first  Christian  sanctuaries  should  take  this  sim- 
plest and  cheapest  of  all  possible  covered  structures  adapted  to 
accommodate  a  large  auditory.  This  styie,  modified  in  form  to 
express  a  Christian  idea,  and  having  added  decorations  more  or  less 


THE   BASILICA   OR   ROMANESQUE   STYLE.  439 

elaborate,  as  dictated  by  the  art-spirit  of  succeeding  ages,  became 
the  fixed  style  of  sacred  architecture  denominated  Romanesque. 

The  remaining  Churches  of  the  old  order  now  found  in  Italian 
cities,  and  especially  the  permanent  prevalence  of  the  main  features 
of  this  style  as  continued  in  Northern  Italy  to  this  day,  make  the 
statement  of  its  chief  characteristics  very  easy.  In  the  earlier 
Churches,  the  main  roof  had  a  slope  of  little  more  than  twenty 
degrees,  and  the  central  walls  had  a  very  slight  elevation  above 
the  shed  roof  of  the  wings;  while  the  exterior  was  perfectly  un- 
adorned. Proceeding  from  Rome  northward,  the  slope  of  the  roof 
became  steeper,  as  seen  in  the  modification  of  the  Romanesque  some- 
times called  the  Lombard  style ;  while  still  farther  north,  under  the 
Alps,  the  roof-pitch  exceeded  forty-five  degrees,  and  became  the  pre- 
cursor of  the  wedge-shaped  roof  of  the  Gothic  style.  As  taste  and 
wealth  together  suggested  and  allowed,  the  elevation  of  the  central 
portion  over  the  side  wings  became  greater  to  give  superior  elevation ; 
when  to  relieve  the  broken  roof-lines  of  the  front  gable  which  de- 
parted so  far  from  the  low  unbroken  Grecian  slope,  the  unseemly 
obtuse  angle  formed  between  the  wall  of  the  upper  story  and  the 
roof  of  the  wing  was  filled  in  with  a  shield  presenting  the  form  of  an 
immense  double  scroll.  The  cities  of  Northern  Italy  abound  in 
illustrations  of  this  method  of  improving  the  fagade  of  the  old  Ro- 
manesque or  Basilica  Churches. 

The  most  important  modification  of  the  Basilica  suggested  by 
Christian  sentiment,  was  the  giving  to  the  groundplot  the  form  of 
the  so-called  Roman  cross.  In  the  cross  proper,  or  the  main  post 
with  its  cross-beam  or  tree  to  which  the  victim  was  nailed,  the  longer 
portion  of  the  post  against  which  the  body  and  legs  hung,  was  below, 
and  the  shorter,  or  that  against  which  the  head  rested,  was  above  the 
cross-beam;  while  the  length  of  the  beam  itself,  or  cross-tree,  was 
adapted  for  the  extension  and  spreading  of  the  arms.  In  sculptural 
and  architectural  representations,  art  naturally  fixed  a  rule  of  defi- 
nite proportions  for  the  length  of  these  parts ;  this  proportion  in  the 
groundplot  of  a  Roman  Church  being  an  equal  measure  for  the 
head  and  the  two  arms  of  the  cross,  and  two  lengths  of  that  common 
measure  for  its  foot.  The  fixing  of  this  form  for  the  groundplot  of 
sacred  edifices,  suggested  doubtless  at  first  by  individual  Christian 
sentiment,  was  established  by  a  canon  in  those  early  ordinances  called 
the  "Apostolic  Constitutions."  By  the  same  ordinance  Church 
edifices  were  to  face  the  east;  a  regulation  which  indicates  an  Orien- 
tal as  well  as  a  Roman,  a  Magian  rather  than  a  Mosaic  idea.     As 


440  ART  CRITICISM. 

was  natural,  this  form  of  groundplot,  requiring  a  cross  section  wliicli 
interfered  with  the  unity  that  could  be  maintained  in  the  true 
basilica  with  its  side  wings,  led  to  a  gradual  contraction  in  the 
breadth  of  the  projecting  wings;  until  in  the  Gothic  style  they  were 
virtually  lost  in  the  buttress.  The  figure  of  the  Church,  as  that  of 
Noah's  ark,  hence  of  a  ship,  suggested  the  designation  of  nave,  from 
the  Latin  navis,  for  the  longer  portion  or  foot  of  the  cross  which  was 
the  body  of  the  Church  occupied  by  the  people ;  the  upper  portion 
occupied  by  the  choir  and  altar  for  services,  Avas  called  the  choir; 
and  the  two  arms  of  the  cross-section,  usually  filled  with  side  chapels, 
were  named  the  transept,  or  cross-hedge,  from  the  screen  wall  that 
formed  the  ordinary  line  of  separation. 

The  number  and  sumptuousness  of  the  early  Christian  Churches  is 
indirectly  brought  to  light  in  scattered  historical  allusions.  Tertul- 
lian,  a  polished  Christian  writer  of  the  Second  Century,  mentions 
many  and  superb  Church  edifices,  which  as  works  of  art  won  Greeks 
from  their  own  waning  religious  systems  to  the  Christian  faith.  In 
the  days  of  Diocletian,  a  magnificent  Christian  Sanctuary  is  referred 
to  as  standing  very  nigh  the  emperor's  palace  in  Nicomedia,  and 
rivaling  it  in  architectural  merit.  Before  Constantine's  accession, 
in  the  early  part  of  the  Fourth  Century,  there  were  no  less  than 
forty  Church  edifices  at  Rome  which  claimed  esteem  for  the  credii 
they  brought  to  Christian  art.  The  noble  memorials  of  the  old 
Basilica  or  Romanesque  style,  which  may  yet  be  studied  in  Pisa, 
in  Florence,  and  even  in  Rome,  entering  as  a  main  feature  into  th( 
Cathedrals  of  the  two  former  cities,  make  this  a  noble  as  well  as  i 
natural  and  therefore  primitive  style  of  sacred  architecture. 

Sect.  2.  The  Byzantine  Style  of  Church  Architecture  ;  having  the 
Greek  Cross  for  its  groundplot,  and  the  Koman  Dome  for  its 
elevation. 

The  Romanesque,  founded  on  the  Basilica  style,  had  given  onb 
one  of  the  two  ideas  sought  by  the  Roman  architect  and  peculiarly 
accordant  with  Christian  ideas ;  it  furnished  breadth  for  the  gathered 
assembly,  but  not  the  elevation  suggested  by  the  object  of  their 
gathering.  In  the  Roman  Pantheon  this  second  idea  was  embodied 
in  the  dome.  This  feature  traveled  eastward  with  Constantine  when 
he  transferred  the  seat  of  Empire  to  the  new  city  on  the  Bosphorus, 
which  he  made  to  bear  his  name ;  and  becoming  an  avowed  adherent 
of  the  Christian  faith  he  made  the  dome  more  glorious  than  it  had 


EARLY  BYZANTINE;   ST.  SOPHIA  AT  CONSTANTINOPLE.      441 

been  before  conceived  both  in  sentiment  and  in  form  in  the  Church 
edifices  of  the  Eastern  world  to  which  it  became  consecrated. 

The  circular  dome,  like  the  arch,  had  an  outward  thrust  on  all 
sides  at  its  base ;  to  meet  which,  counterpoising  abutments  must  be 
found  in  the  structure  of  the  edifice  which  it  crowned.  The  Koman 
architect  had  accomplished  this  in  the  Pantheon  by  the  extreme 
thickness  and  mere  massiveness  of  the  circular  walls.  The  Christian 
mind,  clinging  to  the  idea  of  the  cross,  suggested  to  the  architect  as 
the  best  possible  abutment  for  the  enormous  pressure  and  thrust  of 
the  dome,  the  eight  walls  meeting  in  four  right  angles  at  the  inter- 
section of  the  nave  and  transept.  The  Greek  idea  of  symmetry  led 
to  the  suggestion  that  each  of  the  concentring  arms  of  this  cross  thus 
supporting  the  dome  should  be  of  the  same  measure ;  the  nave  in  the 
Byzantine  Church,  founded  on  the  Greek  cross,  being  no  longer  than 
the  choir  or  the  arms  of  the  transept. 

The  first  Christian  emperor  Constantino  seems  to  have  been  the 
originator  of  this  style.  Certainly  it  was  not  seen  in  Rome,  or  in  the 
Western  part  of  the  Empire  for  centuries  after  his  time ;  while  from 
the  era  of  the  founding  of  Constantinople,  this  style  of  sacred  archi- 
tecture has  prevailed  in  all  lands  where  the  Eastern  Church  and 
Muhammedanism  have  sway.  Constantino  himself  employed  it  at 
Constantinople,  and  his  mother  Helena  in  Palestine.  The  noblest 
monuments  of  this  style  now  existing  belong  to  the  era  of  its  culmi- 
nation under  the  Emperor  Justinian  nearly  two  hundred  years  later. 
One  of  these  is  the  mosque  now  called  el-Aksa  on  the  south  of  the 
temple  area  at  Jerusalem ;  a  structure  280  by  190  feet,  reared  and 
dedicated  to  Sophia,  or  Wisdom,  by  Justinian,  about  A.  D.  529; 
preserved  by  the  Muhammedan  conqueror  of  the  city  about  A.  D. 
685,  and  consecrated  as  a  Muhammedan  mosque;  and  from  that 
era  through  the  centuries  of  the  Crusades  and  of  the  subsequent 
Moslem  sway  reverenced  to  this  day  alike  by  Christian  and  Mu- 
hammedan. 

The  most  magnificent  monument,  however,  of  this  style  of  art  is 
the  structure  called  now  the  mosque  of  St.  Sophia  at  Constantinople. 
The  original  edifice,  reared  on  the  spot  by  Constantino  A.  D.  325, 
being  too  mean  for  the  spirit  of  Justinian  the  great  Church  builder, 

as  replaced  by  a  structure  whose  magnificence  led  that  monarch 

hen  it  was  completed  to  exclaim  Nenihesa  se  Salomon,  "  I  have  sur- 
passed thee,  Solomon."  Consecrated  as  a  Christian  Church  A.  D. 
627,  it  was  at  the  taking  of  Constantinople  by  the  Turks  A.  D.  1453, 
made  a  Muhammedan  mosque.     Built  in  the  form  of  the  Greek 


442  AET   CRITICISM. 

cross,  the  entire  length  of  each  section  is  269  feet,  and  their  breadth 
143  feet.  The  diameter  of  the  dome  is  115  feet  at  the  base,  and  its 
apex  180  feet  above  the  floor,  though  the  altitude  of  the  dome  is 
only  one-sixth  of  its  diameter  at  the  base.  The  edifice  is  of  brick, 
ceiled  inside  with  marble,  and  the  floor  is  inlaid  with  variegated 
marble  tesserae.  Around  the  walls  within  runs  a  gallery  supported 
by  columns  famed  through  the  world  for  their  intrinsic  richness 
and  hallowed  associations.  The  supports  of  the  gallery  on  the 
main  floor  are  forty  columns ;  eight  of  which  are  of  white  por- 
phyry from  the  Temple  of  the  Sun  at  Rome  built  by  Aurelian; 
eight  others  of  beautiful  green  granite  or  serpentine,  are  from  the 
renowned  Temple  of  Diana  at  Ephesus ;  while  the  added  twenty-four 
are  of  red  Egyptian  granite.  The  whole  together,  the  Tehel  Sutun 
or  "Forty  Columns,"  have  in  the  Persian  a  mystic  significance; 
while  the  entire  number  in  the  interior  of  the  edifice,  including  sixty 
in  the  gallery  yet  above,  four  of  medium  size  and  three  small  ones 
above  the  doors,  making  in  all  one  hundred  and  seven,  have  in  the 
Arabic  a  fabled  perfection  as  supports  of  the  House  of  Wisdom. 
The  interior  of  the  dome  was  carved  and  painted  in  the  richest  art 
of  the  time  of  its  erection  with  Christian  themes;  all  of  which  was 
covered  with  stucco  by  the  Muhammedan  proprietors,  as  was  revealed 
by  the  fall  of  a  portion  of  this  stucco  during  the  process  of  restoring 
the  interior  in  1847,  when  the  hidden  Christian  Saints  were  seen 
staring  upon  their  startled  rejecters. 

A  third  specimen  of  this  same  style  of  architecture,  most  interest- 
ing to  the  Christian  student,  is  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre,  at 
Jerusalem.  Well  established  historical,  traditional,  and  topographi- 
cal facts,  conspire  to  illustrate  its  history.  Christ  was  crucified  on  a 
rock  jutting  out  from  the  western  side  of  the  rib  of  the  northern 
mountain  slope  called  Millo  by  the  Hebrews,  and  Akra,  or  promon- 
tory by  the  Greeks ;  that  jutting  rock  called  Golgotha  in  the  He- 
brew, cranion  in  the  Greek,  calvariwn  in  Latin,  and  skull  in  English, 
being  a  skull-shaped  protuberance  from  this  rocky  rib  just  north  of 
the  bold  round  head  called  Zion,  which  terminates  the  northern 
mountain  slope  just  mentioned.  In  the  enclosed  basin  formed  at 
the  foot  of  the  northern  side  of  Zion,  and  of  the  western  slope  of 
Akra,  was  a  "  garden,"  into  which  on  the  east  the  rock  "  Golgotha" 
jutted.  Into  the  rocky  slope  on  the  opposite  side  of  this  small 
garden  a  new  tomb  was  cut;  and  as  at  Christ's  day  the  city  wall  ran 
along  the  western  brow  of  Akra,  meeting  at  right  angles  the  wall  on 
the  northern  slope  of  Zion,  just  above  the  line  where  an  enemy  in 


i 


THE   CHURCH   OF  THE   HOLY   SEPULCHRE.  443 

approaching  would  be  obliged  to  begin  an  ascent,  the  garden,  with 
the  rock  Golgotha  and  the  tomb,  were  outside  of  the  city.  After 
Christ's  crucifixion  and  entombment,  this  spot  was  kept  in  memory 
by  the  apostle  James  and  the  Church  of  Jerusalem,  until  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  city  by  Titus  drove  them  over  the  Jordan.  The  northern 
wall  of  Zion,  left  by  Titus  on  the  south  of  the  garden  as  barracks 
for  the  Roman  garrison,  fixed  its  landmarks  during  about  seventy 
succeeding  years;  till  Hadrian  rebuilt  the  city,  and  seeking  to  con- 
quer Jewish  and  Christian  prejudices  by  crushing  them,  reared  a 
temple  to  Jupiter  on  the  site  of  Solomon's  temple,  and  a  shrine  to 
Venus  over  the  tomb  of  Jesus.  Less  than  two  centuries  later, 
Helena,  the  Christian  empress,  removed  the  desecrating  shrines,  and, 
uncovering  the  imperishable  rock  on  which  Jesus  suffered  and  the 
cave  in  which  he  was  entombed,  reared  a  small  chapel,  probably  of 
Byzantine  form,  over  the  tomb,  and  a  large  Basilica  on  Golgotha ; 
and  she  covered  the  whole  area  of  the  intervening  garden  with  an  open 
court  yard,  paved  with  mosaics,  and  enclosed  by  colonnades  on  the 
north,  west  and  south,  and  by  the  Basilica  on  the  east.  Nearly 
three  hundred  years  later,  A.  D.  614,  about  six  years  after  Muham- 
med's  first  efforts  at  conquest,  and  sixty  years  before  the  Muhamme- 
dan  capture  of  Jerusalem,  Chosroes  II.,  a  Persian  monarch,  took  the 
city,  and  destroyed  the  chapel  and  basilica  by  fire ;  when,  after  his 
retreat,  they  were  rebuilt  again  by  Modestus,  the  Christian  patriarch, 
after  the  style  of  those  reared  by  Helena.  When  the  Muhammedan 
Caliph  Omar  took  the  city,  A.  D.  686,  these  structures  were  undis- 
turbed; until  in  A.  D.  1010,  the  Khalif  el-Hakim,  caused  them  to 
be  razed  to  the  ground.  Ten  years  after  the  death  of  this  monster, 
or  in  A.  D.  1021,  permission  was  given  by  the  Muhammedan 
rulers  to  restore  the  edifices  on  the  two  sacred  spots ;  when  an  entire 
transition  of  sentiment  as  to  the  comparative  reverence  due  to  the 
place  of  crucifixion  and  of  burial,  as  well  as  a  triumph  of  Byzantine 
over  Roman  art  manifested  itself.  Instead  of  the  Roman  Basilica 
over  Golgotha,  a  Byzantine  Church,  with  a  circular  dome,  was  built 
over  the  tomb,  while  over  Golgotha  a  small  chapel  only  was  reared. 
This  Church,  finished  A.  D.  1048,  was  injured  and  virtually  destroyed 
during  the  assaults  of  the  first  Crusaders ;  who  after  their  conquest 
erected  A.  D.  1099,  the  immense  Byzantine  structure  now  standing. 
This  edifice,  about  300  feet  long,  by  200  wide,  covers  the  entire  garden, 
embracing  beneath  its  broad  dome  no  less  than  thirteen  chapels; 
the  chief  of  which  are  those  reared  over  Golgotha  and  the  tomb, 
t  is  an  interesting  illustration  of  the  power  of  local  tradition,  whose 


444  ART   CRITICISM. 

influence  every  traveler  from  all  Christian  lands  now  realizes,  that 
the  Byzantine  of  the  east  was  the  preferred  and  controlling  form 
in  the  sacred  structures  reared  by  Western  Christians  at  Jerusalem, 
while  these  same  builders  went  home  to  rear  Churches  in  the  style 
of  their  own  Gothic  ancestry  among  their  native  mountains. 

Sect.  3.  The  Gothic  Style  of  Church  Architectuee  ;  characterized 

BY    steepness    of    ROOF  WITH    BRACING    BUTTRESSES,    AND    BY    POINTED 
WINDOWS  AND  SPIRES  FOR  ORNAMENT. 

While  the  Byzantine  style  was  rising  in  the  East  to  such  magnifi- 
cence, the  Roman  Basilica  even  in  its  Italian  home,  was  declining  in 
worth  and  in  favor ;  two  causes  conspiring  to  produce  this  result.  First, 
genius  was  attracted  to  the  new  capital,  and  for  a  season  art  at  Rome 
was  left  to  inferior  hands.  Second,  and  as  the  main  influence,  a  new 
race  of  men,  the  Goths,  independent  in  sentiment  and  taste,  but  pre- 
pared to  take  on  the  polish  which  the  treasures  of  the  past  in  art 
and  science  are  always  ready  to  afford,  had  come  pouring  over  the 
Alps,  swarming  through  the  plains  of  Northern  Italy,  reaching  and 
overpowering  the  old  Roman  in  the  centre  which  had  been  vainly 
called  the  "Eternal  City;"  and  with  the  rapid  acquisition  which 
novelty  inspires,  these  new  lords,  amid  Roman  accumulations  in  art 
took  on  a  culture  which  they  transferred  and  grafted  upon  their 
native  style  of  architecture :  as  they  also  did  in  respect  to  their  laws. 
Though  they  failed  to  introduce  Gothic  architecture  into  Italy  they 
arrested  the  spread  of  the  Roman  style  northward. 

In  the  fertile  valleys  of  Piedmont  and  Switzerland,  upon  any  road 
by  which  the  traveler  crosses  the  Alps  to  France  or  Germany,  the 
style  of  roof  on  every  cottage  and  even  stable  becomes  a  peculiarity 
worthy  of  study.  Here  there  is  no  longer  the  flat  promenade  of  the 
Egyptian  temple  on  which  no  rain  fell ;  nor  the  gentle  slope  of  the 
graceful  Grecian  gable  fitted  for  the  flow  of  a  mild  spring  shower; 
nor  even  the  steeper  pitch  of  the  straight  basilica  or  curved  dome, 
necessary  for  winter  rains  at  Rome.  Neither  of  these  could  cut  and 
throw  oflT  the  deluge  of  snow  falling  at  the  Mountain's  foot,  or  the 
avalanche  slipping  from  its  sides.  A  -style  of  knife-blade  roof,  as 
universal  as  the  short  petticoat  skirts  of  the  mountain  women,  and 
as  unchanging  as  the  everlasting  hills  themselves,  from  being  a  neces- 
sity became  a  controlling  fashion.  Upon  this  idea  of  a  steep  roof  the 
exterior  form  of  Gothic  architecture  is  manifestly  founded;  while,  as 
we  shall  see,  its  interior  decoration  derives  its  model  from  the  inter- 
twining of  the  arching  boughs  of  forest  trees. 


THE  SWISS  ROOF  THE  TYPE  OF  GOTHIC  ARCHITECTURE.     445 

A  series  of  pencil  sketches  may  illustrate  to  the  eye  of  a  child 
what  the  student  of  art  traces  in  the  structures  of  men  of  different 
ages  and  nations  as  the  principle  of  the  main  feature  determining 
the  details  of  Gothic  architecture.  A  single  beam  stretching  from 
one  to  the  other  of  two  walls  pictures  the  idea  of  the  Egyptian  roof; 
two  beams  forming  an  obtuse  angle  above,  and  supported  not  simply 
by  two  outside,  but  also  by  several  intervening  walls,  gives  the  Gre- 
cian gable ;  a  single  cross-beam  running  from  wall  to  wall,  as  in  the 
Egyptian  temple,  either  surmounted  by  two  equal  beams  meeting  in 
a  right  angle  above  and  supported  by  being  morticed  into  the  first  or 
horizontal  beam,  or  an  arch  thrown  over  in  a  semicircle  in  which  the 
right  angle  mentioned  could  be  inscribed,  presents  the  Roman  apex; 
while  two  long  beams,  meeting  far  above  the  walls  in  an  acute  angle, 
and  supported  by  bracing  ties  within  and  buttresses  without,  give  the 
native  type  of  the  Gothic  lancet  peak.  While  thus  the  simple  sharp- 
ening of  the  angle  of  the  roof-slant  gives  the  stages  of  transition  from 
the  flat  platform-roof  appropriate  to  the  level  river  bottom-lands  of 
Egypt  and  Asia,  to  the  sharp  wedge-shape  prevalent  in  the  moun- 
tains of  Europe,  the  passage  from  the  broad  wings  of  the  Roman 
Basilica  to  the  narrow  buttresses  of  the  Gothic  is  equally  manifest  in 
the  intermediate  Lombard. 

The  external  and  internal  decorations  of  the  plain  Swiss  walls  and 

sharp  roof  have  made  the  Gothic  a  style  of  architecture.     The  first 

of   these   added   auxiliaries   were   naturally   the   buttresses    taking 

the  place  of  the  disappearing  wings;  necessarily  introduced  to  resist 

the  outward  thrust  of  a  steep  roof  on  a  building  broad  enough  for 

public  gatherings ;  hence  made  thickest  at  bottom  and  having  regular 

juts   inwards,  giving  less  thickness  towards  the  top.     Next,  as  a 

relief  to  the  plain  fronts,  and  at  the  same  time  as  an  emblem  like  the 

Egyptian  obelisk  of  a  spiritual  idea,  the  single  tower  of  entrance  with 

a  tall  spire  rising  above,  having  inward  juts  like  those  of  the  but- 

sses,  and  a  steep  upward  slope  like  that  of  the  roof,  was  reared 

fore  the  Church ;  varying  taste  sometimes  demanding  two  towers 

owing  the  roof-peak  in  the  centre,  instead  of  the  one  which  hid  it. 

et  again,  the  naked  eaves,"  specially  exposed  where  a  single  tower 

se  in  front,  were  relieved  by  an  ornamented  parapet ;  upon  which 

,t  regular  stages,  and  particularly  at  the  angles  of  intersection  in  the 

of  demanded   by  the   cross-shaped   groundplot,  pinnacles,  which 

ere  miniatures  of  the  spire,  were  reared ;  while  the  upper  points  of 

oth  spires  and  pinnacles  were  capped  either  by  a  plain  cross,  by 

elaborate  vase-shaped  finials,  or,  as  in  the  Cathedral  of  Milan,  by 


446  ART  CRITICISM. 

statues.  Finally  the  windows,  whose  tops  in  the  Roman  Church 
were  circular,  in  harmony  with  the  right  angle  of  the  roof  above 
them,  took  in  the  Gothic  Church  the  form  of  the  pointed  arch; 
increasing  in  narrowness  and  sharpness  with  the  steepness  of  the 
roof,  and  reaching  their  acme  in  the  "lancet"  window,  so  called  from 
its  spear-like  apex. 

The  suggestion  of  Warburton,  so  often  repeated,  that  the  idea  of 
Gothic  architecture  was  derived  from  the  intertwining  of  the  boughs 
of  forest  trees  forming  natural  arches,  pointed  and  concentric,  applies 
rather  to  the  interior  than  to  the  exterior  of  the  Gothic  structure. 
When  four  forest  trees  stand  near  each  other,  their  interlocking 
boughs  form  four  curved  beams,  meeting  at  an  apex,  with  pendants 
of  leaf,  flower  and  fruit  clusters  hanging  underneath ;  the  perfect  fac- 
simile of  the  groined  arches  of  the  Gothic  Cathedral.  The  pointed 
arch  itself,  the  internal  as  well  as  external  feature  of  windows  and 
door-ways,  may  have  been  suggested  by  this  same  interlocking  of 
crossing  boughs ;  while,  however,  the  Saracens  seem  to  have  borrowed 
the  same  idea  from  the  overlapping  of  two  semicircular  arches  in  the 
Roman  arcades ;  when  as  the  foot  of  one  arch  stood  at  the  centre  of 
another  arch,  their  circles  cut  each  other  at  acute  angles,  forming 
between  their  crossing  arcs  a  pointed  arch.  The  clustered  columns 
employed  as  interior  supports  both  to  the  roof  and  the  gallery,  were 
borrowed  from  shrub-clumps;  as  the  lotus-stalk,  with  its  bud  and 
flower,  either  single  or  clustered,  was  the  type  of  Egyptian  columnar 
architecture ;  as,  too,  according  to  Vitruvius'  statement  the  tree  trunk 
was  the  model  of  early  Greek  columns.  In  the  later  periods  of  the 
improved  Gothic,  a  re-entering  curved  head  was  added  to  the  arch, 
giving  its  summit  the  shape  of  a  bulb,  or  mitre,  sometimes  called 
trefoil,  as  it  resembled  the  union  of  three  leaves  lying  upon  each 
other ;  while  a  second  re-entering  curve  was  added  yet  below,  giving 
the  head  the  shape  of  an  acorn,  sometimes  called  dnqfoil,  from  its 
resemblance  to  five  leaves  united. 

In  tracing  the  history  of  Gothic  architecture  we  shall  find  that 
southward  it  never  penetrated  farther  than  Milan,  the  most  northerly  ^ 
of  the  great  Italian  cities;  whose  Cathedral,  though  thoroughly 
Gothic  in  external  tracery  and  pinnacles,  is  truly  Grecian  in  its  win- 
dow-caps and  in  the  statues  tipping  its  pinnacles ;  showing  that  while 
the  Gothic  had  no  power  to  supplant  the  earlier  forms  in  their  own  home 
where  art  was  already  cultured,  there  was  a  point  where  classic 
forms  could  meet  and  blend  with  Gothic  ideas,  as  Goths  and  Romans 
likewise  met,  and  became  a  harmonious  people.    Working  northward, 


THREE  STAGES,   OR   ORDERS   OF   GOTHIC.  447 

however,  the  Gothic  spiyes  began  to  rise  far  beyond  the  most  distant 
view  of  the  Alps,  pervading  Switzerland,  Germany,  France  and  Eng- 
land. It  is  perhaps  in  the  latter  country  that  the  succeeding  eras  in 
the  advance  of  this  style  can  be  best  traced. 

There  are  properly  three  stages  in  the  successive  modifications  of 
Gothic  architecture;  and  the  best  index  by  which  to  distinguish 
them  is  the  measure  of  the  angle  at  the  apex  of  a  triangle  inscribed 
within  the  arch  which  surmounts  the  Gothic  window.  In  the  semi- 
circular Roman  arch  that  angle  is,  of  course,  a  right  angle,  or  one 
of  90°  ;  in  the  pure  Gothic  it  is  the  angle  of  an  equilateral  triangle, 
or  60° ;  while  in  the  pointed  Gothic  it  is  an  acute  angle  of  less  than 
60°,  and  in  the  Tudor  Gothic  an  obtuse  angle,  or  one  of  more  than 
90°.  From  the  fact  that  the  first  of  these  was  plain  and  robust,  the 
second  more  adorned  yet  chaste  and  slender,  though  not  fragile,  while 
the  third  was  overloaded  with  ornaments  and  delicate  even  to  frail- 
ness in  its  altitude,  Dallaway  has  likened  the  three  styles  to  the  three 
Grecian  orders ;  making  the  last,  however,  to  partake  of  the  character 
of  the  over-decorated  Roman  Composite.  His  words  are,  "  It  may 
not  be  a  mere  fanciful  analogy  if  the  Grecian  and  Gothic  styles  were 
allowed  to  admit  of  a  comparison;  as  the  Doric  with  Norman;  the 
Ionic  or  Corinthian  with  pure  and  decorated  Gothic;  and  the  Com- 
posite with  the  florid  Gothic  and  subsequent  variety  introduced  in 
the  Tudor  age." 

The  earliest  style  of  Gothic,  as  introduced  into  France  and  Eng- 
land, was  the  "pointed,"  called  in  its  extreme  the  "lancet."  It  was 
the  style  most  true  to  its  original  type,  the  arch  of  a  window  cut 
under  the  sharp  roof  of  a  Swiss  cottage;  while  it  w^as  the  natural 
opposite  of  the  Roman  circular  arch  which  had  preceded  it  among  the 
conquered  Saxons,  Germans  and  Franks.  The  pointed  Gt)thic  was 
introduced  into  both  England  and  France  under  Stephen,  the  last  of 
the  Norman  line  of  English  sovereigns,  about  A.  D.  1150,  or  a  cen- 
tury after  the  Norman  sway  had  begun ;  and  it  prevailed  about  a 
I  century  to  A.  D.  1240.  It  banished  the  semicircular  Roman  and 
lemielliptical  Norman  arch ;  the  side  walls  were  made  thick  to  resist 
Kie  thrust  of  the  roof;  and  the  front  wall,  having  a  proportionate 
ihickness  made  the  entrance  seem  a  deep  cave-like  recess.  The  door 
was  very  low,  requiring  worshippers  when  entering  to  bow  as  if  in 
Ipverence  to  the  inner  sanctuary ;  the  two  side  windows  of  the  front 
■rere  very  narrow,  and  called  in  the  Italian  lanceola,  or  lancet; 
while  the  window  above  the  door  was  very  much  wider.  The  pin- 
nacles already  introduced  into  the  Norman  were  repeated  in  the 


448  ART   CRITICISM. 

early  Gothic;  while  also,  about  A.  D.  1200,  a  plain  moulding  around 
the  arches  began  to  be  employed.  The  Cathedrals  of  Bayeux  and 
Evreux,  in  old  Normandy,  together  with  many  of  less  note,  the 
Cathedral  of  Rheims,  the  Churches  of  St.  Denis  and  St.  Nicasius  at 
Amicus,  the  Abbey  of  Fecamp,  and  Saint's  Chapel  at  Paris,  are  cited 
as  specimens  of  this  early  Gothic. 

The  second  style,  or  pure  Gothic,  prevailed  from  about  A.  D.  1240 
to  A.  D.  1380,  or  till  the  reign  of  Henry  IV.  of  England;  and  it 
was  the  glory  of  the  Gothic  style.  The  slope  of  the  roof  corresponded 
to  that  of  the  arch  in  which  an  equilateral  triangle  could  be  inscribed ; 
the  walls  were  made  less  thick,  and  buttresses  were  added  as  a  sup- 
port; and  the  door- way  was  higher  and  the  entrance-way  less  deeply 
recessed.  The  windows,  too,  had  much  greater  width ;  the  mullions, 
or  bars  between  the  panes,  were  broad  and  delicately  fluted  like 
columns ;  and  the  trilobe  and  rose  windows  were  introduced,  probably 
from  the  Saracenic  style.  As  a  support  to  the  cornice,  buttresses 
were  projected  so  as  to  support  flying  buttresses,  while  brackets  were 
added  under  the  cornice  for  relief;  pinnacles  were  raised  above  the 
buttresses,  having  niches  often  for  statues ;  while  the  columns  of  the 
interior  as  well  as  the  archings  were  lighter  and  more  airy.  As  ex- 
amples of  this  style  the  Abbey  Church  of  St.  Denis,  the  Church  of 
St.  Oiien  at  Rouen,  St.  Stephen  at  Caen,  and  St.  Sepulchre  at  Paris, 
are  mentioned. 

The  third  style,  called  "obtuse"  from  the  spread  of  its  arch,  and 
"florid"  from  the  superfluous  ornament  heaped  upon  it,  began  to 
prevail  about  A.  D.  1380,  ran  into  the  Tudor  about  A.  D.  1420,  and 
in  it  held  sway  till  A.  D.  1550.  It  depressed  the  Gothic  arch  and  intro- 
duced projecting  portals  over  the  doors;  it  divided  the  window^s  by 
horizontal  transoms,  and  made  the  mullions  elaborate  with  carvings ; 
it  pierced  the  paneled  hoods  by  cutting  tracery  work  quite  through 
their  thickness ;  while  it  divided  the  area  of  the  windows  into  trefoils 
and  quatrefoils,  and  inserted  in  them  armorial  bearings;  and  finally  in 
the  Tudor  proper  it  introduced  projecting  bay  windows,  correspond- 
ing to  the  projecting  portals.  As  specimens  of  this  last  stage  may  be 
mentioned  King's  College,  Cambridge;  St.  George's,  Windsor;  and 
above  all  Henry  VII.'s  Chapel,  Westminster. 

In  the  south  and  east  of  France,  and  in  Western  Germany,  even 
longer  than  in  England  and  in  the  North  of  France,  the  Gothic  style 
has  held  sway;  and  some  of  the  noblest  Church  edifices  in  the  world 
belong  to  it.  The  Cathedral  of  Freiburg  is  one  of  the  purest  and 
most  beautiful  specimens  of  the  unique  one-spired  Gothic ;  that  of 


SARACENIC  ARCHITECTURE  ;   ITS  BYZANTINE  FEATURES.    449 

Strasburg  with  its  two  towers  yet  unfinished,  the  loftiest  of  which  is 
466  feet  high,  is  the  sublimest  of  all  conceptions  in  its  elevation ; 
and  that  of  Cologne,  as  yet  only  commenced  after  six  centuries 
of  expenditure,  is  the  grandest  in  design.  The  old  Cathedrals 
of  Aix  la-Chapelle,  of  Paris  and  Rheims,  are  most  expressive  of 
the  gloomy  sentiment  to  which  this  style  of  Church  architecture 
may  be  adapted.  The  ceiling  of  the  Chapel  of  Henry  the 
Eighth  in  Westminster  Abbey,  London,  is  a  perfect  wonder  of 
science  and  art;  the  laws  of  pressure  in  the  arches  by  which  its  pen- 
dants are  supported  being  now  an  inextricable  puzzle.  In  no  country 
so  much  as  in  England  has  the  power  of  the  Gothic  to  supplant  and 
transform  other  styles,  and  to  assume  itself  new  characteristics  in 
meeting  new  demands  of  utility  and  of  taste,  been  witnessed.  It 
changed,  at  first,  the  old  Roman  circular  arch,  which  lingered  in 
Saxon  architecture,  into  the  low  pointed  Norman,  again  into  the 
broad  vaulted  Tudor,  yet  again  into  the  sharp  lancet,  still  again  into 
the  decorated  florid,  and  finally  into  the  mixed  Elizabethan  style. 
In  England,  too,  the  struggle  and  final  triumph  of  the  revived  Gre- 
cian as  a  companion,  if  not  a  rival  of  the  Gothic,  has  been  most 
signally  seen. 

Sect.  4.  The  Saracenic,  or  style  of  Muhammedan  Sacred  architec- 
ture; HAVING  THE  HEBREW  GROUNDPLOT  AND  THE  ByZANTINE  ELE- 
VATION. 

After  having  observed  the  primitive  styles  of  Church  architecture 
prevalent  in  the  West  in  the  early  days  of  Christianity,  and  in  the 
East,  in  later,  as  well  as  early  times,  even  to  our  day,  we  have  turned 
westward  to  trace  the  style  that  was  adopted  and  perfected  amid  the 
advancing  civilization  of  Western  Europe.  We  turn  now  eastward 
to  trace  the  rise  and  development  of  a  form  of  sacred  architecture 
intimately  associated  with  the  Jewish,  and  specially  interwoven  with 
the  whole  history  of  Christian  architecture  in  European  Turkey,  in 

Western  Asia,  Northern  Africa,  and  Southern  Spain,  from  Constan- 
tinople quite  around  to  Cordova. 

The  reader  of  the  Koran  cannot  but  remark  the  studious  effort  of 
the  Arabian  prophet  to  identify  his  system  with  that  of  the  Old  and 

1  ew  Testament ;  making  his  two  leading  revelations  a  reproduction 
)f  the  lives  of  Moses  and  Jesus,  preparatory  to  his  own  claim  as  a 

lird  prophet  in  the  same  line;  thus  seeking  not  simply  to  gain  the 
idhesion  of  Jews  and  Christians  so  numerous  among  his  fellow- 
countrymen,  but  also  to  win  these  descendants  of  Ishmael  through 

3G 


450  ART   CRITICISM. 

convictions  already  in  their  minds ;  since  the  Arab's  reverence  for 
Abraham  as  "  the  father  of  the  faithful"  is  no  less  than  that  of  the 
Jew,  or  of  the  Christian.  It  is  in  keeping  with  this  fact  that  the  very 
first  sacred  structure,  worthy  of  mention,  erected  by  the  followers  of 
Muhammed,  was  reared  on  the  very  spot  where  the  Hebrew  temple 
had  stood,  and  conformed  strictly  to  its  groundplot;  while  its  archi- 
tect had  on  the  south  of  that  same  area  the  Byzantine  Church  of 
Justinian  as  a  model  after  which  to  rear  this  new  sanctuary.  In  the 
progress  of  the  Muhammedan  conquerors,  moreover,  Christian 
scholars  became  the  educators  of  their  before  rude  people,  and 
Christian  science  and  art  gave  shape  to  their  conceptions ;  and  as 
their  religious  system  was  built  substantially  on  the  Christian  faith, 
so  it  was  natural  that  in  sacred,  if  not  in  civil  architecture,  Chris- 
tian taste  should  control  the  forms  adopted. 

The  Hebrew,  like  the  Egyptian  temple,  as  we  have  seen,  was 
enclosed  within  a  wide  court-yard ;  which  was  surrounded  by  colon- 
nades, furnishing  sheltered  rooms  for  the  attendants  and  pupils 
attached  to  the  religious  establishment,  as  well  as  lounging-places 
for  the  people  congregating  for  business  and  pleasure;  and  this 
became  a  fixed  feature  of  Muhammedan  places  of  w^orship.  Yet 
again,  the  more  cultured  Asiatics,  as  in  Assyria  and  India,  had  reared 
pyramidal  roofed  pagodas  on  the  principle  of  the  overlapping  arch ; 
and  it  was  natural  that  an  Asiatic  race  having  teachers  from  the 
west  should  adopt  the  truer  form  of  the  arch,  which,  under  the 
Koman  had  assumed  such  glory,  and  which,  on  the  borders  of  their 
own  land  had  given  character  to  Christian  structures  of  surpassing 
magnificence.  As  we  have  seen,  the  Church  built  by  Justinian,  was 
standing  on  the  south  of  the  old  temple  area,  when  A.  H.  66,  or  A. 
D.  688,  the  Caliph  Omar,  Muhammed's  successor,  entered  the  city, 
which  structure  was  left  in  its  Christian  form  and  consecrated  as  a 
mosque.  In  erecting  north  of  this  on  the  very  site  of  Solomon's 
temple  the  majestic  structure  that  now  stands  there,  it  was  not  to  be 
expected  that  the  distinctive  Christian  features  of  the  architect's 
model  would  be  copied.  Instead  of  a  ground-plan  in  the  form  of 
the  Greek  cross,  the  architect  ran  the  exterior  walls  across  from  tip 
to  tip  of  that  cross,  filling  up  the  angular  indentations  which  its 
arms  would  have  left,  thus  forming  a  regular  octagon  as  the  base 
over  which  to  rear  the  Byzantine  dome.  The  earlier  mosques  fol- 
lowed this  pattern,  and  were  truly  Byzantine. 

In  later  times,  small  high  octagonal  towers,  called  minarets,  were 
raised  at  the  corner  of  the  surrounding  court-yard;   having  spiral 


THE   MOSQUE;    MOORISH    AND    ARABESQUE    FEATURES.     451 

stairways  leading  to  projecting  balconies  at  their  summits;  from 
which  the  Muezzin  should  call  the  people  to  prayer.  Into  the  arches 
of  the  surrounding  colonnades  and  exterior  gateways  the  features  of 
the  Koman  arcade  were  introduced;  these  colonnades  having  upper 
stories  with  short  and  interlacing  columns  and  intertwining  arches 
as  supports.  These  arches  assumed  the  pointed  form;  sometimes 
called  Grothic  from  their  resemblance  to  that  western  architectural 
feature,  with  which,  however,  this  idea  of  the  Orient  called  the  Sara- 
cenic seems  to  have  had  no  direct  connection.  Made  up  as  the  two 
halves  of  this  arch  were  of  arcs  of  circles  smaller  than  a  quadrant, 
and  of  arcs  of  an  ellipse  not  exceeding  a  quadrant,  the  idea  of  the 
Saracenic  arch  might  have  naturally  arisen  from  the  combining  of 
these  regular  curves,  perfected  as  a  theoretical  study  by  the  Greeks, 
and  applied  with  such  success  by  the  Eomans  in  the  practical  de- 
mands of  their  architectural  works.  Here,  too,  the  mitre  and  acorn- 
shaped  arches,  referred  to  under  Gothic  architecture,  received  their 
highest  perfection  of  form ;  giving  occasion  for  the  impression  that  this 
as  well  as  the  pointed  arch,  were  derived  from  the  Saracens 
between  the  age  of  Charlemagne  and  the  era  of  the  Crusades; 
during  which  long  period  the  intercourse  between  the  Muhammedan 
tribes  of  Asia  and  Africa,  and  the  Christian  nations  of  Europe  was 
so  intimate  and  friendly.  In  the  more  elaborate  and  ornamented 
style  afterwards  prevalent  among  the  Moors  of  Northern  Africa, 
hence  called  the  "Moorish  style,"  ranges  of  arches  are  introduced 
into  the  parapets  and  balcony  railings,  sometimes  merely  cut  in  wood, 
sometimes  also  built  in  brick  and  stone,  having  the  shape  of  a  horse- 
shoe; the  two  halves  of  each  arch  exceeding  a  quadrant  of  a  circle 
or  ellipse,  and  making  the  range  a  series  of  re-entering  curves  sup- 
ported by  the  lateral  pressure  which  each  arch  successively  in  an 
extended  arcade  exerts  upon  its  fellow.  In  the  most  elaborate  and 
excessively  decorated  Saracenic  arcade,  employed  by  the  Moors  in 
the  era  of  their  advanced  culture  in  Spain,  a  style  called  "Ara- 
besque" by  the  French,  because  of  its  origin  among  the  Arabs,  grew 
up ;  a  method  which  grafted  upon  the  Saracenic  or  Moorish  arch,  an 
[cessive  ornamentation,  and  which  in  modern  times  gives  name  to 

laborate  sculptured  relief  and  embossed  work.  The  order  of  archi- 
;ture,  thus  characterized,  though  employed  in  palaces  like  the 
Ihambra,  was  properly  devoted  to  mosques  and  colleges,  both  of 

("hich  among  Muhammedans,  belong  to  the  department  of  sacred 
rchitecture. 


452 


ART  CRITICISiM. 


Sect.  5.  The  Ee^^ved  Grecian  Style  in  Sacred  Christian  Architec- 
ture;   HAVING  the  Latin  Cross  as  its  groundplot,  the  Byzantine 

DOME  AS  ITS  elevation,  AND  THE  PURE  GRECIAN  ORDERS  IN  ITS  COLUMNAR 

decorations. 

We  have  seen  that  the  Romans  while  retaining  substantially  the 
forms  of  the  Grecian  orders  of  architecture,  modified  the  decora- 
tions of  their  capitals,  and  added  for  greater  variety  two  to  the 
former  three  orders  which  the  exhaustive  analysis  of  the  Greek  had 
first  reached  and  then  fixed  as  the  natural  limit.  We  have  observed 
too,  that  the  Romans  sought  this  variety  in  columnar  decorations, 
not  only  because  of  the  more  varied  styles  of  their  structures,  but 
also  because  of  the  greater  elevation  of  their  edifices ;  which  had  not, 
like  the  Grecian  temple,  only  one  story  and  one  stage  of  columns, 
but  several  stages,  one  above  the  other;  each  of  which  Roman  taste , 
required,  should  be  of  different  orders,  the  most  robust  and  least 
ornamented  at  the  base,  and  the  other  orders  following  their  natural 
succession  from  the  base  upwards.  We  have  again  remarked  that 
when  in  Christian  architecture  the  dome  was  introduced,  it  was 
placed  above  the  Greek  cross,  having  equal  arms,  and  not  over  the 
Roman  cross  in  which  the  nave  was  twice  the  length  of  either  of  the 
other  three  parts.  The  additional  fact  should  also  be  regarded  that 
the  body  of  the  Church,  in  both  the  Roman  and  Greek  ChurchesJ 
was  either  destitute  of  porticoes  or  columnar  decorations,  or  if  added,] 
they  were  not  of  the  pure  Grecian  orders ;  while  the  Byzantine  dome,j 
like  the  Roman,  was  bare  and  destitute  of  columnar  reliefs. 

It  was  a  great,  yet  a  gradual  revolution  which  culminated  in  thej 
erection  of  such  a  structure  as  St.  Peter's  at  Rome;  and  it  is  inters 
esting  to  observe  the  historic  steps  of  the  progress  by  which  it  w£ 
brought  about.     The  people  of  Northern  Italy,  especially  of  Tug 
cany,  originally  Greek,  emigrants  from  Asia  Minot  to  their  western] 
home,  seem  to  have  retained  through  all  future  ages  a  spirit  of  enter- 
prise and  a  skill  in  art,  and  especially  a  courtesy  in  their  intercoursej 
with  men  of  diflTerent  culture,  which  made  them  cosmopolitan  inj 
their  character  and  influence;  their  commerce  reaching  to  almost] 
every  land,  and  their  comprehensive,  national,  and  religious  senti-j 
ment  preparing  them  to^  adopt  anything  worthy  in  art,  or  in  the  con- 
veniences of  life  wherever  met.     This  spirit  of  the  TuscTans  showed  j 
itself  not  simply  in  the  cities  of  their  own  central  province,  but  also . 
in  the  neighbor  cities  of  Pisa  and  Venice,  and    even   of  Genoa. 
Through  this  spirit,  in  its  relation  to  art,  there  came  very  early  into 


THE  BYZANTINE  INTRODUCED   INTO  ITALY.  453 

these  cities,  from  two  opposite  sources,  the  revohitionizing  influence 
of  both  Byzantine  and  Saracenic  architecture;  which,  under  the 
combined  influence  of  Tuscan  enterprise,  Koman  grandeur  and 
Greek  grace,  ripened  into  that  climax  of  architectural  excellence, 
the  Church  of  St.  Peter  at  Rome. 

The  city  of  Venice  on  the  side  of  Northern  Italy,  towards  Con- 
stantinople, had  its  merchants  who  penetrated  to  every  city  of  the 
Grecian  Archipelago,  and  of  the  eastern  shore  of  the  Mediterranean. 
These  men  brought  home  the  taste  of  the  chief  city  on  the  Bos- 
phorus,  and  the  wealth  to  reproduce  its  works  of  art.  As  early  as 
A.  D.  976,  St.  Mark's,  of  Venice,  a  magnificent  specimen  of  Byzan- 
tine Church  architecture  was  begun.  The  city  of  Pisa,  on  the  side 
of  Northern  Italy  towards  Western  Europe,  including  the  chief 
seats  of  Moorish  magnificence  in  Sicily,  Northern  Africa  and  South- 
ern Spain,  partook  the  spirit  of  Venice.  In  the  middle  of  the 
eleventh  century  some  Pisan  adventurers  returning  home  rich  Avith 
the  spoils  of  the  Saracens  driven  out  of  Palermo  in  Sicily,  brought 
with  them  a  taste  for  the  art  of  that  cultured  people ;  and  in  A.  D. 
1067,  the  Cathedral  of  Pisa,  whose  erection  required  fifty  years  in 
building  and  opened  the  new  era  in  Church  architecture,  was  begun. 
It  has  the  Roman  cross  as  its  groundplot;  the  main  body  of  the 
Church  has  the  projecting  wings  of  the  basilica;  while  the  spacious 
intersection  of  the  arms  of  the  cross  is  surmounted  by  a  Byzantine 
dome  with  Saracenic  decorations. 

Stimulated  by  this  example,  the  merchants  of  Florence,  the  chief 

city  of  Tuscany,  determined  not  only  to  rival  their  neighbor  city,  but 

to  surpass  every  city  of  the  world  in  the  glory  of  Church  architecture. 

In  A.  D.  1294,  they  employed  an  architect  named  Arnolfo,  who,  four 

years  later,  submitted  plans,  which  Avere  accepted,  for  an  edifice  after 

the  model  of  that  of  Pisa,  but  of  larger  dimensions ;  and  who,  for 

twelve  years  afterwards,  till  his  death,  A.  D.  1310,  was  advancing  with 

the  work.    The  length  of  the  nave  and  choir  was  500  feet,  and  of  the 

transept  306  feet;  the  width  of  the  body  of  the  Church  was  128,  and 

its  height  153  feet.    For  110  years  after  the  death  of  Arnolfo  the  work 

JJuigered;  no  architect  arising  equal  to  the  task  of  completing  the 

^^^■mcture,  and  especially  of  rearing  the  immense  dome  required  to 

^^^Ban  the  great  chasm  where  the  broad  nave  and  transept  crossed. 

l™Rt  length  a  young  artist  named  Bruneschelli  conceived  the  grand 

idea,  went  to  Rome  and  studied  the  Pantheon,  and  returning  laid 

before  his  fellow-citizens  the  design  of  a  dome  vastly  beyond  any 

conception  of  his  own  times,  and  rivaling  that  wonder  of  ancient 


454  AKT   CRITICISM. 

days.  For  months  the  city  authorities,  disheartened  and  sceptical 
since  three  generations  had  failed  to  furnish  an  architect  equal  to 
the  demand,  spurned  the  persevering  young  artist  as  a  visionary  ;  till 
yielding  at  last,  Bruneschelli  was  allowed  to  begin,  and  finally  to 
complete  the  grandest  work  the  world  had  then  seen.  Bruneschelli's 
dome  is  138  feet  6  inches  in  diameter  and  133  feet  3  inches  in 
height;  and  the  elevation  of  the  cross  above  the  pavement  is  387 
feet.  It  was  the  gigantic  pile  upon  which  the  grandest  of  Italian 
artists,  Michel  Angelo,  had  his  wondering  gaze  rivetted  when  he  was 
a  child ;  which  he  studied  during  his  life  till  at  seventy-two  years  of 
age  he  surpassed  it  in  St,  Peter's ;  and  in  view  of  which,  according 
to  his  wish,  often  expressed  during  his  life,  he  was  buried  in  the 
Church  of  Santa  Croce,  whence  his  bust  looks  out  on  it  still. 
This  dome  was  made  to  rest  on  a  drum,  or  circular  wall,  like  that 
of  the  Pantheon ;  this  wall  being  built  up  on  immense  piers,  with 
concentric  arches  spanning  the  openings  from  the  space  beneath  the 
dome  into  the  nave  and  choir,  and  the  cross-sections  of  the  transept 
while  it  was  also  supported  against  the  thrust  of  the  dome  by  abu 
ting  arches  reaching  from  the  drum  outward  to  the  Church  walls. 

The  dome  of  the  Cathedral  of  Florence,  begun  in  A.  D.  1420,  had 
scarcely  reached  its  completion,  when  in  A.  D.  1450,  Rome,  the  seat 
of  the  Western  Church,  determined  not  to  be  behind  its  Tuscan 
ecclesiastical  dependencies,  Pisa  and  Florence,  in  sacred  architecture. 
The  new  style  there  employed  had  now  come  to  be  designated  "the 
revived  Grecian;"  its  main  characteristics  being  the  Roman  dome 
with  pure  Grecian  columnar  decorations ;  the  porticoes,  colonnades, 
reliefs  on  the  dome,  and  even  the  lantern,  having,  not  the  Roman 
pilaster,  but  full  rounded  columns,  all  of  the  same  Greek  order, 
usually  the  Corinthian.  The  supreme  ecclesiastical  authorities  deter- 
mined that  their  metropolitan  seat,  in  honor  of  their  patron  saint 
should  be  for  all  time  the  acme  of  grandeur  in  Church  architecture; 
and  the  Church  of  St.  Peter  at  Rome,  modelled  after  the  revived 
Grecian  style,  became,  as  Gibbon  declares,  "the  most  glorious  struc- 
ture that  has  ever  been  applied  to  the  use  of  Religion." 

The  patron  Saint  of  Rome  was  Peter,  who  from  the  time  of  the 
baptism  of  the  first  Roman  convert  to  Christianity  A.  D.  43  to  his 
death  A.  D.  68  a  period  of  twenty-five  years,  was  as  Jerome  says, 
pre-eminent  in  esteem  among  Roman  Christians.  Not  long  after  his 
crucifixion  with  his  head  downward  by  order  of  Nero,  the  spot  where 
he  suffered,  situated  northwest  and  outside  of  the  ancient  city,  was 
covered  by  his  friends  with  a  small  oratorio  dedicated  to  the  apostle's 


ST.  Peter's;  byzantine  with  pure  Grecian  columns.  455 

memory.  This  small  shrine  the  Emperor  Constantine  A.  D.  306, 
caused  to  be  replaced  by  a  Church  in  the  basilica  style ;  regardful  at 
once  of  the  memory  of  the  apostle,  and  wisely  deferential  to  the  archi- 
tectural taste  then  prevailing  at  the  seat  of  his  Western  empire. 
This  edifice  must  have  been  originally  a  noble  one ;  since  it  stood, 
occasionally  renovated,  for  twelve  hundred  years ;  and  was  at  last 
reluctantly  sacrificed  only  when  it  could  not  be  made  to  harmonize 
with  the  plan  of  the  new  structure.  Though  projected  A.  D.  1450,  the 
foundations  of  the  new  Church  were  not  laid  till  A.  D.  1506;  eight 
years  after  which  the  original  architect  Bramante  died,  leaving  his 
plans  for  years  to  incompetent  successors. 

About  A.  D.  1540,  Michel  Angelo,  then  in  his  seventy-second  year, 
was  called  to  undertake  what  every  artist  shrank  from ;  and  despite 
his  Florentine  independence  in  art  judgment,  and  his  indomitable 
pride  as  the  world's  recognized  master  in  design,  an  independence 
upon  which  no  Pope  even  could  dare  to  trespass,  he  was  entrusted  not 
only  with  the  plans  of  his  predecessors,  but  with  power  to  modify  them 
at  will.  Though  brother  artists  wrote  to  him,  "Fly  from  the  ungrate- 
ful Babylon  which  is  unable  to  appreciate  your  genius,"  M.  Angelo 
was  not  the  man  to  yield  to  friend  or  foe.  He  enlarged  Bramante's 
plan,  especially  for  the  dome,  adding  greater  length  to  the  transept,  and 
giving  added  strength  to  the  piers  which  were  to  support  the  dome ; 
uttering  the  memorable  declaration,  "  I  will  hang  the  Pantheon  in  the 
air."  With  yet  greater  independence  he  changed  the  groundplot  from 
the  Roman  cross  which  successive  Popes  had  naturally  required  for  the 
form  of  the  Greek  cross,  whose  front  projection  would  allow  the  entire 
dome  to  be  seen  from  below.  M.  Angelo  pushed  his  work  on  his 
own  plan  for  seventeen  years,  until  his  death  at  the  age  of  eighty- 
nine,  A.  D.  1563;  at  which  time  the  drum  was  ready  for  the  dome. 
Succeeding  architects  for  more  than  sixty  years  followed  Michel 
Angelo's  plans  ;  except  in  the  extension  of  the  nave  so  as  to  make 
the  form  that  of  the  Roman  cross.  It  was  in  A^  D.  1626,  about  one 
hundred  and  seventy-five  years  after  the  first  design,  that  the  struc- 
ture was  so  far  completed  as  to  be  dedicated ;  while  the  circular  colon- 
Kde  was  added  about  forty  years  still  later. 
The  length  of  this  immense  edifice  is  61 3i  feet  through  the  nave 
d  choir ;  its  breadth  through  the  transepts  is  446  j  feet,  and  the  height 
the  ceiling  in  the  nave  is  152  J  feet.  The  breadth  of  the  dome  at  its 
se  on  the  exterior  is  195^  feet;  its  interior  diameter,  greatly  dimin- 
ished by  the  thickness  of  the  double  walls  composing  the  dome,  is  139i 
feet,  surpassing  that  of  the  Pantheon ;  the  height  of  the  apex  of  the 


456  ART   CRITICISM. 

dome  from  the  pavement  is  405  feet ;  and  the  elevation  of  the  top  of 
the  cross  448  feet,  a  height  never  equalled  by  any  human  structure  in 
the  world  save  the  great  Pyramid  of  Egypt.  The  vast  size  of  this 
structure  is  indicated  by  the  fact  that  it  covers  240,000  square  feet, 
or  about  5}  acres  of  ground;  a  whole  village  of  mechanics,  constantly 
employed  to  keep  it  in  repair,  living  in  small  huts  formed  into  the 
parapet  on  its  roof;  while  the  ball  which  seems  no  more  than 
four  inches  in  diameter  from  the  front  below  easily  accommodates 
eight  persons.  The  extreme  costliness  of  the  edifice  is  made  appa- 
rent by  the  mention  thnt  the  original  expense  of  its  construction  was 
nearly  $47,000,000 ;  while  the  annual  expenditure  for  its  care  and 
preservation  is  about  $30,000.  The  impossibility  of  appreciating  at 
first  sight  its  immense  dimensions,  as  those  of  the  cataract  of  Niagara, 
because  all  is  uniformly  colossal  yet  ever  growing  in  vastness  and 
grandeur  as  the  separate  details  are  one  after  another  taken  in,  is 
poetically  presented  thus  by  Byron : 

"Enter;  its  grandeur  overwhelms  thee  not; 
And  why  ?  it  is  not  lessened ;  but  thy  mind, 
Expanded  by  the  genius  of  the  spot, 
Has  grown  colossal,  and  can  only  find 
A  fit  abode  wherein  appear  enshrined 
Thy  hopes  of  immortality." 

Since  the  building  of  St.  Peter's,  the  unrivalled  master-piece  of' 
sacred  architecture  in  the  "  Kevived  Grecian  "  style,  the  noblest  spe- 
cimen since  conceived  and  executed  is  St.  Paul's  in  London.  This 
product  of  the  genius  of  Sir  Christopher  Wren,  begun  and  finished; 
during  the  later  years  of  his  long  life,  from  about  A.  D.  1666  to 
A.  D.  1696,  has  an  interior  length  of  500  feet,  and  an  interior  width 
of  286  feet;  while  the  height  from  the  ground  to  the  top  of  the  cross' 
is  404  feet.  The  impression  of  vastness  and  loftiness  is  greater  than 
in  St.  Peter's,  since  the  interior  view  is  less  obstructed  by  columns, 
galleries,  and  chapels;  while  the  immense  dome  is  so  perfectly  rounded 
and  unbroken  as  to  carry  the  echo  of  a  whisper  against  the  wall  on' 
one  side  quite  round  to  the  ear  held  near  the  wall  on  the  other  side ; 
a  fact  which  has  given  the  name  of  "  Whispering  Gallery "  to  the 
platform  and  balustrade  running  round  the  base  of  the  dome. 

Next  to  St.  Paul's,  in  this  style,  is  the  Pantheon  at  Paris,  in  France. 
It  is  in  form  a  Roman  cross  with  magnificent  Corinthian  porticoes  over 
the  four  ends  of  the  arms;  one  of  which  arms  is  302  feet  long,  and 
the  other  255.     The  dome  rises  268  feet,  and  has  a  diameter  of  66 


LATER   MODIFICATIONS   IN   CHURCH    ARCHITECTURE.      457 

feet.  The  columns  of  the  porticoes,  and  of  the  peristyle  at  the  base 
of  the  dome,  are  of  the  purest  Grecian  Corinthian.  In  England  and 
America  this  style  has  been  much  more  copied  in  secular  than  in 
sacred  edifices. 

Sect.  6.   The  Modifications  op  Form  and  Style  in  Church  Edifices 
suggested  in  the  progress  of  christianity. 

The  spread  of  Christianity,  gaining  sway  purely  by  the  moral  con- 
viction it  awakens,  has  been  like  the  growth  of  a  tree,  by  stages. 
The  early  Christians,  energetic  in  their  spiritual  work,  had  little  time 
or  means  to  devote  to  sacred  art.  In  the  progress  of  Christianity, 
taking  a  new^  spring  under  such  men  as  Constantino  and  Chrysostom, 
Justinian  and  Augustine,  Charlemagne  and  Alcuinus,  the  four  lead- 
ing styles  mentioned  were  the  oftspring  of  the  taste  as  well  as  culture 
prevailing  among  the  different  nations  as  they  became  Christians. 
The  climax  of  the  progress  of  Sacred  Architecture  in  the  building 
of  St.  Peter's  was  reached,  when,  by  the  excess  of  the  Eeformation, 
a  check  was  put  to  that  centralization  of  resources,  and  measurably 
also  to  that  spirit  of  advance  in  art  which  had  promoted  sacred 
architecture.  The  spirit  of  religious  reform  which  appeared  almost 
simultaneously  in  the  countries  north  of  the  Alps  arose  among  a 
people  who  had  always  contended  for  State  independence  as  well  as  for 
freedom  of  individual  thought  and  action ;  and  while  south  of  the 
Alps  the  Church  had  been  consolidated  into  two  great  branches,  each 
of  which  embraced  a  people  among  whom  it  was  easy  to  secure  unity 
of  faith  and  concentration  of  action,  the  Church  north  of  the  Alps 
was  separated  into  as  many  divergent  sects  as  there  were  warring 
nationalities.  Still  more,  while  in  Germany,  and  especially  in  Eng- 
land, there  was  for  a  time  after  their  separation  from  the  Roman. 
Church  a  generally  recognized  national  form  of  Church  organization, 
the  spirit  of  individual  freedom  in  religious  matters,  once  triumphant, 
persisted  in  its  tendency  to  division  upon  matters  of  opinion,  until  in 
almost  every  community,  there  were  numerous  Christian  sects  either 
contending  for  supremacy  in  Slate  patronage  or  demanding  at  least 
religious  independence.  This  spirit  of  segregation  is  seen  in  its  ex- 
treme in  the  American  States,  whose  people  represent  so  many  of  the 
nationalities  of  Northern  Europe ;  among  whom  scarcely  a  village 
of  a  thousand  souls  can  be  found  that  has, not  its  five  or  six  difiering 
Christian  denominations  with  their  separate  houses  of  worship.  More 
than  this,  as  the  spirit  of  the  Reformation  was  specially  spiritual  in 
39  3  H 


458  ART   CEITICISM. 

its  ideas  and  aims,  and  opposed  to  forms  and  ceremonies  because 
they  had  been  perverted,  there  was  a  double  difficulty  against  which 
the  spirit  of  improvement  in  Church  architecture  had  to  struggle. 

In  Switzerland,  first  met  in  crossing  the  Alps,  the  prevailing  type 
of  Church  architecture  has  been  from  the  circumstances  of  locality 
the  Gothic ;  often  rude  in  construction,  but  true  to  the  Alpine  steep- 
ness of  roof;  the  Cathedral  of  Geneva  being  a  fine  specimen  of  the 
early,  and  that  of  Constance  of  the  later  Gothic.  There  are  also  old 
Churches  in  the  Romanesque  style ;  as  the  Cathedrals  of  Zurich  and 
Schaff hausen ;  while  at  Basle,  on  the  borders  of  Germany,  the  Cathe- 
dral, though  Gothic  in  general  type,  with  grotesque  ornamentation, 
is  with  its  added  cloisters  a  pile  without  the  range  of  classified  art. 
In  Germany,  very  ancient  churches  in  the  Basilica  style  are  found 
in  the  old  cities ;  the  noblest  sacred  edifices,  such  as  the  Cathedrals 
of  Vienna  and  Freiburg  are  Gothic ;  while  in  the  Protestant  portions 
of  Germany  no  settled  and  truly  artistic  taste  in  Church  architec- 
ture has  yet  been  developed. 

In  France,  the  oldest  Churches  are  Romanesque  in  the  Roman 
age ;  but  the  finest  Cathedrals,  as  of  Paris,  Rheims  and  other  cities, 
run  back  to  the  period  of  the  German  sway  when  the  Gothic  became 
favorite  with  Charlemagne,  and  show  that  this  style  has  long  prevailed. 
The  subsequent  varied  history  of  the  changeful  Gallic  race  in  Church 
architecture  may  be  traced  in  the  following  structures ;  the  Roman- 
esque in  St.  Germain  de  Pres;  the  early  pointed  Gothic  in  Notre 
Dame:  the  medium  Gothic  in  St.  S^verin  and  St.  Germain  I'Auxer- 
rois;  the  later  florid  Gothic  in  St.  Jervais  and  St.  Merri;  the  revived 
Grecian  in  St.  Eustache  and  St.  Etienne  du  Mont;  the  Italian  of 
Pelladio,  or  Elizabethan,  in  St.  Paul  et  St.  Louis,  the  finest  work  of 
the  age  of  Louis  XIII. ;  the  Louis  Quatorze  in  the  Val  de  Grace, 
and  especially  in  the  Hdpital  des  Invalides,  the  work  of  Mansard  under 
Louis  XIV. ;  and  the  somewhat  modified  style  of  the  age  of  Louis  XV. 
in  St.  Sulpice.  Finally  the  religious  spirit  of  the  French  Revolution, 
with  its  tendency  in  art,  is  illustrated  in  the  very  name  as  well  as  in 
the  style  of  architecture  of  the  "  Pantheon "  or  temple  of  all  gods; 
while  also  the  genuine  permanent  spirit  of  Christianity  to  adopt  all 
that  is  excellent  in  the  past,  and  to  give  to  the  classic  a  higher  spirit- 
uality is  seen  in  the  Church  of  the  Madeleine,  conceived  and  mainly 
executed  under  the  sway  of  Napoleon. 

In  England  and  America,  while  religious  freedom  has  separated 
Christians  into  sects  most  numerous,  the  stimulus  of  wealth  and  of 
general  culture,  not  to  say  of  popular  religious  enlightenment,  has 


INFLUENCE  OF  CHRISTIANITY  ON  SECULAR  EDIFICES.     459 

called  forth  special  devotion  to  Church  Architecture.  The  Cathe- 
drals of  England  present  the  most  perfect  history  of  Gothic  architec- 
ture in  the  finest  existing  specimens.  London  alone  has  the  noblest 
and  richest  style  of  Gothic  in  Westminster  Abbey,  the  grandest  type 
of  classic  Byzantine,  next  to  St.  Peter's,  in  St.  Paul's;  while  such 
edifices  as  St.  Martin's  and  St.  Pancras,  beautiful  Grecian  or  Koman 
temples,  with  porticoes  and  pilasters,  crowned  with  lofty  tapering 
spires  borrowed  from  the  Gothic,  monuments  of  the  genius  of  Sir 
Christopher  Wren,  have  become  favorite  models  for  ordinary  Church 
edifices  in  modern  times.  America,  however,  the  land  of  Churches, 
is  pre-eminently  rich  in  its  variety  of  Church  edifices.  Almost  every 
city  furnishes  specimens  of  the  Basilica  or  Komanesque,  of  Byzan- 
tine, of  different  styles  of  Gothic,  often  too  of  Norman  and  even  of 
Saxon  types,  and  sometimes  even  of  the  amphitheatre  style.  The 
ordinary  style  of  American  Church  edifices  is  that  already  noticed 
as  a  favorite  with  Sir  C.  Wren,  a  sort  of  Roman  Gothic;  an  edifice 
with  a  gable  end  front,  having  a  Grecian  entrance-portico  and  side 
pilasters  after  the  Roman  style,  and  a  central  spire  taken  from  the 
Gothic;  while  the  interior,  furnished  with  side  galleries,  has  the 
aspect  of  the  basilica. 


CHAPTER    VI. 


SECULAR  ARCHITECTURE  AS  INFLUENCED  BY  THE  SOCIAL  AND 
INTELLECTUAL,  THE  CIVIL  AND  DOMESTIC  WANTS  INDUCED  BY 
CHRISTIAN    CIVILIZATION. 

While  the  doctrines  of  Christianity  more  than  those  of  any  other 

religious  system  have  roused  man's  religious  nature  to  a  yearning 

'after  art  in  sacred  architecture,  its  precepts  awakening  the  soul  to 

the  social  and  intellectual  interests  for  which  they  had  been  created, 

have,  more  than  philosophy,  prompted  men  to  advancement  in  secular 

Irchitecture.  Even  under  a  pure  Christianity,  whose  first  teaching 
B  to  man  is  that  he  is  a  depraved  being,  a  special  charm  has  clus- 
sred  about  castles  and  fortresses  for  defence  from  organized  bands 


460  AKT   CRITICISM. 

stall  evil  or  alleviate  its  consequences,  has  prompted  to  a  special  zeal 
in  rearing  edifices  for  the  education  of  the  young,  for  the  relief  of 
the  suffering,  and  for  the  restraint  of  the  vicious.  Yet  again, 
under  the  influence  of  Christian  truth  Civil  Government  has  become 
more  a  cherished  interest  of  the  people ;  and  the  structures  meeting 
the  requisites  of  its  assemblies  have  called  forth  a  more  lavish  ex- 
penditure. Finally,  the  pervasive  moral  convictions  inspired  by 
Christian  grace  have  given  such  a  security  to  accumulated  wealth 
that  private  dwellings  for  domestic  comfort  and  individual  gratifica- 
tion have  assumed  a  new  character  for  sumptuousness  and  artistic 
merit. 

These  several  conspiring  ends  claim  separate  notice  in  a  survey  of 
the  new  features  given  to  secular,  as  well  as  sacred  architecture, 
under  the  influence  of  Christianity.  They  lead  to  the  consideration ; 
first,  of  Castellated  structures  reared  originally  for  defence;  second^ 
Capitoline  styles,  or  buildings  subserving  the  purposes  of  popular 
governments;  third,  Conventual  styles,  including  edifices  reared  for 
purposes  of  education,  physical  restoration  and  moral  reform;  and 
fourth,  Villa  and  Cottage  styles  embracing  private  suburban  and 
country  residences. 

Sect.  1.  Castellated  Styles;  as  a  Model  for  Palatial  Eesidences. 

The  spirit  of  civil  independence,  carried  to  such  an  excess  as  to  anni- 
hilate national  unity  with  its  sure  safeguards  and  broad  foundations 
for  progress,  was  never  more  strikingly  illustrated  than  in  the  social 
system  which  studded  Germany,  France,  and  England  with  feudal 
castles.  To  a  certain  extent  the  same  system  had  prevailed  among 
the  early  tribes  that  peopled  the  eastern  shore  of  the  Mediterranean, 
whose  castles  held  by  independent  kings  and  dukes,  each  lord  of 
a  single  fortified  hill,  and  of  some  few  square  miles  around,  were 
captured  by  the  consolidated  confederation  of  the  Israelitish  tribes, 
and  were  then  razed  to  the  ground  as  unneeded  in  a  nation  having  a 
central  power  for  the  general  protection  of  the  people.  Those 
Asiatic  tribes  were  too  far  from  our  times  and  homes  to  have  left' 
architectural  remains  for  our  study;  but  the  intenser,  more  wide- 
spread tribal  independence  which  has  left  the  still  standing  monu- 
ments of  its  pervading  presence  and  power  all  along  the  "castled 
crags"  overhanging  the  Rhine,  and  on  the  abrupt  hill-tops  over- 
shadowing the  English  and  Scotch  highlands  has  furnished  fit  mate- 
rials for  study  in  this  field  of  architectural  progress. 


SAXON    AND   NORMAN   CASTLES   IN   ENGLAND.  461 

So  far  as  the  castles  of  Northern  and  Central  Europe  were  mere 
military  defences  they  belong  not  to  civil  but  to  military  architec- 
ture; and  as  such  they  only  call  for  that  measure  of  notice  which 
will  illustrate  the  change  wrought  upon  them  when  in  the  progress 
of  national  consolidation  they  became  unnecessary,  and  in  the  im- 
provement of  warlike  engines  they  became  inadequate  as  military 
defences.  The  rude  fortress-like  structures  reared  by  the  German 
and  English  nobles  after  the  retirement  of  their  Roman  conquerors, 
called  Saxon  in  their  style,  had  usually  plain  straight  walls,  built  of 
coarse  stone,  with  no  feature  to  show  the  influence  of  Roman  art 
except  the  circular  arch  over  the  gate-ways  and  loop-hole  windows. 
Even  as  castles,  however,  these  structures  took  on  more  and  more  a 
character  for  art ;  for  as  Dallaway  remarks,  "  Two  precisely  opposite 
causes  in  England  promoted  the  improvement  of  architecture ;  the 
security  of  edifices  for  religious  purposes,  and  the  insecurity  of  struc- 
tures for  social  uses."  The  same  author  divides  the  progress  of  im- 
provement in  Saxon  castellated  architecture  into  three  distinct  eras; 
the  first  from  Egbert  to  Alfred  A.  D.  598  to  872;  the  second  from 
Alfred  to  Canute  and  Harold  A.  D.  1036;  and  the  third  to  the 
Norman  conquest  only  about  fifteen  years  later.  The  improvements 
consisted  chiefly  in  the  introduction  of  Roman  pilasters  at  the  sides 
of  the  gate-ways  and  windows,  and  in  the  increased  projection  and 
finish  of  the  arches  above,  which  served  as  heads  to  the  gates  and 
■windows.  Both  of  these  features  showed  that  the  Saxon  castle,  as 
well  as  the  Saxon  Church,  so  far  as  its  ornament  was  concerned, 
retained  still  its  Roman  features. 

The  Norman  conquerors  from  Northern  France  introduced  various 

modifications  in  castle  structures.     The  narrow  semi-circular  arch 

over  gate-ways  and  windows  was  expanded  into  the  broad  semi-ellip- 

"tical  form ;  and  the  summit  of  the  castle  wall  was  crowned  with  a 

Jfilightly  projecting  battlement.     These  improvements,  like  the  Saxon, 

lave  been  divided  into  three  stages;  first  the  age  from  William  the 

^Conqueror  to  Stephen,  A.  D.  1050  to  1154;  second,  the  age  of 

Edwards  I.  and  II.  A.  D.  1272  to  1327;  and  third,  the  age  of 

Edward  III.  A.  D.  1327  to  1377.     The  Norman  castles  in  the  first 

ige  were  either  square,  like  the  Saxon,  and  elevated  far  above  them 

as  to  have  more  stories,   or   they  were  built  circular  and  low. 

'he  architectural  features  of  these  castles  as  improved  by  Edward  I., 

'^ho  during  the  Crusades  gained  and  brought  home  new  ideas,  were 

jhiefly  these;  complete  columns  instead  of  the  Roman  pilasters  on 

the  sides  of  gate-ways  and  windows;  increased  and  improved  relief 

:^9  * 


462  ART   CRITICISM. 

in  the  ornaments  of  capitals  and  arches;  panels  inserted  into  the 
walls  having  reliefs  in  sculpture;  projecting  towers  and  battlements 
on  the  walls;  and  ceilings  vaulted  instead  of  flat  as  in  the  Saxon. 
The  Norman  was  distinct,  on  the  other  hand,  from  the  Gothic  in 
having  no  pediments  or  pinnacles  on  the  exterior,  and  no  ribs  or  fret 
work  on  the  ceilings  in  the  interior.  The  four  castles  in  Wales, 
erected  by  Edward  I.,  three  of  which,  Caernarvon,  Conway,  and 
Harlech  are  in  good  preservation,  remain  as  monuments  of  the  best 
style  of  Norman  castles. 

The  Norman  improvements  of  English  castles  prepared  the  way 
for  their  later  transformation  into  residences  proper.  The  increased 
size  of  the  door-ways  and  windows,  the  addition  at  the  angles  of 
projecting  square  towers,  whose  corner  location  gave  a  free  circula- 
tion of  air,  and  still  more  the  arcade  balconies  projecting  into  the 
central  and  open  area  of  the  castle  enclosure,  furnished  many  of  the 
facilities  required  in  a  family  residence.  The  tower  of  London  be- 
came in  fact  the  court  residence  of  the  first  Norman  king.  During 
the  period  of  the  Norman  sovereigns  from  the  accession  of  William 
the  Conqueror,  A.  D.  1066  to  the  end  of  his  line  A.  D.  1135,  the 
business  of  conquering  and  consolidating  the  nation  gave  little  space 
for  extended  improvements ;  the  chief  features  of  Norman  castellated 
architecture  being  those  just  mentioned.  The  much  longer  reign  of 
the  Plantagenets,  from  Henry  II.,  A.  D.  1154  to  Richard  HI.  A.  D. 
1483,  brought  no  special  changes  in  warfare,  and  consequently  no 
abandonment  of  the  main  end  for  which  castles  were  erected,  that 
of  defence  against  an  invading  foe.  The  improvements  were  still 
mainly  Norman  in  their  character;  being  only  an  enlargement  and 
adornment  of  the  Saxon  structure  to  render  it  more  commodious  and 
tasteful.  This  improved  adornment,  however,  had  its  marked  stages. 
Under  Edward  I.  great  architectural  improvements  in  exterior  were 
introduced,  better  adapting  castles  for  defence ;  while  under  Edward 
III.,  about  A.  D.  1350,  most  important  changes  in  the  interior 
arrangements,  adapting  the  castle  for  a  sumptuous  abode,  were  made. 
Some  of  the  features  which  mark  the  Gothic  Churches  of  this  era 
appear  on  the  inner  facades  of  the  Norman  castles.  The  inner  court 
enclosure  was  greatly  enlarged  by  the  extension  of  the  outer  fortress 
walls ;  and  fine  large  Gothic  windows  opened  from  the  high  vaulted 
halls  into  the  inner  court.  These  windows,  as  those  in  the  Churches 
of  this  era,  were  made  double,  or  treble,  to  give  increased  light  and 
air ;  while  also  projecting  galleries  and  corridors  aftbrded  a  yet  more 
open  promenade  for  pleasant  weather,  and  an  airy  lounge  for  the 


THE   TUDOR   AND    BURGUNDY   PALATIAL   STYLES.  463 

warmer  season.  The  castles  of  Windsor,  Kenilworth,  Alnwick  and 
others  celebrated  in  English  history  belong  to  this  age.  The  style 
of  arcade  arch,  by  some  supposed  to  have  originated  the  Gothic  arch, 
is  peculiar  to  this  period.  Semi-circular,  or  Koman  arches  span 
double  the  distance  of  the  short  columns  in  the  balustrades ;  the  first 
arch  resting  on  the  first  and  third  columns,  and  the  second  arch  on 
the  second  and  fourth  columns ;  while  the  crossing  curves  of  the  two 
arches  form  between  the  second  and  third  columns  a  pointed  arch. 

The  accession  of  the  Tudor  dynasty  to  the  throne  of  England 
under  Henry  VII.  A.  D.  1485,  originated  the  style  called  in  general 
"Tudor,"  from  the  reigning  family;  in  the  history  of  whose  progress 
there  were  three  eras,  the  "Tudor  proper"  of  the  time  of  Henry  VIL, 
the  "perfected  Tudor"  of  the  reign  of  Henry  VIIL,  and  the  "Eliza- 
bethan," prevalent  under  the  reign  of  the  Virgin  Queen ;  to  which 
may  be  added  as  a  fourth  stage  the  style  of  "  Louis  Quatorze "  of 
France,  a  French  rather  than  English  style.  This  entire  era  covers  a 
period  of  about  two  centuries.  It  seems  to  have  originated  not  with 
the  royal  family  whose  name  it  bears,  but  with  a  nobleman  of  Eng- 
land ;  its  field  of  development  was  the  north  of  France  and  the  south 
of  England,  then  more  than  ordinarily  associated;  and  both  the 
capital  cities  and  the  leading  towns  of  the  two  monarchies  retain 
numerous  and  rich  monuments  of  the  gorgeous  conceptions  of  the 
times  in  architectural  decorations.  That  nobleman,  was  the  Duke 
of  Burgundy,  who  in  the  middle  of  the  Fifteenth  Century,  inspired 
apparently  by  the  influence  of  Oriental  travel,  began  to  intro- 
duce in  Northern  France  and  the  Netherlands  a  style  of  archi- 
tecture, which,  spreading  into  England  about  thirty-five  years  later, 
was  adopted  by  the  Tudor  family,  and  henceforth  took  their  name. 
It  aimed  to  furnish  large  inside  halls,  spacious  in  extent  of  ground- 
floor  and  elevated  in  ceiling ;  while  it  added  an  exterior  breadth  and 
elevation  that  should  be  in  harmony.  Its  small  octagonal  towers 
were  capped  with  cupolas  in  the  shape  of  a  bulb  or  mitred  crown ; 
underneath  which  cupolas  was  a  fringe  of  rich  crotchets ;  a  feature 
apparently  borrowed  by  the  Crusaders  from  Saracenic  structures,  and 
especially  from  the  minarets  of  mosques.  Between  these  towers  arose 
tall  turrets  finished  with  pinnacle  spires,  and  tipped  with  gilded  vanes ; 
a  feature  of  the  pointed  Gothic.  Yet  more,  those  projections,  called 
bay-windows,  from  a  Saxon  word  meaning  an  angle,  became  delightful 
additions  to  the  internal  comfort  of  castles,  inviting  look-outs  and 
pleasing  reliefs  to  the  broad  blank  castle  wall.  Kichmond,  in  Surrey, 
England,  a  fine  relic  of  the  reign  of  Henry  VIL,  illustrates  this  style. 


464  ART  CRITICISM. 

The  succession  of  Henry  VIII.  A.  D.  1509,  brought  new  occasion 
for  a  modified  and  improved  architecture.  This  monarch  in  break- 
ing off  connection  with  the  Roman  Church  naturally  excluded  foreign 
artists  under  Roman  influence;  and,  ambitious  that  this  separation 
should  not  be  quoted  as  a  cause  of  decline  in  the  arts,  he  invited  the 
genius  of  Oriental  art  controlling  the  Eastern  Church,  to  the  dis- 
paragement of  classical  forms,  to  add  its  style  of  ornamentation  to 
the  Norman  Gothic,  which  was  still  the  substantial  feature  of  Eng-  | 
lish  castellated  architecture.  The  gate-ways  became  lofty  and 
crowned  with  the  broad,  semi-elliptical,  obtuse-pointed  arch;  whose 
introduction  marked  the  decline  of  the  true  Gothic  so  long  prevalent 
in  Church  architecture.  This  broad  arch,  having  an  almost  direct 
lateral  thrust,  could  be  used  only  in  the  centre  of  an  extended  wall, 
where  the  mass  of  material  piled  against  its  sides  served  as  a  coun- 
terpoise to  its  pressure.  As  a  relief  to  the  broad  blank  leaves  of  the 
double  gate,  embossed  panels  upon  the  doors  were  introduced ;  while 
side-reliefs  of  embossed  figures  in  terra  cotta,  or  baked  clay,  were 
inserted  into  the  brick  or  stone  work  of  the  wall.  The  greater 
breadth  and  height  given  to  door-ways  required  a  corresponding 
breadth  and  height  of  windows;  to  relieve  which  a  division  was 
made  by  a  transom;  while  a  miniature  battlement  in  the  method 
called  "  crenellated "  was  added.  As  an  additional  ornament  to  the 
summit  of  the  wall  the  chimneys  were  clustered  and  raised  to  the 
height  of  towers,  with  an  embattled  cornice ;  and  the  notched  parapet, 
still  so  favorite  as  a  cornice,  was  added  to  the  entire  line  of  the  wall. 
This  style  of  Henry  VIII.  ^eems  to  have  spread  into  France,  then 
under  the  reign  of  Francis  I. ;  but  in  the  hands  of  French  artists  it 
became  more  crowded  wdth  heavy  towers  and  turrets,  and  loaded 
with  excess  of  ornament.  The  palace  of  Dijon  and  the  Place  de 
Justice  at  Rouen  are  fine  specimens  of  this  style. 

The  third  era  began  when  after  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.  the  pre- 
judice which  had  excluded  Italian  artists  began  to  die  out.  Early 
in  this  period  the  Dutch  painter  Holbein  came  to  England,  whose 
Italian  associations  and  culture  led  him  back  to  the  classic  forms, 
especially  in  architecture.  This  new  tendency  of  English  art  was 
increased  by  Inigo  Jones,  who  was  devoted  to  architecture,  as  Hol- 
bein was  to  painting.  Born  in  1572,  Jones  went  to  Italy  to  study 
his  art,  first  in  1606,  then  again  in  1612;  whence  he  brought  home 
the  very  year  of  its  publication  in  1613  Palladio's  new  treatise  on 
architecture.  Having  become  enthusiastically  attached  to  the  fea- 
tures of  Roman  architecture  still  wrought  into  the  palace  structures 


THE    ELIZABETHAN   AND    LOUIS   QUATORZE   STYLES.       465 

of  Italy  he  contributed  largely,  till  his  death  in  1652,  to  foster  the 
taste  for  that  mingled  Grecian  and  Gothic,  Roman  and  Tudor  style, 
which  prevailed  in  England  nearly  one  hundred  and  twenty  years, 
from  about  the  middle  of  the  Fifteenth  till  near  the  close  of  the  Six- 
teenth Century,  and  which  afterwards  received  the  name  of  "Eliza- 
bethan," from  Elizabeth,  whose  reign  extended  from  1558  to  1603. 
As  a  conspiring  material  cause,  the  wealth  flowing  from  conquest 
and  commerce  into  Britain  gave  opportunity  for  the  employ  of  that 
genius.  Under  Henry  VIII.  the  English  nobles,  victorious  in  many 
a  bloody  field  against  their  Catholic  neighbors  in  the  north  of  France, 
rich  with  the  spoils  captured  and  the  ransom  of  captives,  inspired 
also  with  new  ideas  of  progress  in  art,  had  returned  home  to  rival 
each  other  in  costly  expenditures  upon  their  ancestral  estates.  The 
spirit  awakened  by  such  men  as  Raleigh,  poured  wealth  from  an 
increasing  commerce  with  two  worlds  into  the  lap  of  the  virgin  queen 
and  of  her  noble  subjects,  during  her  long,  peaceful  and  prosperous 
reign;  and  then  again  reacted  to  foster  genius  by  employing  it, 
ushering  in  the  Shakesperian  era.  Like  the  Romans,  to  whom  in 
character  they  were  so  much  allied,  architecture  became  the  favorite 
art  of  the  English  people  in  this  era  of  their  mature  development  as 
a  nation. 

The  chief  characteristic  of  this  style  arose  from  the  fact  that  the 
expiring  Gothic  was  running  more  and  more  into  the  revived  classic 
or  Roman ;  while  both  received  a  degenerate  cast  from  the  unnatural 
intermixture.  Since  Henry  VIII.  the  castles  newly  erected  had 
been  furnished  with  grand  halls,  surmounted  by  lofty  ceilings  with 
high  pitched  rafters  of  unpainted  oak  and  chestnut,  supported  by 
brackets;  at  the  upper  end  large  semi-hexagonal  bay-windows  reach- 
ing from  the  floor  to  the  ceiling,  and  adorned  with  armorial  bearings 
opened  into  the  court  below;  while  on  the  sides  of  the  hall  were 
wide  galleries  lined  with  oak,  having  their  walls  adorned  with  carved 
tablets,  scrolls,  and  escutcheons,  and  crowned  with  wide  cornices 
ornamented  with  oak  carvings  in  high  relief  and  interspersed  with 
grotesque  figures.  These  inside  features  of  the  perfected  Tudor  were 
modified  in  the  Elizabethan  by  the  introduction  of  classic  in  the 
place  of  grotesque  figures,  and  by  the  change  of  curved  and  scroll 
panels  into  the  straight  and  angular  forms  of  rectangles  and  tri- 
angles. The  outside  modifications  were  yet  more  decided ;  consisting 
of  Roman  porticoes  and  enclosed  porches  with  pediments  and  classic 
columns.  As  these  features  were  engrafted  upon  the  Tudor  a  mon- 
grel aspect  was  given  to  the  whole  fayade,  as  well  as  to  the  interior 

3  I 


466  ART   CRITICISM. 

finish  of  the  Elizabethan  edifice,  which  fails  to  satisfy  either  the 
admirer  of  the  Gothic  or  classic. 

.  The  style  called  "Louis  Quatorze,"  from  Louis  XIV.  of  France, 
whose  reign  extended  from  1643  to  1715,  illustrated  in  the  costly 
palace  of  Versailles  built  by  this  monarch,  may  be  regarded  as  a 
transition  to  the  classic  which  soon  triumphed  over  it.  It  introduced 
a  basement  truly  Roman,  with  circular  arches  and  square  pilasters; 
while  the  main  story  above  had  Roman  porticoes  wdth  Grecian  tri- 
angular and  Roman  circular  pediments,  and  also  Roman  corridors 
along  the  extended  sides ;  the  walls  back  of  these  porticoes  and  cor- 
ridors being  pierced  with  the  windows  of  two  stories  or  of  a  story 
and  a-half.  To  these  decided  Roman  features,  with  columns  of  rich 
Ionic  or  Corinthian,  was  added  the  scroll  work  of  the  Tudor,  some- 
times also  the  pinnacles  of  the  Gothic,  and  above  all,  as  a  crowning 
feature  the  roof  of  double  slope,  called  Mansard,  after  a  French 
architect  of  that  age;  whose  graceful  curves  are  now  repeated  in 
what  is  called  the  French  chateau  roof.  It  was  a  comparatively  easy 
transition  from  this  style  to  the  truly  classic,  Roman  or  Grecian, 
which  characterizes  most  of  the  public  buildings  reared  within  the 
last  half  century  in  France,  England  and  America.  The  transition 
from  the  Saxon,  Norman,  and  Tudor  styles,  of  which  specimens  have 
already  been  named  in  London,  may  be  traced  in  the  Gothic  of 
Guildhall,  the  plain  Gothic  with  Tudor  battlements  of  Westminster 
Hall,  the  Tudor  of  St.  James'  Palace,  the  Roman  Ionic  and  Corin- 
thian of  the  Treasury  and  Whitehall,  and  the  almost  pure  Grecian 
of  Cumberland  Terrace  and  Buckingham  Palace. 

It  may  be  added  that  while  the  palatial  edifices  of  Western  Europe 
passed  through  the  transitions  mentioned,  the  palaces  of  Italy,  reared 
by  the  rich  commerce  of  such  cities  as  Genoa,  Pisa,  Florence  and 
Venice,  continued  to  retain  the  features  of  the  Roman  arcade  style ; 
sometimes  modified  by  Saracenic  tracery  work.  Specimens  of  the 
controlling  Roman  feature  may  be  seen  in  the  Palace  of  the  Grand 
Duke  at  Florence,  by  Arnolfo  in  1298,  designed  as  a  monument  of 
democratic  triumph,  finally  finished  by  Vasari  nearly  three  hundred 
years  later,  of  which  the  last  named  architect  said  when  finished,  that 
"if  Arnolfo  should  come  back  to  earth  to  review  his  work  he  would 
not  know  the  building;"  and  the  Farnese  Palace  at  Rome,  chiefly  the 
work  of  Michel  Angelo,  having  three  stories,  each  adorned  with  cor- 
ridors having  Doric,  Ionic  and  Corinthian  columns  and  pilasters, 
with  arched  entablatures  rising  one  above  another.  A  specimen  of 
the  influence  of  Saracenic  taste,  grafted  upon  a  Roman  foundation, 


m 


STYLES   ORIGINATING   IN   POPULAR   GOVERNMENTS.       467 

is  seen  in  the  Palazzo  del  Commune,  built  by  the  merchants  of  the 
City  of  Piacenza  about  A.  D.  1281;  the  lower  story  of  which  is  of 
stone,  with  pointed  arches  in  its  corridors;  the  second  story  is  of 
brick,  and  has  the  arches  of  its  corridors  of  the  oval  horse-shoe  form 
with  heavy  terra  cotta  mouldings. 

Sect.  2.  Capitolink  Styles  ;  for  State  Houses  and  Halls  of  Legis- 
lation. 

In  governments,  such  as  monarchies  and  aristocracies,  where  the 
right  to  rule  is  limited  to  certain  families  and  is  transmitted  by 
birth,  castles  or  palatial  residences  are  the  natural  and  fit  home  for 
civil  rulers.  In  governments  in  which  the  voice  of  the  people  is  the 
sole  rule,  as  in  a  democracy  or  representative  republic,  edifices  which 
shall  accommodate  large  deliberative  assemblies  must  be  provided. 
Ordinarily  the  halls  designed  for  this  purpose  must  be  unlike  in 
structure  to  audience  rooms  constructed  for  a  single  speaker,  such  as 
lecture-rooms  or  Churches ;  and  also  unlike  to  a  theatre  in  which  all 
the  speakers  address  their  hearers  from  one  fixed  stage ;  for  in  the 
deliberative  gatherings  of  a  people  by  their  representatives,  any  one 
of  the  assembly  may  in  his  turn  be  the  speaker,  and  every  point  in 
the  audience-chamber  must  be  a  fit  one  from  which  to  be  heard. 

The  democracy  of  Athens  had  no  covered  structure  in  which  they 
assembled  to  hear  their  popular  orators  or  to  take  action  upon  public 
matters.  In  the  early  days  of  the  Athenian  state,  the  people  gathered 
in  the  market  place  or  "agora,"  where  the  numerous  porticoes  and 
the  awnings  of  venders'  stalls  might  serve  as  a  partial  shelter.  In 
later  times  a  basin-like  depression  on  the  west  of  the  Areopagus  was 
formed  into  a  complete  natural  amphitheatre,  by  raising  some  por- 
tions with  masonry,  and  cutting  down  others ;  and  thus  a  gathering 
space  of  some  1200  yards  square  in  area,  without  other  covering  than 
the  canopy  of  the  heavens,  furnished  an  admirable  audience-room 
for  such  orators  as  Demosthenes.  At  Rome,  the  Comitia,  or  public 
legislative  assembly,  was  also  held  in  the  open  air ;  the  comitia  curiata 
gathering  in  the  Forum ;  the  comitia  centuriata,  and  the  later  tributa, 
meeting  in  aiiy  enclosed  square,  such  as  the  Campus  Martins,  in 
whose  area  a  single  tent  was  pitched  in  which  the  priests  examined 
the  auspices  and  divined  the  future. 

Under  the  monarchies  of  France   and    England,  in  which  the 

pular  branch  of  the  Government  has  special  control,  the  legisla- 
ve  halls  have  come  to  take  more  and  more  a  distinctive  style.  The 
old  Palais  de  Justice  at  Paris,  in  which  was  the  "grande  chambre 


468  ART   CRITICISM. 

du  Parlement,"  was  but  a  palace  in  the  style  of  the  Elizabethan  age. 
The  present  Palace  of  the  Legislative  Body,  originally  commenced 
by  the  Bourbons  and  advanced  towards  completion  by  Mansard,  was 
finally  finished  under  Republican  influence  with  a  grand  Grecian 
facade ;  the  chief  feature  of  which  is  its  magnificent  Corinthian  por- 
tico. In  England,  when  the  popular  element  had  fully  asserted  its 
power,  Westminster  Hall  was  reared ;  in  which  Richard  II.  feasted 
10,000  guests  at  Christmas.  This  Hall  took  finally  the  Tudor  style 
of  front,  giving  a  broad  entrance  door  and  window,  and  furnishing  a 
hall,  the  largest  in  Europe,  270  long,  74  wide,  and  90  high ;  in  which 
the  early  Parliaments  of  England  met.  In  comparatively  recent 
times  the  gorgeous  new  Parliament  Houses  have  been  elaborated  in 
the  most  florid  Gothic  style. 

It  is  in  the  great  Republic  of  North  America  with  its  many 
States,  originally  independent,  but  subsequently  united  as  one  nation, 
that  a  style  of  buildings  has  originated  properly  designated  Capito- 
line.  As  the  human  body  must  have  a  head  so  the  body  politic  must ; 
and  as  it  is  natural  to  call  the  city  in  which  the  head  of  a  nation's 
government  resides  the  "capital,"  so  it  is  natural  to  designate  the 
chief  edifice  in  which  the  functions  of  Government  centre  the 
"Capitol."  The  name  "State  House,"  is  an  index  to  a  peculiar 
American  idea  of  civil  institutions,  as  the  designation  "meeting- 
house" is  to  American  religious  organizations;  but  the  term  "Capi- 
tol," both  applied  to  a  State  or  to  the  national  metropolis,  at  once 
represents  the  dignity  and  embodies  the  common  property  that  are 
centred  in  the  Republic.  These  American  structures  have  one  pre- 
vailing type;  a  blending  of  Roman  grandeur  and  sublimity  with 
Grecian  delicacy  and  grace.  A  few  States,  as  that  of  Virginia,  have 
selected  the  Grecian  temple  as  the  model  from  which  to  embody 
their  conception  of  the  dignity  belonging  to  the  State ;  the  type  after 
which,  apparently,  the  Roman  Capitol,  often  rebuilt,  had  taken  form 
in  Cicero's  day.  Nearly  all,  however,  of  the  great  cities  of  America 
have  chosen  the  most  majestic  of  all  styles,  that  of  the  old  Roman 
dome  crowning  a  rectangular  structure  with  crossing  arms,  and 
adorned  with  pure  Grecian  entrance-porticoes  and  peristyles. 

The  most  magnificent  structure  of  this  latter  kind  is  the  National 
Capitol  at  Washington,  D.  C,  conceived  and  first  built  by  B.  H. 
Latrobe  of  Baltimore,  but  extended  and  remodelled  into  its  present 
grand  proportions  by  T.  IT.  Walter  of  Philadelphia.  The  original 
central  edifice  was  352  feet  4  inches  long,  121  feet  6  inches  deep; 
and  had  in  the  centre  a  rotunda  96  feet  in  diameter,  covered  by 


CONVENTUAL   STYLES,  APPLIED   TO   COLLEGES.  469 

a  dome  rising  to  the  height  of  145  feet.  This  edifice  has  been  en- 
larged; first,  by  an  exten^sion  of  two  wings  142  feet  8  inches  in 
length,  and  238  feet  10  inches  in  depth;  and  second,  by  a  new  dome 
180  feet  3  inches  in  interior  elevation.  The  entire  edifice  is  751  feet 
4  inches  in  length,  324  feet  in  extreme  depth,  covering  153,112 
square  feet,  or  a  little  over  3 J  acres  of  ground;  while  the  height  of 
the  summit  of  the  statue  on  the  dome  above  the  pavement  is  287 
feet  5  inches.  Its  basement  is  a  Roman  feature;  its  porticoes  are 
the  purest  and  richest  Grecian  Corinthian;  its  dome  is  after  the 
Byzantine  style;  and  its  columnar  ornamentation  is  the  revived 
Grecian,  ennobled  by  Michel  Angelo  in  St.  Peter's.  The  columns 
of  the  inner  corridors  in  the  old  central  portion  of  the  structure  are 
Doric  in  the  basement,  and  Ionic  in  the  second  stage,  after  Roman 
taste;  but  in  the  new  wings,  dome  and  lantern,  the  columns  both 
within  and  without  are  pure  Corinthian,  following  the  style  of  the 
Revived  Grecian.  In  true  adherence  to  the  Grecian  idea  of  the 
Corinthian  or  foliated  capital,  which  requires  only  that  the  ornamen- 
tation be  truly  foliage,  leaving  the  artist  to  select  any  variety  that 
sentiment  may  suggest,  those  plants  are  introduced  whose  leaf, 
flower,  and  fruit  might  be  trained  about  their  baskets  by  the  maidens 
of  each  one  of  the  sister  States. 

Sect.  3.  Conventual,  including  College,  Hotel,  Hospital  and  Prison 
Styles;  Designed  as  Congregated  Homes  for  the  Education  of 
Youth,  the  Accommodation  of  Travelers,  the  Care  of  the  Infirm 
AND  THE  Restraint  of  the  Vicious. 

As  that  portion  of  a  community  devoted  to  the  defence  and  called 
to  the  rule  of  any  people  are  congregated  in  castles  and  palaces,  so 
there  is  a  class  of  dependents  that  must  live  in  congregated  homes. 
Prominent  among  this  class  are  the  young,  chiefly  of  the  male  sex, 
requiring  mental  education ;  the  traveler  and  sojourner  who  needs  a 
temporary  home  that  shall  furnish  the  comforts  of  a  fixed  abode; 
the  sick,  disabled  and  aged,  who  for  a  time  or  during  life  are  depend- 
ent for  support  and  relief;  and  the  vicious  and  criminal  who  must 
be  restrained  and  guarded  as  a  penalty  for  past  transgression,  and 
as  a  preventive  from  future  injury.     In  all  lands  and  ages,   and 
under  the  influence  of  all  religions,  there  has  been  a  recognized 
demand,  more  or  less  realized,  for   colleges,  hotels,  hospitals   and 
^«)risons.     It  is,  however,  under  the  culturing  influence  of  Christianity 
^Khat  the  recognized  demand  has  taken  the  form  of  a  religious  obli- 
^^pation ;  and  that  the  supply  of  these  wants  by  extended  edifices  has 
^Khown  the  special  alliance  between  true  art  and  pure  religion.     The 


470  ART   CRITICISM. 

very  name  "Conventual,"  given  to  the  style  of  architecture  appro- 
priate to  colleges,  hotels,  hospitals,  and  even  prisons,  is  an  intimation 
of  the  immediate  connection  which  the  provision  for  the  wants  of 
men,  indicated  by  these  classes  of  edifices,  has  had  with  religion. 
When  the  architectural  styles  thus  designated  arose.  Convents  were 
the  chief  schools,  inns,  and  hospitals. 

Colleges  and  schools  for  the  education  of  the  young  hiave  existed 
in  all  ages  and  under  all  religions ;  but  the  influence  of  the  Christian 
religion  alone  has  extended  mental  culture  to  all  classes  of  men  and 
to  both  sexes.  What  the  architectural  style  of  the  College  of  On  in 
Egypt  was,  to  whose  President  Joseph,  the  Egyptian  prime  minister 
was  allied  by  marriage,  and  in  whose  halls  Moses  the  Hebrew  law- 
giver and  Pythagoras  and  Plato  the  Grecian  philosophers  learned 
the  wisdom  of  the  Egyptians,  we  have  no  direct  information.  But 
as  the  surroundings  of  the  Hebrew  temple,  and  also  of  the  modern 
Muhammedan  mosque,  were  modelled  after  the  Egyptian,  we  have 
reason  to  suppose  that  as  in  the  Hebrew  College  described  by 
Ezekiel,  and  in  the  Muhammedan  Colleges  now  seen  by  the  traveler 
in  Western  Asia,  the  rooms  for  Egyptian  Colleges  were  appendages 
of  the  temple  built  about  the  court-yard  enclosure.  The  study  of 
the  Asiatic  College  edifice,  therefore,  whether  ancient  Egyptian  or 
modern  Muhammedan,  is  a  part  of  the  consideration  of  their  sacred 
architecture.  The  Egyptian  College  had  dark  gloomy  stone-walls 
with  flat  roof  and  projecting  abacus  as  a  cornice;  but  the  mag- 
nificent Colleges  of  Bagdad  and  Cordova  built  some  eight  or  nine 
centuries  after  Christianity  began  its  moral  supremacy,  and  two  or 
three  centuries  after  Muhammedanism  had  gained  its  wide  early 
conquests,  were  of  that  gorgeous  style  of  architecture  called  Sara- 
cenic, founded  as  we  have  seen  on  the  Grecian  Byzantine  with  those 
exuberantly  rich  adornments  from  which  the  florid  Gothic  bor- 
rowed. 

The  ancient  Greek  Academies  and  Colleges  seem  to  have  taken 
their  architectural  cast  from  the  varied  philosophic  schools  under 
which  they  originated.  Socrates  the  practical  moral  teacher  had  no 
school-building,  but  taught  in  the  streets,  the  artist's  studio,  the 
market  stall,  the  banquet  hall,  or  wherever  he  met  men.  Plato,  the 
ideal  metaphysical  reasoner,  chose  a  pleasant  country  seat  of  a  Gre- 
cian aristocrat  living  just  out  of  the  city  of  Athens,  and  lectured  amid 
the  groves  and  gardens  of  Academus,  whence  the  name  Academy. 
Aristotle,  the  teacher  of  Natural  Philosophy,  had  a  plain  room  near 
the  temple  of  the  Lycsean  Apollo  as  a  rainy  weather  resort,  which 


arc 

i 


■ 


MODERN   COLLEGIATE   AND    HOTEL   STYLES.  471 

was  called  his  Lycaion;  while  his  studies  and  teachings  took  him  upon 
rambles  in  the  fields,  which  gave  his  school  the  name  of  Peripatetic. 
Finally  the  critical,  debating  Stoics  lounged  about  the  stoa  or  porticoes 
of  the  agora  or  market-place,  and  hence  derived  their  name.  The 
Greeks  therefore  of  the  early  day  originated  no  special  college  style. 
The  later  widely  celebrated  Grecian  Schools,  especially  those  of 
Athens  in  Greece  proper,  of  Pergamos  in  Asiatic  Greece,  of  Tarsus 
in  an  Asiatic  and  of  Alexandria  in  an  African  province,  seem  to 
have  been  held,  as  were  the  Oriental  Schools,  in  rooms  connected 
with  temples  or  religious  edifices.  The  Romans  to  a  large  extent 
trusted  to  Greek  schools  for  the  education  of  their  youth ;  and  natu- 
rally followed  Grecian  ideas  in  their  own  colleges. 

After  the  introduction  of  Christianity,  as  the  education  of  youth 
was  the  work  of  the  clergy,  the  gathering  places  of  their  own 
monastic  orders  accommodated  the  schools.  At  the  present  day  in 
Northern  Africa  and  Western  Asia,  also  throughout  Egypt,  the  Desert 
of  Sinai,  Syria  and  Asia  Minor,  the  Convents  are  nothing  else  in 
structure  than  fortified  castles ;  having  thick  high  walls  surrounding 
an  area  ordinarily  four-square,  with  the  exterior  faces  an  unbroken 
blank,  unadorned  ordinarily  even  with  a  parapet  at  the  summit; 
while  the  rooms  for  the  accommodation  of  teachers  and  pupils  are 
arranged  about  the  exterior  wall  in  the  manner  most  convenient. 
In  the  progress  of  Christian  civilization,  as  styles  of  architecture 
have  varied,  Convents  have  also  been  modified  in  their  structure; 
retaining  always  in  the  main  the  features  of  the  Castellated  style. 
Since  the  Protestant  reform  in  Northern  Europe,  changes  in  College 
structures  kindred  to  those  of  Church  edifices,  are  to  be  traced. 
When  the  Church  was  a  plain  unadorned  structure  two  stories  in 
height,  with  a  roof  of  single  pitch,  and  that  of  medium  slope,  having 
its  front  at  the  gable  end  without  tower  or  portal,  the  college  also 
was  a  similar  pile,  perhaps  four  stories  high,  and  had  its  unadorned 
entrance  at  the  side  instead  of  the  end.  In  the  advance  of  art  in 
Protestant  countries  the  College  has  followed  the  Church  in  its  main 
architectural  features;  whether  it  be  early  Saxon  and  pointed 
othic,  later  Norman  and  Tudor,  or  yet  later  revived  Grecian  and 

man.     The  Tudor,  inasmuch  as  the  College  edifice  must  partake 

a  measure  of  the  Castellated  style,  is  specially  favorite. 

In  the  structure  of  Hotels,  designed  for  the  temporary  sojourn  of 
travelers,  or  as  the  permanent  abodes  of  associated  families,  the  main 
groundplot  is  naturally  that  of  a  castle,  four-square,  with  its  face 
ierced  both  outwardly  and  inwardly  with  the  windows  of  its  several 


472  ART   CRITICISM. 

stories.  In  lands  where  every  abode  must  be  a  defence,  hotels  like 
convents  became  mere  castles  with  plain  walls ;  the  convents  indeed 
being  the  chief  shelter  and  defence  of  the  few  that  dared  to  roam  in 
climes  remote  and  among  people  inhospitable.  In  modern  days, 
hotels  are  among  the  leading  architectural  ornaments  of  a  town. 
The  basement  necessarily  Eoman,  may  be  made  light  and  airy  by 
porticoes  and  colonnades ;  and  the  columns  in  the  colonnades  of  the 
main  story,  the  window  cappings  and  the  cornice  at  top,  may  take 
the  form  of  any  one  style  of  architecture  from  the  plain  Grecian 
Doric  to  the  exuberant  Louis  Quatorze. 

Hospitals  proper,  including  not  simply  temporary  resorts  for  the 
diseased  in  body,  the  maimed  by  accident,  and  the  wounded  in 
battle,  but  also  permanent  asylums  for  the  insane,  the  indigent,  the 
disabled,  and  the  deaf  mute  and  blind  are  specially  the  offspring  of 
Christian  civilization.  The  Romans  indeed  in  the  best  days  of  the 
republic  had,  as  the  allusions  of  Cicero  and  Vitruvius  show,  houses 
of  entertainment  called  hospitalia ;  but  these  as  the  old  Latin  word 
and  the  English  derivative  "hospitality"  indicate,  were  designed  for 
the  generous  attentions  extended  to  friends,  in  temporary  need  only 
from  the  fact  that  they  were  absent  from  their  own  home  and  its 
comforts.  The  Greeks  too  had  a  corresponding  provision  in  the 
Xenodocheion  alluded  to  even  as  early  as  the  days  of  Herodotus ; 
but  neither  the  Greeks  nor  the  Latins,  until  they  became  Christian, 
had  edifices  that  corresponded  to  the  modern  idea  of  hospitals.  The 
earliest  use  of  the  Latin  name  hospitalia  as  restricted  to  homes  for 
the  sick,  seems  to  have  arisen  at  Jerusalem,  the  Holy  City,  to  which 
religious  pilgrimages  were  made  alike  by  Jews,  Christians  and 
Muhamraedans.  At  first  the  Convents  erected  there  during  and 
after  Constantine's  reign,  seem  to  have  been  the  receptacles  for  the 
occasional  cases  of  sickness  occurring  among  the  few  pilgrims. 
When,  however,  after  the  erection  of  Churches  and  Convents  by  the 
Empress  Helena,  pilgrimages  to  the  Holy  City  became  a  matter  of 
fashion,  as  well  as  of  devotion,  and  Jerome  came  from  Rome  to  be  a 
guide  and  instructor  of  pilgrims  from  the  Western  Church,  we  read 
of  a  range  of  dwellings  built  into  a  block  along  a  narrow  street  or 
alley  called  in  the  Greek  laura.  In  later  days,  about  A.  D.  1000,  a 
century  before  the  Crusades,  the  adherents  of  the  Eastern  or  Greek 
Church  built  a  Xenodocheion  as  a  separate  and  special  receptacle  for 
the  poor  and  sick  pilgrims ;  which  after  the  Crusades  in  the  hands 
of  the  Latin  or  Western  Crusaders  became  the  famed  Hospital  of 
Jerusalem ;  the  rallying  centre  of  the  order  of  Knights  Hospitallers. 


MODERN    HOSPITAL   AND    PRISON   STYLES.  473 

Meanwhile,  and  apparently  through  a  reflex  influence,  hospitals  ori- 
ginated in  the  two  capitals  of  the  Koman  Empire,  and  at  different 
points  along  the  route  thence  to  Jerusalem;  Fabiola,  a  Christian 
lady,  a  friend  of  Jerome,  building  a  hospital  at  Kome;  Paula,  an- 
other Christian  lady,  also  a  friend  of  Jerome,  planting  several  small 
hospitals  at  different  points  in  Palestine ;  while  Chrysostom,  in  the 
same  age,  reared  a  kindred  institution  at  Constantinople.  After- 
wards, north  of  the  Alps,  Christian  cities  boasted  their  hospitals; 
while  on  the  bleak  and  dangerous  passes  of  the  Alps,  Convents 
designed  to  blend  the  characteristics  of  the  hotel  and  the  hospital, 
and  called  in  the  French  tongue  Hospice,  grew  up.  All  of  these  took 
the  character  of  Convents,  already  described;  varying  in  style  accord- 
ing to  locality,  climate,  and  the  progress  of  art.  Hospitals  in  mo- 
dern times  requiring  special  openness  of  structure  and  airiness  in 
their  location,  take  generally  the  Convent  or  College  style.  To  this 
the  comparatively  plain  Norman,  or  the  more  adorned  Tudor  style 
of  Castellated  architecture,  are  specially  adapted ;  while,  as  is  illus- 
trated in  the  Hospital  for  Invalid  Soldiers  at  Paris,  even  the  Byzan- 
tine style  is  not  inappropriate. 

While  hospitals  of  modern  design  and  construction  are  the  pro- 
duct of  Christian  civilization,  the  Prison,  as  an  architectural  edifice, 
is  the  offspring  of  quite  modern  Christian  benevolence  and  enter- 
prise. Existing  from  the  days  of  the  earliest  patriarchs,  in  Chaldea, 
Egypt,  and  amid  various  races  of  men  along  the  shores  of  the  Medi- 
terranean, the  prison  has  been  a  cell  dreadful  to  the  occupant,  and 
scarcely  deserving  a  place  in  the  history  of  architecture;  as  Job 
pictures  when  referring  to  the  grave  as  a  longed-for  refuge, 

"  There  the  prisoners  rest  together ; 
They  hear  not  the  voice  of  the  oppressor." 

The  prison  vaults  of  ancient  Jerusalem,  out  of  whose  mire  Jeremiah 
was  drawn  with  ropes  let  down  to  him,^  the  caves  of  the  Mamertine 
prison  at  Rome,  and  the  black-hole  of  Calcutta,  are  fair  representa- 
tions of  the  ideas  entertained  of  prisons  in  almost  every  land  and 
age;  Christian  civilization  even  having  produced  little  or  no  im- 
rovement  till  within  the  last  century.     Since,  however,  prisoners 
)nfined  for  minor  crimes  have  been  regarded  as  men  to  be  morally 
jformed,  and  work-shops,  chapels  and  comfortable  sleeping  rooms 
Lve  been  furnished,  the  character  of  the  architecture  adapted  to 
risons  has  been  a  special  study.     No  city  of  the  world,  probably 

'  Job  ill.  18;  Gen.  xxxix.  20;  Judg.  xvi.  21  :  Jer.  xxxviii.  6. 
40  *  3  K 


474  ART   CRITICISM. 

ill  this  respect  is  to  be  compared  to  Philadelphia.  The  prison  has 
naturally  taken  the  castellated  style ;  and  that  of  the  age  when  the 
Castle  was  a  fortress  rather  than  a  residence.  In  prison,  as  in  Col- 
lege architecture,  the  Norman  style  is  favorite ;  its  plain  notched 
battlements  and  donjon  towers  being  the  only  feature  of  the  more 
adorned  and  later  styles  which  seems  appropriate.  Any  approach 
to  the  features  of  the  Gothic,  either  in  its  crockets  or  pinnacles,  is 
inconsistent  with  the  idea  of  a  prison  structure;  though  the  narrow 
lancet-shaped  windows,  introduced  merely  as  ventilators,  are  in  keep- 
ing with  this  end.  The  low  and  heavy  Egyptian  adopted  in  the 
"  Tombs,"  so-called,  of  New  York,  have  an  interest  as  presenting  a 
rare  adaptation  of  a  style  of  architecture  long  since  passed  out  of  use ; 
but  the  irresistible  impression  of  inconsistency  in  idea  between  a  temple 
and  prison  makes  the  beholder  wish  to  forget  the  use  to  which  the 
building  is  devoted  while  he  enjoys  the  rare  specimen  of  ancient  art 
before  him. 

Sect.  4,  Villa  and  Cottage  Styi^es;  designed  as  private  residences, 

SUBURBAN  retreats  AND  COUNTRY  RESIDENCES. 

From  the  earliest  periods  of  history  the  dwellings  of  the  mass  of 
mankind,  obliged  to  toil  with  their  hands  for  a  livelihood,  have  been 
tents  or  huts  in  the  open  country,  and  in  the  city,  cellars,  chambers 
or  garrets  in  crowded  structures,  making  no  pretension  to  architectu- 
ral taste  in  their  style.  In  the  city,  moreover,  private  wealth  seldom 
affords  sufficient  space  for  a  residence  that  can  possess  the  breadth 
required  for  elegance  in  architecture ;  and  it  is  only  in  the  public 
edifices  of  a  city  that  this  art  can  exhibit  itself  When,  however, 
wealth  and  taste  combined  seek  a  retreat  in  the  suburbs  of  a  city  for 
temporary  relief  from  the  heat  and  pressure  of  city  life,  or  chooses 
for  itself  a  yet  more  rural  region  as  a  permanent  abode,  the  taste  of 
the  true  architect  finds  its  widest  scope  for  exercise;  and  that, 
because,  while  the  number  of  studies  he  can  make  for  public  edifices 
is  limited,  and  the  demands  also  for  variations  in  style  on  account 
of  collocations  is  restricted,  in  suburban  villas  and  country  mansions 
there  is  no  limit  to  the  number  or  variety  of  designs  required.  The 
consideration  of  the  first  of  these  particulars,  the  varied  styles  of 
private  residences  in  themselves  considered,  whether  built  in  the 
city  or  country,  belongs  to  the  subject  of  architecture  proper ;  while 
the  discussion  of  the  second  topic,  the  modifications  demanded  by 
location  and  collocation  of  country  residences,  belongs  to  the  subject 
of  Landscape  Gardening. 


ANCIENT   ASIATIC   AND    ROMAN   DWELLING*.  475 

The  general  structure  of  ancient  houses,  whether  in  the  south, 
east,  or  north  of  that  "  Great  Sea,"  which,  even  to  the  times  of  the 
later  Romans  was  the  "  Mediterranean,"  or  centre  oj  the  world,  was 
much  the  same;  the  chief  modifying  cause,  since  the  habits  and 
wants  of  men  are  essentially  alike,  being  that  of  climate.  Among 
Asiatics  there  are  literally  no  country  residences ;  all  the  laboring 
people  living  huddled  in  closely  walled  cities  occupying  high  hill- 
tops ;  while  for  miles  around  not  an  abode  for  man  is  seen  except 
the  shepherd's  tent.  Within  the  walled  enclosure  of  these  elevated 
towns,  the  huts  of  the  poor  are  crowded  in  the  outskirts,  built  of 
mud,  brick,  or  stone,  with  low,  flat  thatched  roofs,  without  windows, 
and  having  a  low  wooden  door.  The  houses  of  the  wealthy  are  in 
streets  that  are  only  narrow  alleys ;  a  blank  wall  two  or  three  stories 
high  faces  the  street ;  and  a  low  strong  outer  portal  gives  entrance  into  a 
narrow  square  cave-like  passage-way,  from  which  a  side  door  leads 
into  a  broad  court-yard  open  to  the  sky.  Within  this  enclosure, 
against  the  street  wall,  are  stables  for  donkeys,  horses,  or  cattle ; 
while  on  the  other  three  sides,  the  first  or  lower  story  is  occupied  by 
rooms  for  servants'  storage,  and  a  stairway  to  the  second  story.  The 
rooms  of  the  second  floor,  the  chief  family  abode,  have  large  win- 
dows screened  by  lattices  projecting  into  the  court  below ;  while  over 
the  court  an  awning  is  often  drawn  as  a  shelter  from  sun  or  rain. 
The  roof  covering  the  second  story,  which  is  usually  the  upper  one, 
coated  with  gravel  mixed  with  cement,  has  a  slope  so  slight  as 
usually  to  be  called  flat ;  furnishing  at  once  a  promenade  in  pleasant 
weather  and  a  water-shed  to  conduct  the  rains  into  the  cistern  in  the 
court. 

In  the  houses  of  the  affluent  Greeks  and  Romans  there  was  a 
greater  depth  of  groundplot,  though  a  front  no  wider  than  that  of 
the  Asiatic  house.  An  open  recess  or  vestibule  before  the  door  was 
made  by  setting  the  entrance  door  farther  back  into  the  wall,  while 
the  porter's  lodge  on  the  one  side  of  the  entrance  was  more  capacious, 
and  the  stables  on  the  other  side  were  more  commodious.  The  open 
court  called  aule  by  the  Greeks,  and  atrium  by  the  Romans,  had  a 
covered  colonnade  projected  inwards,  narrowing  the  opening  to  the 
sky;  the  roof  of  the  colonnade  being  supported  by  a  peristyle  of 
plain  Tuscan,  or  of  ornamented  Corinthian  columns.  Around  this 
first  hall,  were  the  offices,  reception  rooms,  and  other  apartments  for 
men ;  while  farther  back  was  a  similar  court  with  the  female  apart- 
ments surrounding  it.  The  roof  of  the  house,  and  of  its  interior 
colonnades,  gathered  the  water  from  rains  into  an  underground  cis- 


476  ART   CRITICISM. 

tern,  or  in  more  costly  mansions  into  an  upper  reservoir.  The  floor 
of  the  atrium  was  paved  with  tiles  or  mosaics ;  and  in  its  centre  was 
a  vase  or  fountain  basin,  adorned  with  shells  and  miniature  statuary 
tastefully  clustered,  and  supplied  with  water  by  a  stop-cock,  or  flow- 
ing stream  or  jet.  The  descriptions  of  Cicero,  Pliny,  and  other  Ko- 
mans,  and  especially  the  houses  now  unburied  at  Pompeii,  fully 
illustrate  Roman  domestic  architecture.  From  the  nature  of  the 
case,  the  Oriental,  living  always  in  the  city,  unless  he  were  a  public 
man  surrounded  by  a  public  guard,  could  have  no  country  residence. 
On  the  flat  roof,  however,  of  his  city  residence,  the  Asiatic  of  wealth, 
could  rear  a  "summer  chamber,"  sometimes  also  built  for  a  prince 
over  a  city  gate,  to  which  as  lord  of  the  manor  he  could  retire  for  a 
noon-day  nap,  for  private  meditation  or  devotion;  where  he  could 
enjoy  quiet  with  a  friend,  or  look  down  by  pushing  aside  the  awning 
to  see  or  hear  what  was  passing  below.^  This  Oriental  facility  for  a 
summer  retreat,  the  slant  of  the  Grecian  roof  scarcely  permitted, 
and  the  steeper  slope  of  the  Roman  roof  positively  forbade  the  use  of 
the  house-top  as  such  a  resort.  Moreover  the  security  of  private 
property  among  the  Greeks  and  Romans  allowed  the  luxury  of 
suburban  retreats.  Although  the  German  habit  of  building  private 
houses  scattered  over  the  country,  and  far  from  each  other,  wherever 
a  cool  spring,  a  shady  grove,  or  a  pleasant  vale  invited,  was  unknown 
in  Italy,  and  a  surprise  to  the  historian  Tacitus,  yet  the  country 
for  some  miles  about  Rome  was  studded  with  villas.  This  custom  of 
building,  though  evidently  less  common  among  the  Greeks  than 
among  the  Romans,  had  an  illustration  in  the  grove  and  garden  of 
Academus,  distant  a  few  minutes  walk  from  the  city  gates  of  Athens ; 
a  summer  retreat  presented  by  its  owner  to  the  city  as  a  sort  of  park, 
and  the  favorite  resort  of  the  philosophic  spirits  that  gathered  about 
the  ideal  Plato. 

The  Romans,  however,  unlike  the  Greeks  in  their  fondness  for 
variety  and  scope  in  their  private  residences,  were  the  people  to 
exhibit  comprehensiveness  of  idea  in  their  suburban  retreats.  Cicero 
and  Pliny  adorned  with  their  taste  and  enriched  with  their  fortunes 
those  villas  which  they  immortalized  by  their  pens.  Those  paragons 
of  country  residences  which  once  covered  the  hills  about  Rome, 
extending  to  Tivoli  and  Tusculum,  ten  or  twelve  miles  from  the  city, 
and  even  to  towns  on  the  coast  like  Laurentum,  thirty  or  forty  miles 


•  See  Judg.  iii.  20,  24:  1  Sam.  ix.  25,  26;  2  Sam.  xviii.  33;  2  Kings,  iv.  10; 
xziii.  12:  Luke  v.  19:  Acts  x.  9. 


ROMAN   VILLAS   AND   MODERN   COUNTRY   SEATS.  477 

distant,  are  either  entirely  swept  away,  or  so  dilapidated  as  to  give 
little  idea  of  their  former  style  of  architecture.  Still  the  descrip- 
tions of  Vitruvius  and  Pliny  illustrated  by  the  relics  of  larger  man- 
sions now  visible  in  unburied  Pompeii,  give  a  consistent  idea  of  the 
structure  of  the  villa  house ;  while  the  plot  of  the  grounds  can  still 
be  readily  traced  by  remaining  landmarks. 

Of  villa  mansions  there  were  two  classes.  The  villa  urhana,  or 
suburban  villa,  was  built  near  the  city;  and  it  was  constructed  after 
the  model  of  a  town  residence,  except  that  its  sides,  as  well  as  its 
front,  were  adorned  and  made  commodious  by  balconies  and  porti- 
coes. The  villa  rustica,  or  country  residence,  more  distant  from  the 
city,  was  the  mansion  of  the  proprietor  of  an  extended  farm.  Being 
designed  for  a  larger  retinue,  it  was  furnished  with  added  cellce  for 
the  servants ;  with  an  erga^tulum,  or  prison  work-shop,  where  convicts 
hired  out  as  laborers,  according  to  Roman  custom,  were  confined 
after  their  hours  of  toil ;  with  cellars  for  wine  and  oil ;  and  with 
extensive  stalls  for  horses  and  other  domestic  animals;  the  details 
of  whose  grouping  belong  to  Landscape  Gardening.  The  remains 
of  the  structure  called  "Diomed's  villa,"  at  Pompeii,  give  some 
consistent  idea  of  the  villa  urbana;  while  the  grounds  shown  about 
eleven  miles  from  Tivoli,  as  the  "Sabine  Farm"  of  Horace,  afford 
an  impression  as  to  the  villa  rustica.  The  grandest  of  all  old  Roman 
villas  was  that  of  Hadrian,  at  Tivoli,  covering  a  space  eight  or  ten 
miles  in  circuit ;  the  last  grand  conception  of  this  Emperor  so  de- 
voted to  architecture.  Upon  these  extended  grounds,  Hadrian,  who 
had  visited  every  part  of  his  wide  empire,  designed  to  reproduce  and 
bring  into  juxtaposition  the  finest  structures  of  the  known  world; 
of  Egypt,  Assyria,  Persia,  and  Greece ;  mingling  temples,  academies, 
theatres,  and  amphitheatres. 

In  modern  times  the  villas  about  Rome  and  elsewhere  numerous 
in  Italy,  are  modeled  so  far  as  their  groundplot  arrangement  is  con- 
cerned after  that  of  the  ancients.  The  style  of  mansion  called  the 
"Italian  villa,"  has  the  general  characteristics  of  the  Tudor  of  the 
Elizabethan  period  without  its  Gothic  features;  the  Elizabethan, 
as  we  have  seen,  being  the  offspring  of  Italian  ideas  introduced 
after  their  exclusion,  caused  by  the  spirit  of  the  Reformation,  and 
grafted  upon  the  Gothic.  It  has  clustered  chimneys,  a  straight 
roof  with  a  single  pitch  of  medium  steepness,  no  parapet,  brackets 
supporting  the  projecting  eaves,  a  tower,  usually  at  one  side, 
in  which  is  the  entrance,  together  with  arcade  balconies  and  bay 
windows ;  and  it  is  properly  adapted  to  grounds  of  moderate  extent. 


478 


ART   CRITICISM. 


The  style  entitled  the  "French  Chateau"  is  substantially  that  of 
Louis  Quatorze ;  the  roof  has  the  double  Mansard  pitch,  usually 
curved;  the  entrance  is  at  the  centre  of  the  front;  the  porticoes  and 
balustrades  are  Roman  in  the  decoration  of  their  columns  and  pedi- 
ments, and  there  are  no  projecting  towers  or  battlements;  and  it  is 
thus  adapted  to  a  town,  if  not  a  city  residence,  standing  as  it  does, 
in  an  enclosure  of  very  limited  extent.  The  "Swiss  cottage"  has  a 
sharp  steep  roof  with  eaves  projected  far  over  the  walls;  it  has  no 
colonnade  or  piazza,  though  there  may  be  a  projecting  entrance  with 
a  covered  platform ;  and  it  is  a  style  only  adapted  to  an  open  and 
rugged  site,  and  to  a  situation  underneath  a  hill-side  where  from 
Alpine  associations  such  a  roof  seems  called  for.  The  "verandah' 
style,  borrowed  from  India,  a  square  house  with  flat  roof,  having  a 
wide  piazza  running  completely  around,  is  appropriate  to  an  open 
lawn,  little  shaded,  and  having  a  warm  sunny  exposure.  The 
"kiosk,"  or  Turkish  summer  house,  octagonal  or  circular  in  ground- 
plot,  having  its  roof  mitre-shaped,  either  forming  at  top  the  com- 
plete half  of  an  entire  mitre,  or  bent  into  a  scroll-like  curve,  making 
the  roof  to  present  only  the  apex  of  the  mitre,  is  a  style  to  be  copied 
only  in  summer  houses  proper,  that  have  only  a  lattice-enclosed 
room ;  and  it  is  appropriate  only  as  an  arbor,  under  a  shade,  near  a 
fountain,  or  beside  a  lake. 

The  details  of  the  construction  of  cottage  houses  belong  rather 
to  the  practical  builder,  than  to  the  student  tracing  only  the  general 
principles  of  architectural  structure.  The  adaptation  of  different 
styles  of  architecture,  especially  of  villa  residences,  to  the  general 
character  of  grounds  as  they  exist  in  nature  and  may  be  shaped  by 
art,  belongs  to  Landscape  Gardening. 


BOOK   V. 

PAINTING;   THE   ADDING   OF   COLOR   TO   FOEM. 

In  the  three  departments  of  art  thus  far  considered,  we  have  re- 
garded form  alone,  aside  from  color.  In  drawing  the  light  and 
shade  of  perspective  only  require  the  employ  of  white,  the  combina- 
tion of  all  colors,  and  of  black  the  absence  of  color.  In  sculpture 
every  work  is  of  the  one  unvarying  hue  of  its  material ;  either  the 
entire  work  being  of  one  material  and  of  a  single  color  as  white 
marble,  dark  bronze,  red  granite,  etc. ;  or  if,  like  Phidias'  Minerva, 
made  up  in  parts  of  different  material,  each  of  these  parts  having 
its  own  separate  and  peculiar  color,  without  anything  of  the  meeting 
and  blending  of  hues  and  tints  which  is  seen  in  the  human  form,  and 
in  every  beast,  bird,  insect  and  plant.  In  architecture,  color  is 
always  secondary,  generally  accidental,  and  only  occasionally  artistic, 
as  an  addition  to  the  forms  which  that  art  regards  its  peculiar  pro- 
vince; color  being  accidental  in  stone  and  brick  structures,  where 
the  color  is  that  of  the  material;  being  secondary,  when,  as  in 
wooden  structures,  it  is  chosen  not  as  having  any  type  in  nature,  but 
from  the  caprice  of  an  individual  or  the  fashion  in  a  community; 
and  only  being  truly  artistic  when  as  an  adjunct  it  is  selected  as 
adapted  to  climate,  as  in  harmony  with  the  surrounding  scenery,  or 
as  in  consistency  with  the  use  to  which  the  edifice  is  devoted. 

Painting  should  follow  drawing,  sculpture  and  architecture  for 
two  reasons ;  first,  because  to  be  a  master  in  painting  requires  a  theo- 
retical acquaintance  with  all  other  arts ;  and  second,  because  to  the 
accurate  execution  of  all  classes  of  forms,  must  be  added  in  painting 
the  just  coloring  of  the  forms  constructed  by  the  other  arts.  Lio- 
nardo  da  Vinci  said,  "A  painter  ought  to  be  well  instructed  in  per- 
spective, to  be  a  master  of  anatomy,  and  also  to  be  a  good  architect." 
It  should  be  added  that  in  one  respect  Landscape  Gardening 
should  as  a  study  precede  painting;  for  since  this  art  is  the  skilful 
combining  of  scenery  in  hill  and  vale,  grove  and  garden,  pasture 

479 


i 


480  ART   CRITICISM. 

and  tillage,  with  the  added  grouping  of  buildings  and  statuary, 
so  the  painter  who  is  to  be  not  only  a  copyist  of  what  already 
exists  in  nature,  but  a  Creator  of  new  beauties  in  landscape  must 
to  a  certain  extent  have  availed  himself  of  the  study  of  this 
subsidiary  art. 

It  is  a  just  claim,  in  fact,  which  the  painters  make  that  theirs  is 
the  "art  of  arts."  Drawing  is  a  part  of  their  work,  the  foundation 
on  which  the  superstructure  is  to  be  reared,  and  of  course  but  a  sub- 
sidiary though  most  important  portion  of  the  painter's  creation. 
Sculpture  and  architecture  make  forms,  which  the  eye  may  recognize 
as  they  really  are,  actually  existing.  Painting,  however,  without 
making  the  form,  really  presents  it  to  the  eye;  justifying  the  blind 
man's  remark  as  he  felt  first  of  a  statue  and  then  of  a  painting  of 
the  same  figure,  "if  this  flat  surface  looks  like  that  round  one,  then 
this  is  the  greater  art."  Yet  again,  the  field  of  painting  is  limitless 
as  the  universe  itself;  while  the  sphere  of  sculpture  and  architectur 
is  limited  to  a  few  and  those  single  objects,  since  a  tree  or  a  clou< 
cannot  be  sculptured,  except  in  bas-relief,  which  partakes  of  the 
nature  of  a  painting. 


CHAPTEK    I. 

THE   ANALYSIS   AND   COMPOSITION   OF   COLORS. 

The  student  in  the  art  of  painting  will  begin,  as  the  pupil  in 
music  or  language,  or  any  other  branch  of  education,  with  practical 
attempts  at  the  execution  of  his  art.  It  is  the  practice  which  will 
awaken  a  sense  of  the  value  of  rules  in  his  art;  and  the  study  of 
nature  and  of  the  means  of  copying  her  works  will  commence  and 
progress  together  as  his  taste  matures  and  his  power  increases.  In 
this  pursuit,  however,  his  work  will  necessarily  divide  itself  into 
classes.  To  the  mere  amateur,  or  general  student,  a  brief  view  of 
these  branches  of  the  artist's  study  in  their  natural  order  is  essential 
for  the  just  understanding  and  criticism  of  the  painter's  task. 

One  study  of  the  painter,  in  the  order  of  scientific  classification,  is 
the  analysis  and  synthesis  of  colors  in  themselves ;  until  his  eye  can 
detect  every  variation,  however  slight,  and  his  hand  execute  their 
mixtures  so  as  to  copy  that  variation.     A  second  study  is  the  com- 


SIMPLE   OR   ELEMENTARY   COLORS.  481 

bination  of  colors  actually  existing  and  seen  in  nature ;  to  gather 
from  the  infinitely  skilful  painter  of  all  material  creation  the  prin- 
ciples, rather  than  the  details,  of  his  method.  His  subsequent  toil 
must  then  be  to  gain  the  power  not  only  of  executing  with  the  brush 
copies  of  Nature's  works  already  existing,  but  of  conceiving  and 
executing  new  scenes  and  images  arrayed  in  new  hues,  shades  and 
tints. 

Sect.  1.  The  Simple  or  Elementary  Colors. 

The  commonly  received  theory  as  to  the  essential  nature  of  color 
may  be  adopted  as  practically  true  in  the  study  of  the  art  of  color- 
ing. That  theory  is  substantially  this :  that  color  is  not  a  quality 
inherent  in  and  belonging  to  the  colored  object;  but  is  rather  such  a 
disposition  of  the  particles  of  a  substance  that  its  surface  reflects  to 
the  eye  of  the  beholder  either  all  of  and  entire  the  rays  of  the  syn's 
light,  or  a  certain  part  of  those  rays  chemically  decomposed  and 
separated  into  their  elements,  or  none  of  them.  The  pure  rays  of 
the  sun's  light,  when  reflected  without  decomposition  are  white;  and 
render  substances,  therefore,  even  polished  black  iron,  which  reflect 
them,  white.  Substances  which  reflect  none  of  the  rays  of  sun-light 
are  really  unseen,  and  give  the  impression  of  black ;  the  color  of  all 
things  in  darkness  where  we  see  nothing.  Substances  that  give  the 
impression  of  colors  intermediate  between  black  and  white  reflect  a 
part  only  of  the  light;  exhibiting  one  or  more  of  the  elements  of 
which  its  rays  are  made  up.  White  is  thus  the  combination  of  all 
colors;  while  black  is  the  absence  of  all  color.  The  mixture  of  black 
and  white  make  gray.  These  three,  white,  gray,  and  black,  are  in  the 
language  of  art  called  neutral,  or  negative  colors.  The  positive  or 
essential  colors,  though  once  reckoned  seven  in  number,  are  by  a  later 
and  more  exhaustive  analysis  reduced  to  three;  yellow,  red,  and  blue. 

In  the  earliest  times  the  decomposition  of  the  pure  white  light  was 
observed ;  that  decomposition  being  caused  by  the  refraction  of  rays 
of  light  in  passing  through  a  transparent  medium  as  amber  or  crys- 
tal ;  and  especially  when  falling  upon  water,  either  in  its  gaseous, 
liquid,  or  solid  form,  as  in  cloud,  water-fall,  and  iceberg.  The  rain- 
bow existed  doubtless  before  Noah's  day;  and  it  was  then  ''set"  or 
set  apart  "  in  the  clouds  for  a  sign  ;"  as  the  sun  long  beforehand  in 
existence  was  at  man's  creation  set  apart  to  a  new  office.^  As  early 
as  the  days  of  Job  and  of  Abraham  the  Chaldeans  seem  to  have 


'  Gen.  ix.  13,  14,  compare  Gen.  i.  3,  14,  and  ii.  6. 
41  3  L 


482  ART   CRITICISM. 

referred  the  phenomena  of  the  rainbow  to  the  action  of  light  on  the 
clouds.'  Kanada,  the  great  Indian  philosopher,  who  lived  before 
Pythagoras'  age,  divided  the  primitive  colors  into  seven ;  including, 
however,  white  and  black  as  the  extremes,  while  the  intermediate 
five  seem  to  have  been  yellow,  red,  green,  blue,  and  purple  or  violet, 
proceeding  from  white  to  black.  Aristotle  argues  that  light  is 
"superficial,"  not  a  quality  in  the  substance  of  the  colored  body,  but 
is  an  effect  produced  on  the  eye  by  agitation  of  an  etherial  medium 
about  and  on  the  surface  of  the  body ;  and  he  states  that  this  view 
was  held  by  Pythagoras.  He  also  regards  black  and  white  as  neu- 
tral, since  either  of  them  when  pure  may  be  invisible,  while  in 
admixture  they  became  apparent  and  positive.  He  recognizes  the 
fact  that  the  rainbow  is  produced  by  the  reflection  of  the  rays  of  the 
sun  from  vapor  in  the  air,  and  argues  that  the  bow  is  opposite  the 
sun,  and  half  a  circle,  because  in  another  position  of  the  sun  "the 
vapor  will  reflect  the  solar  rays,  not  toward  the  earth,  but  towards 
the  heavens." 

The  analysis  of  Sir  Isaac  Newton  in  1672,  established,  as  it 
was  designed,  not  so  much  the  complete  analysis  of  colors  in  the 
prismatic  spectrum,  as  the  fact  that  the  combination  of  them  is 
the  white  light.  The  seven  colors  red,  orange,  yellow,  green,  blue, 
indigo,  violet,  were  afterwards  by  Sir  David  Brewster  resolved  into 
three,  yellow,  red,  and  blue;  experiment  having  shown  that  while 
each  of  the  other  four,  orange,  green,  indigo,  and  violet,  may  be 
separated  into  different  elements  by  the  prism,  these  three  alone, 
yellow,  red,  and  blue,  cannot  be  thus  separated ;  while,  moreover,  the 
synthesis  of  colors,  which  is  more  practical  than  their  analysis, 
proved  that  all  the  other  colors  seen  in  nature,  or  used  in  art,  can  be 
obtained  by  an  admixture  in  proper  proportions  of  these  three  ele- 
mentary colors,  yellow,  red,  and  blue.  Sir  David  Brewster  also  dis- 
covered, that  instead  of  seven  distinct  colors,  separated  from  each 
other  by  marked  lines  in  the  solar  spectrum,  there  is  an  infinite 
variety  of  hues,  shading  off*  into  each  other  by  indefinable  limits; 
and  he  hence  concluded  that  the  three  elementary  colors  in  the  sun's 
light,  though  refracted  in  the  main  at  different  angles,  are  all  three 
mingled  in  greater  or  less  proportion  throughout  the  spectrum.  The 
important  fact  thus  established,  so  far  as  painting  is  concerned,  is, 
that  all  hues,  shades,  and  tints  in  coloring  are  to  be  attained  by 
admixture  of  the  three  elementary  colors;  while  at  the  same  time 


'  Job  xxxvi.  27-30,  compare  Job  xxxii.  2,  and  Gen.  xxii.  21. 


ARTIFICIAL   OR  COMPOUND   COLORS.  483 

these  three  are  so  intermixed  in  nature,  as  in  the  solar  spectrum,  that 
in  none  of  his  pigments  can  the  artist  expect  to  find,  as  he  could  not 
with  truth  to  nature  employ,  any  pure  elementary  color.  It  is  only 
an  approximation  to  pure  colors  which  is  employed  by  nature  in  her 
own  works,  or  furnished  in  her  materials  for  artists. 

Sect.  2.  The  Artificial  or  Compound  Colors. 

The  first  and  simplest  admixture  of  colors,  that  with  which  a  child 
very  early  becomes  familiar,  is  the  union  of  black  and  white  forming 
grays.  Of  these,  there  is  of  course,  a  numberless  variety ;  since  any 
proportion  of  black,  greater  or  less,  will  give  shades  darker  or 
lighter,  of  a  true  gray  color.  Eeferring  to  this  variety  Sir  Isaac 
Newton  remarks,  "These  gray  and  dun  colors  may  be  also  produced 
by  mixing  whites  and  blacks."  The  difference  of  shade,  and  even 
of  hue,  which  may  come  under  the  general  title  gray,  is  indicated  in 
the  name  graios,  or  Greek,  from  which  lexicographers  derive  the 
English  word.  Thus  Hesiod^  alludes  to  the  "fair-cheeked  Greek 
women,  light-colored  from  their  birth,  hence  called  graiaif  whose 
complexion  sallow,  ashen,  tanned,  or  florid,  was  always  in  contrast 
to  that  of  the  Asiatic,  though  greatly  varying  in  special  hue.  It  is 
specially  worthy  of  note,  though  not  remarked  by  lexicographers, 
that  professional,  if  not  primitive  English  usage  has  made  a  distinc- 
tion between  gray  and  grey.  The  spelling  gray  may  with  propriety 
be  employed  to  designate  admixtures  in  which  simple  black  and 
white  are  employed.  The  form  grey  may  indicate  those  admixtures 
having  the  same  general  hue,  into  which  blue  and  its  compounds 
more  or  less  slightly  enter.  A  common  variety  of  the  former  is 
drab;  of  the  latter,  lead  color. 

Turning  now  to  the  positives  blue,  red,  and  yellow,  we  find  that  a 
rule  of  harmonious  proportion  in  admixture,  fixed  as  a  law  of  nature 
for  their  combination,  must  be  regarded,  in  order  that  the  true  and 
pure  colors  intermediate  between  them  be  secured.  Those  propor- 
tions are  for  yellow  three,  for  red  five,  and  for  blue  eight.  The 
admixture  of  the  three  colors  in  these  proportions  forms  pure  white. 
With  reference  to  these  proportionate  admixtures,  yellow,  red,  and 
blue,  are  called  the  primary  colors;  and  the  proportions  in  which 
they  must  be  combined  to  form  other  pure  colors  are  called  their 
"equivalents." 

The  union  of  any  two  of  the  three  primaries  in  their  proportions 


'  Hesiod  Theog.  270. 


484  ART   CRITICISM. 

form  what  are  called  the  three  secondaries ;  namely,  orange  from  red 
and  yellow,  green  from  yellow  and  blue,  purple  from  red  and  blue. 
A  new  set  of  proportions  or  equivalents  are  thus  established ;  the 
equivalent  of  each  secondary  being  the  sum  of  the  equivalents  of 
its  elements.  When  therefore  the  secondaries  are  combined  to  form 
still  other  pure  colors  the  equivalent  of  orange  is  eight,  of  green 
eleven,  and  of  purple  thirteen.  The  admixture  of  the  secondaries 
in  these  their  proportions,  constitutes  the  three  tertiaries;  citrine 
from  green  and  orange,  russet  from  orange  and  purple,  and  olive 
from  purple  and  green.  The  same  order  in  proportionate  admixture 
will  give  an  endless  number  of  pure  colors.  The  admixture  of  these 
pure  colors  in  indefinite  proportions  give  the  dirty  or  impure  colors ; 
among  which  the  browns  are  the  most  important.  In  reference  to 
their  effect  in  nature  these  colors  are  called  semi-^ieutrak. 

Looking  at  these  several  pure  colors,  primaries,  secondaries,  etc., 
separately,  several  points  of  importance  are  to  be  noted.  Of  the 
three  primaries,  yellow  is  next  to  white  in  the  order  of  color;  a  fact 
to  be  specially  observed  in  considering  the  effects  of  different  colors. 
Mixed  with  white  it  gives  the  faint  hues  called  straw  color,  etc.  It 
is  the  ruling  color  in  the  tertiary  citrine;  it  enters  largely  into  the 
compound  colors,  buff,  bay,  tawny,  tan,  dan,  dun,  drab,  chestnut, 
roan,  sorrel,  hazel,  auburn,  Isabella,  fawn,  feuille  morte,  etc. ;  and  it 
takes  its  share  with  red  in  the  semi-neutral  browns.  Ked  is  the 
central  color;  being  intermediate  alike  between  yellow  and  blue  as 
analyzed  colors,  and  between  white  and  black  as  unanalyzed.  It  is 
a  leading  element  in  the  two  secondaries,  orange  and  its  relatives, 
scarlet,  etc.,  and  purple  and  its  allies,  crimson,  etc. ;  it  is  the  con- 
trolling color  in  the  tertiary  russet;  it  enters  largely  into  the  various 
hues  of  the  semi-neutral  marrone  or  chocolate  and  its  relatives,  puce, 
murray,  morello,  mordore,  pompadour,  etc.,  and  it  is  found  in  a 
smaller  proportion  in  browns,  grays,  and  other  broken  colors.  Blue 
is  the  primary  color  nearest  black.  It  was  an  ancient  theory,  advo- 
cated even  by  Lionardo  da  Vinci,  that  blue,  especially  azure  or  sky 
blue,  is  a  mixture  of  white  and  black,  or  of  light  and  darkness.  Its 
tendency  towards  black  as  he  illustrated,  may  be  seen  by  looking 
through  a  deep  valley,  or  into  a  cave ;  or  even  by  taking  a  view 
from  \Wthout  of  a  darkened  room  through  a  narrow  opening  into 
which  the  sunlight  enters.  From  the  pure  white  light  at  the  very 
entrance  the  color  is  seen  to  deepen,  until  the  blue  appears  in  the 
distance  shading  off  rapidly  into  black ;  the  last  and  most  distant 
object  of  any  kind  that  can  throw  back  any  light  to  the  eye,  be  it 


RELATIONS   OF   COLORS   TO   EACH   OTHER.  485 

air  or  earth,  reflecting  blue  as  the  nearest  neighbor  to  black.  Blue 
is  an  abounding  element  in  the  universal  green  of  the  earth's  cover- 
ing ;  it  is  the  ruling  element  in  olive ;  and  it  enters  largely  into  the 
semi-neutral  greys,  as  slate,  lead  colors,  etc. 

Turning  again  to  the  secondaries  we  observe  some  important  rela- 
tions to  other  colors.  Orange  is  the  secondary  nearest  to  white,  being 
composed  of  yellow  and  red.  When  it  inclines  to  red  it  takes  the 
names  of  scarlet,  poppy,  coquilicot,  etc. ;  and  when  it  tends  towards 
yellow  it  is  gold  color.  Green  is  the  central  secondary,  being  made 
up  of  the  two  extreme  primaries,  yellow  and  blue.  Unlike  the  other 
two  secondaries,  all  its  hues,  whether  tending  to  yellow  or  blue, 
retain  their  peculiar  denominations  as  green ;  for  we  speak  of  pea- 
green  and  bottle-green ;  while  in  every  land  the  foliage  of  every  tree 
and  plant  is  called  green  from  the  lightest  poplar  to  the  darkest  fir, 
and  from  the  yellow  of  Italy  and  Mexico  to  the  almost  blue-black 
of  England  and  Greenland.  Purple  is  the  extreme  secondary  on  the 
dark  side ;  being  made  up  of  the  central  red  and  the  extreme  blue. 
When  it  tends  towards  red  it  furnishes  the  colors,  rose,  crimson,  etc. ; 
and  when  it  inclines  to  blue,  it  becomes  lilac,  violet,  etc. ;  and  finally 
near  to  black  it  is  indigo. 

Among  the  tertiaries  citrine  is  the  extreme  light  color;  its  largest 
constituent  being  yellow,  and  its  least  blue.  It  succeeds  first  and 
next  to  the  green  of  summer  foliage  as  autumn  comes  on ;  and  as 
winter  approaches,  and  the  hues  of  nature  change  towards  the  orange 
shade,  the  citrine  is  found  to  comprise  a  class  of  colors  including 
aurora,  chamoise,  etc.  Kusset  is  the  central  tertiary ;  red  being  its 
chief  ingredient.  It  follows  in  nature  the  citrine  in  autumn  tints; 
and  includes  colors  sometimes  termed  subdued  red,  red-purple,  and 
even  those  designated  as  brown.  Olive  is  the  darkest  of  the  ter- 
tiaries; blue  being  its  main  constituent.  In  nature  it  prevails  in 
numberless  compounds  with  green,  blue,  black,  and  grey;  and  its 
hues  are  called  green,  grey,  ashen,  slate,  etc.  The  olive,  for  exam- 
ple, of  foliage  is  designated  as  green  or  greenish ;  that  of  sky  as  grey 
or  greyish,  that  of  earth  ashen,  of  mountain  slate  or  slatish,  etc. 

The  semi-neutrals  are  those  into  which  black  enters  as  an  element. 
They  are  divided  into  three  classes;  brown,  marrone  or  maroon,  and 
grey.  Brown  indicates  a  class  of  colors  of  very  indefinite  limit. 
All  of  them,  however,  have  yellow  as  a  principal  constituent ;  while 
none  are  decidedly  of  a  blue  cast.  There  are,  for  example,  yellow- 
browns,  red-browns,  orange-browns,  purple-browns,  but  no  blue- 
brown.     The  class  of  browns  is  often  made  to  include  dun,  hazel, 

41  * 


486  ART   CRITICISM. 

auburn,  etc. ;  though  the  pure  colors  and  hues  of  tlie  tertiaries  are 
really  distinct  from  the  impure  colors;  the  latter  not  being  of  pro- 
portionate ingredients,  as  are  the  former.  Marrone,  or  maroon,  in- 
cludes a  class  of  impure  colors  in  which  the  red  predominates,  as  the 
yelloAV  in  brown;  brownish  crimson  and  claret  being  of  this  class. 
The  name  is  derived  from  the  ancient  tow^n  of  Maronea,  in  Thrace, 
Greece;  whose  wine  is  mentioned  by  Livy  and  Pliny  as  celebrated 
for  its  peculiar  and  beautiful  color.  From  its  Greek  and  Latin 
usage  the  w^ord  came  to  be  applied  in  the  Italian,  the  language  of 
art,  to  a  delicate  chestnut  color;  and  again  by  the  Spaniards,  whose 
language  is  most  closely  allied  to  the  Italian,  to  the  copper  hue  of 
the  mulattoes  intermixed  by  marriage  with  the  native  Indians  among 
the  mountains  of  the  West  India  Islands.  It  embraces,  therefore,  as 
mentioned,  a  class  of  colors  which  are  impure,  being  made  up  of  dis- 
proportionate ingredients,  and  in  which  red  predominates.  Grey,  as 
distinguished  from  gray  an  admixture  in  any  proportion  of  black 
and  white,  is  the  head  of  a  class  of  impure  colors  in  which  blue  pre- 
dominates. It  is  thus  the  third  class  of  semi-neutrals,  brown  in  which 
yellow  is  predominant  being  the  first,  and  maroon  in  which  red  pre- 
dominates being  the  second.  We  have  blue  greys,  olive  greys,  green 
greys,  purple  greys,  but  no  yellow  or  red  greys.  This  distinction 
will  be  found  of  special  importance  in  studying  the  grey  tints  of 
cloud,  earth  and  water. 

The  neutral  black  is  never  pure  in  nature  or  art ;  for  as  no  spot 
in  the  universe  is  perfectly  shut  out  from  all  diffused  rays  of  light  so 
there  is  nothing  perfectly  black  or  utterly  destitute  of  color.  Black 
is  only  used  to  give  darkness  in  shading;  and  in  admixture  with 
colors  it  does  not  alter  the  hue,  it  only  deepens  the  shade. 

The  analysis  of  colors  above  considered  was  understood  by  the 
painters  of  ancient  Greece.  Aristotle  for  instance,  remarks,  "The 
many  other  colors  besides  white  and  black  are  multiplied  in  number 
by  proportionate  admixtures;  for  they  can  be  formed  by  uniting 
them  together  in  the  ratio  of  two  to  three,  of  three  to  four,  and  of 
other  numbers.  Other  colors,  however,  are  formed  by  admixture 
without  ratio;  having  a  disproportionate  amount  of  some  and 
an  absence  of  other  elements."  In  both  ancient  and  modern  times 
the  admixture  of  colors  by  artists,  as  intimated,  is  only  approximate 
in  actual  practice.  In  water  colors,  the  pigments  used  approach 
nearest  to  the  pure  and  true  colors  which  chemical  analysis  has  un- 
folded. No  one,  however,  can  successfully  and  readily  copy  the  ever 
varying  hues  and  tints  which  Nature  wears,  except  he  learn  carefully 


COMPLEMENTARY    AND   CONTRASTED    COLORS.  487 

to  distinguish  varied  colors  one  from  another,  and  to  separate  the 
elements  that  enter  into  each  compound.  No  one  especially  can 
study  the  history  of  painting,  from  its  rudest  exhibition  in  the  glaring 
yellow,  crimson  and  blue,  which  ancient  Egyptian  artists  used  and 
which  attract  the  eye  of  the  savage  and  of  childhood,  till  the  con- 
summation of  the  art  of  coloring  was  achieved  in  the  mild  and  mel- 
low tints  of  a  Kaphael  or  a  Guido,  without  a  careful  preliminary 
study  of  colors  in  themselves  considered. 

Sect.  3.  Complementary  and  Contrasted  Colors. 

Colors  when  viewed  alone,  without  any  reference  to  juxtaposition, 
produce  different  impressions.  Yet  more;  in  the  setting  over  in 
nature  of  one  color  against  another,  and  in  making  men  to  copy  his 
method  in  this  respect  in  the  chosen  hues  of  male  and  female  attire, 
the  Divine  Creator  intimates  that  He  has  made  our  nature  to  demand 
contrast  and  complementary  proportion  in  the  colors  constantly  be- 
fore us.  The  blue  sky  and  green  foliage,  the  grey  clouds  and  the 
brown  earth,  the  flowers  with  their  endlessly  varied  hues,  speak  of 
the  provision  for  a  want  in  us ;  while  the  gay  and  flaunting  yellow, 
crimson  and  blue  mingled  in  the  same  dress  worn  by  the  Oriental 
chieftain,  and  the  nice  adaptation  of  not  only  cut  but  color  in  dress 
to  stature,  figure  and  complexion  of  cheek,  hair  and  eye,  practised 
by  the  Parisian  modiste,  show  that  this  demand  in  human  nature 
takes  active  means  to  supply  its  cravings.  In  its  higher  applications 
to  the  art  of  painting,  this  demand  of  our  nature  has  been  the  study 
of  the  ablest  natural  philosophers ;  Aristotle,  for  example,  observing 
that "  the  colors  most  accurately  proportionate  in  their  admixture,  as 
purple  and  light-red,  are  the  most  delightful  colors." 

The  complement  of  a  color,  strictly  speaking,  is  that  which  it  lacks 
of  being  pure  white.  Thus  the  -complement  of  the  primary  yellow  is 
an  admixture  in  due  proportion  of  its  two  fellow  elementaries,  red 

d  blue.     The  complement  of  the  secondary  orange  would  in  like 

anner  be  a  proportionate  admixture  of  green  and  purple.  The 
study  of  complementary  colors  relates  directly  to  scenic  and  decora- 
-  tive  painting ;  but  yet  it  has  its  higher  applications ;  and  M.  Chevreul, 

Iiperintendent  of  the  dyeing  department  of  the  Gobeline  tapestry 
orks  at  Paris,  at  which  curtain  hangings  for  all  the  palace  walls  of 
luropean  sovereigns  are  woven,  has  presented  a  long  list  of  coupled 
ad  complementary  hues :  specimens  of  which  are  yellow  and  indigo, 
— 


^J^^ 

m" 


488  ART   CRITICISM. 

violet  and  yellowish-green;  from  which  the  general  student  in  art 
may  derive  profit. 

That  the  Creator  designed  to  maintain  an  order  in  the  variety  he 
has  established  in  the  colors  of  the  natural  world,  is  manifest  to  the 
most  casual  observer.  The  clear  sky  is  one  vault  of  unvarying  blue ; 
and,  as  if  to  compensate,  the  complementary  yellow  and  red  predo- 
minate on  the  earth,  botanists  having  remarked  that  there  are  very 
few  blue  flowers,  and  those  chiefly  poisonous.  The  black  storm 
cloud  is  skirted  generally  with  a  pure  white ;  and  the  glowing  red 
and  yellow  of  the  evening  sunset  in  the  west  is  set  off*  by  a  greenish 
grey  in  the  East. 

That  our  nature  is  formed  to  be  in  accord  with  the  law  of  comple- 
mentary colors  seems  to  be  attested  by  this  singular  fact  in  human 
vision.  If  any  one  of  the  pure  colors  be  placed  for  a  time  before  the 
field  of  vision  and  the  eye  then  be  turned  to  look  on  pure  white,  it 
will  see  not  the  white  but  the  complement  of  the  color  just  before 
removed.  If,  for  instance,  the  eye  has  been  fixed  on  a  red  wafer, 
when  suddenly  turned  to  look  upon  a  white  page  it  will  have  a  dis- 
tinct impression  of  a  circular  spot  on  the  white  page  of  the  same  size 
as  the  red  wafer,  and  of  a  bluish-green  color,  the  complement  of  the 
red;  and  so  with  other  colors.  It  seems  apparent,  therefore,  that  the 
nerves  of  vision  have  a  deadening  influence  produced  upon  them  by 
a  continued  viewing  of  the  same  color;  so  that  even  the  health  of 
the  organs  of  vision,  as  well  as  the  demands  of  our  intellectual  nature, 
have  been  adjusted  to  the  law  not  simply  of  variety  but  of  compen- 
sation in  colors. 

It  is  not  necessary  that  differing  colors  in  nature  be  fully  comple- 
mentary, however,  in  order  to  be  pleasing  by  their  variety.  Contrast, 
which  relieves  and  delights  the  eye,  exists  where  there  is  less  than  a 
complement  in  the  colors  placed  by  the  side  of  each  other;  and  as 
resemblance  and  contrast  in  the  association  of  our  ideas  are  appointed 
to  hold  our  intellectual  apprehension  and  enchain  our  interested 
attention,  so  colors  charm  the  eye  either  by  their  resemblance  or 
their  contrast.  Yet  in  nature  and  in  art  the  principle  of  compensa- 
tion lies  at  the  foundation  of  the  contrast  in  colors  that  are  adapted 
to  the  eye.  The  purple  flower  has  generally  a  centre  of  yellow ;  and 
usually  the  purple  inclines  to  blue  when  the  yellow  is  inclined  to 
orange,  and  to  red  when  the  yellow  inclines  to  green.  Blue  is  dis- 
cordant with  green  or  purple;  but  the  orange  centre  of  the  blue 
flower  makes  a  pleasing  accord.  Green,  the  central  secondary,  is  a 
good  offset  to  almost  all  the  colors  of  nature,  among  which  it  is  every- 


DISTINCTION  OF  HUES  AND  TINTS,  TONE  AND  HARMONY.    489 

where  distributed;  while  the  citrine  the  first  tint  of  autumn  as  its 
green  is  fading,  and  the  russet  that  follows,  have  their  place  in  the 
harmony  of  nature.  Nature  courts  everywhere  and  at  all  times  a 
study  of  its  shifting  colors  that  her  law  of  preserved  compensation 
may  be  traced. 

Sect.  4.  The  Distinction  between  Hues  and  Tints;  and  the  Nature 
AND  Laws  of  Tone  and  of  Harmony  in  Coloring. 

In  nature  there  is  no  sharp  line  running  between  distinct,  pure,  or 
complementary  colors,  marking  off  each  by  fixed  limits,  so  as  to 
separate  one  from  another.  There  is  a  gradual  shading  off,  as  in  the 
rainbow,  of  one  color  into  another;  and,  what  is  more,  there  is  a  uni- 
versal overlapping  and  constant  intermixture  of  colors.  The  reflec- 
tions of  the  different  hues  of  sky,  cloud,  earth  and  water,  are  so 
thrown  upon  each  other  in  the  glow  of  the  evening  sunset,  that  lan- 
guage seems  to  lack  words  by  which  to  depict  the  varied  and  ever- 
changing  coloring.  Hence  have  originated  the  words  shades,  hues, 
and  tints,  as  applied  to  single  objects  in  a  picture;  and  the  terms 
tone,  expression,  harmony  used  to  characterize  the  special  effect 
of  the  coloring  as  a  whole.  The  common  usage  of  even  artists 
themselves  does  not  always  preserve  the  distinction  of  the  former 
class  of  words ;  and  upon  the  employ  of  the  latter,  the  great  teachers 
of  art  differ. 

The  word  hue  is  properly  employed  to  designate  the  proportion  of 
any  one  color  that  enters  inio  a  picture,  and  shade  to  express  the 
degree  of  darkness  or  light  given  to  that  color;  while  the  word  tint 
refers  properly  to  the  presence  of  a  foreign  color  intermingling  with, 
or  rather  thrown  upon  the  principal  color.  Thus  the  color  blue,  has 
as  its  shades,  dark,  medium,  and  light;  we  designate  articles,  called 
by  the  common  name  blue,  as  of  indigo,  azure,  or  violet  hue;  and 
we  speak  of  the  rosy  tint  of  morning,  of  the  purple  tint  of  evening, 
and  the  brown  tint  of  autumn  on  the  distant  blue  hills.  Shade  is 
deepened  or  lightened  by  the  addition  of  black  or  white  to  the  prin- 
cipal color ;  hue  is  varied  by  an  increased  proportion  of  any  one  of 
_the  elementary  colors ;  and  tints  are  thrown  on  portions  of  a  picture 
^y  the  rapid  and  light  touches  of  the  artist's  brush  tinged  with  a 
mtrasted  color. 

The  words  "Tone"  and  "Harmony"  have  as  intimate  a  relation  to 

Lch  other  in  their  special  application  to  Painting  as  they  have  in 

leir  original  meaning.     They  are  terms  borrowed  from  the  kindred 

of  Music.     The  word  Tone,  not  only  in  the  original  Greek  and 

.3M 


490  ART  CRITICISM. 

Latin,  but  in  the  varied  languages  of  modern  Europe,  is  used  to  i 
express  the  adaptation  of  sounds  in  music  to  the  sentiment  to  be  " 
conveyed ;  as  when  we  say  of  a  piece  of  music,  "  Its  tone  is  grave 
and  serious  and  it  should  therefore  be  performed  in  a  deep  low  tone 
of  voice."  The  art  of  Medicine  has  borrowed  the  word ;  and  physi- 
cians speak  of  "the  tone  of  the  vital  organs."  Raphael  Mengs  { 
illustrates  the  idea  of  Tone  by  allusion  to  the  common  expression, 
"the  tone"  of  such  a  painter,  or  of  such  a  work,  is  "warm"  or 
"cold,"  "grave"  or  "gorgeous;"  the  Italian  artists,  from  the  prevail- 
ing aspect  of  nature  amid  which  they  live,  using  the  warm  colors 
yellow  and  red,  and  the  German  painters  more  commonly  the  cold 
colors  blue  and  black ;  Rubens  making  his  canvass  always  glow  with 
the  gorgeous  colors  orange  and  rose  and  purple,  while  many  of  the 
Dutch  painters  delight  in  the  sober  and  solemn  aspect  produced  by 
the  greys.  Ruskin,  who  writes  as  a  critic,  rather  than  as  an  artist, 
defines  tone  as  consisting  in  two  things;  "the  just  relation  of  the 
shading  of  all  the  parts  to  the  chief  figure"  in  the  picture ;  and  "  the 
just  coloring  of  the  lights  and  shadows  in  their  relation  to  each 
other." 

While  Tone  relates  to  the  entire  aspect  of  a  picture,  taken  as  a 
whole,  "Harmony"  relates  properly  to  the  relation  of  the  parts  to  each 
other,  which  as  a  whole  produce  a  given  effect.  Raphael  Mengs, 
treating  at  length  upon  Harmony  as  he  does  upon  Tone,  says :  "  The 
artist  will  observe,  then,  that  by  Harmony  we  do  not  mean  what  is 
usually  signified  by  this  term ;  but  we  adopt  the  metaphorical  term 
to  designate  what  the  Italians  in  like  manner  call  accords;  both 
words  indicating  an  effect  in  painting  corresponding  to  that  of  Har- 
mony or  Accord  in  music.  As  Harmony  in  music  produces  an 
agreeable  effect  on  the  auditory  nerves,  so  does  Harmony  in  painting 
on  the  optic  nerves."  Care  in  distinguishing  between  accord  and 
harmony  seems  unimportant  in  this  illustration ;  although  the  rela- 
tion of  the  laws  of  sight  to  sound  is  recognized.  As  to  the  manage- 
ment of  colors  so  as  to  produce  harmony,  he  says,  "  The  lighter 
colors  have  more  effect,  because  they  produce  quicker  vibrations 
upon  the  organs  of  vision.  The  rays  reflected  from  light  colors  have 
the  same  effect  as  the  direct  rays  of  sunlight  on  the  eye ;  their  im- 
pression is  more  forcible,  sometimes  even  painfully  powerful.  They 
should  be  used  therefore  in  the  figure  which  is  designed  to  arrest  the 
beholder's  attention  as  first  in  importance  in  the  picture.  The  nature 
of  the  subject  of  the  picture  must  thus  determine  the  artist  in  the 
selection  of  his  colors."     "The  purest  and  most  glaring  colors,  as 


MODES  OF  SECURING  HARMONY  IN  COLORING.  491 

possessing  more  strength  than  the  pale  ones,  must  be  used  in  princi- 
pal figures.  The  use  of  either  white  or  black  has  a  tendency  to 
subdue  and  diminish  the  power  of  the  pure  or  primary  colors ;  while 
the  latter  also  darkens  all  these  colors ;  and  when  used  in  the  shading 
completely  controls  their  power."  He  thinks  that  true  harmony 
may  be  secured  by  using  either  simple  white  or  black  in  giving  the  gra- 
dation necessary  to  Harmony  in  color.  Rembrandt  is  cited  as  emi- 
nently successful  in  securing  the  finest  gradation  of  hue  by  simple  black ; 
while  Boccacio  admirably  accomplished  the  same  with  pure  white. 

Both  the  effect  of  Harmony,  and  the  means  of  attaining  it  by  one 
color  have  their  illustration  in  the  wonderful  effect  which  can  be  pro- 
duced by  a  single  instrument  as  the  violin ;  or  by  a  single  voice  in  a 
solo.  The  study  is  the  greater  when  many  colors  are  to  be  used  all 
in  harmony;  as  it  is  when  musical  accord  is  to  be  secured  in  the 
immense  orchestra  and  choir  combined  in  performing  one  of  the 
master-pieces  of  Haydn  or  Mozart.  The  skill  to  appropriate  the  wealth 
contained  in  all  the  colors,  and  to  make  each  conspire  to  one  great 
theme  by  its  appearing  in  its  proper  place,  its  proportionate  quantity 
and  just  force,  is  the  triumph  of  Harmony  or  Accord  in  painting. 

Though  Landscape  Painting  claims  the  highest  attention  to  har- 
mony, yet  interior  views  and  even  single  figures  require  the  aid  of  its 
spell.  The  hues  cast  by  in-door  and  out-door  light,  by  bright  sun- 
shine and  by  dense  cloud,  the  tints  of  morning  and  evening  and  of 
successive  stages  of  daylight  and  twilight  are  endlessly  varied ;  and 
they  throw  their  peculiar  tinge  on  every  object  and  on  every  part  of 
each  object  in  the  entire  landscape.  When,  now,  any  one  of  these 
myriad  phases  of  light  is  chosen  by  the  artist,  he  must  retain  the 
recollection  of  each  separate  hue  and  tint  belonging  to  that  selected 
moment,  and  preserve  each  variety  throughout  his  entire  work;  for 
thus  alone  can  harmony  be  attained. 

Ruskin  thinks  that  the  chief  superiority,  which  he  claims  for  the 
modern  over  the  ancient  landscape  painters,  is  to  be  found  in  their 
successful  attaining  of  the  two  requisites  of  Tone  described  by  him; 
while  his  multiplied  criticisms  upon  varied  details  of  drawing  and 
painting  relate  to  methods  of  securing  just  tone  by  a  carefully 
wrought  harmony.  His  numerous  suggestions  as  to  the  method  of 
executing  with  the  pencil  and  the  brush  the  varied  forms  and  shadings 
of  objects  having  different  characteristics  as  refracting  and  reflecting 
media,  his  nice  discriminations  between  the  hues,  tints  and  shades 
of  light  streaming  through  the  clouds,  glancing  from  the  waters,  and 
resting  on  the  soil,  his  pencil  tracings  of  outlines  of  differing  foliage, 


492  ART   CRITICISM. 

of  ragged  cloud  edges  and  of  multiform  granite  boulders,  will  group 
themselves  in  the  mind  of  the  careful  student  under  the  topics  here 
considered. 


CHAPTER    II. 

GENERAL  PRINCIPLES  AS  TO  THE  EMPLOY  OF  COLORS  IN  PAINTING. 

As  in  drawing  the  pupil  naturally  begins  with  tracing  the  outline 
of  the  object  placed  before  him,  and  thence  proceeds  to  the  nicer 
processes  of  shading,  perspective  and  chiaroscuro,  so  the  student  in 
painting  may  be  expected  to  begin  with  the  simple  colors  of  single 
objects,  and  thence  to  proceed  to  the  accomplishment  of  the  higher 
ends  of  painting.  Among  these  higher  aims  in  coloring  are  the 
following:  the  securing  through  colors  of  the  special  aesthetic  effect 
desired  by  the  artist  in  his  work ;  the  attaining  of  that  higher  order 
of  perspective  called  "  aerial  perspective"  by  the  means  of  color  as 
well  as  of  proportion  in  forms;  and  finally  that  climax  of  art  in 
landscape  painting,  the  successful  execution  of  the  perfect  blending 
of  shades,  hues,  and  tints  in  the  distant  prospect  which  constitutes 
chiaroscuro. 

Sect.  1.  The  colors  of  Objects  in  natube  to  be  copied  in  Painting. 

The  analysis  of  colors,  in  themselves  considered,  is  only  prepara- 
tory, of  course,  to  the  work  of  tracing  their  distribution  in  nature ; 
whose  face  is  to  be  copied  by  the  painter.  No  study  can  be  more 
interesting,  as  none  can  be  more  practically  profitable  to  the  student 
of  art,  than  the  minute  and  careful  observation  of  Nature  in  all  her 
forms.  Ancient  philosophers  and  poets,  as  well  as  painters,  gave 
minute  observation,  not  only  to  colors  ordinarily  marked  as  dis- 
tinctive, but  to  those  slighter  differences  which  escape  the  common 
eye.  Thus  Aristotle,  in  his  Problems,  asks  the  question,  "  Why  have 
white  men  and  white  horses  for  the  most  part  azure  eyes?"  Ovid 
again,  in  his  Metamorphoses,  alludes  to  the  "blue"  aspect  given  to 
the  white  bodies  of  nymphs  as  they  float  "in  the  wave." 

The  observing  student  will  remark  with  surprise,  that  scarcely 
anywhere  can  a  pure  color  be  found ;  while  the  combinations  and 
admixtures   of  different  colors   are  almost  infinitely  varied.     The 


i 


THE  SECURING   OF  SPECIAL  COLORS   IN   NATURE.  493 

suow  is  a  pure  white,  the  clear  sky  a  perfect  blue,  the  grass  a  true 
green ;  but  interspersed  among  and  reflected  upon  these  are  a  thou- 
sand differing  shades,  hues,  and  tints.  Of  these,  the  ordinary  ob- 
server is  not  really  aware,  though  he  looks  directly  upon  them.  The 
painter,  however,  learns  to  classify  not  simply  the  varied  forms,  but 
the  peculiar  colors  of  varied  foliage ;  all  of  which  the  farmer  calls 
green,  little  dreaming  of  the  study  to  which  the  artist  has  been  sub- 
jected in  order  to  make  his  country-trained  eye  recognize  the  familiar 
tree  by  its  special  hue.  The  upturned  soil  may  have  received  from 
the  poet  the  indiscriminate  designation  of  brown;  and  yet  even  the 
common  farmer  would  expect  in  the  artist's  picture  all  the  different 
shades  which  indicate  each  variety  of  element,  and  of  condition, 
entering  into  the  composition  of  the  exposed  earth.  The  mariner 
never  has  separated  in  his  mind  the  white  foam  on  the  crest  of  the 
wave,  the  light  pea-green  of  its  head,  the  deep  blue  of  its  body,  and 
the  dense  blackness  that  reigns  in  the  chasm  at  its  foot ;  but  the 
artist  must  have  analyzed  all  this  succession  of  colors  for  the  eye  of 
his  sea-bred  critic,  or  he  can  never  satisfy  him  by  his  work.  The 
hunter,  the  drover,  the  hostler,  may  never  have  thought  to  describe 
the  nice  varieties  of  color  in  fur,  chestnut  and  dun,  tawny  and 
sorrel,  every  specimen  of  each  class  unlike  to  its  fellow;  but  he 
expects  the  artist  to  understand  and  describe  every  varied  hue,  and 
never  to  paint  two  animals  alike.  The  -mountaineer  may  never 
have  seen  a  painting;  but  he  is  the  quickest  of  all  men  to  note 
whether  the  artist  has  caught  the  rosy  tint  of  morning  on  the  moun- 
tain peak,  the  slaty  grey  of  its  rocky  pinnacles,  the  lively  blue  of  its 
sunlit  slopes,  the  sombre  of  its  shaded  gorges,  and  the  deep 
green  skirting  of  its  base.  The  artist  must  have  seen  all  that  these 
men  in  varied  pursuits  have  looked  upon;  and  he  must  have  done 
more  than  they,  he  must  have  mastered  the  secret  methods  by  which 
all  he  has  seen  is  to  be  reproduced. 

The  painting  of  a  single  green  leaf,  of  an  orange,  a  cherry,  an 
apple,  a  plum,  especially  of  a  basket  of  fruit  or  flowers,  gives  a  study 
in  the  richest  and  livelier  colors,  and  that  in  their  variety.  A  bunch 
of  Autumn  leaves  selected  from  the  chestnut,  the  maple,  the  oak  and 
the  ash,  gives  a  select  series  of  the  soberer  shades.  The  study  for  an 
hour  by  an  observing  eye  of  any  single  landscape,  to  remark  the  hues 
of  spring,  summer,  autumn  or  winter  scattered  over  it,  or  a  rapt 
gazing  through  an  evening  twilight  at  the  shifting  tints  that  stream 
from  the  setting  sun,  gives  the  widest  range  for  this  inexhaustible 
study. 

42 


494  AKT  CRITICISM. 

Two  centuries  even  before  Newton  had  begun  the  work  of  analyz- 
ing the  colors  combineji  in  the  white  sun-light,  not  only  had  the  fact 
but  the  cause  of  the  fact  of  the  varied  colors  in  nature  been  carefully 
studied  and  set  forth  by  Lionardo  da  Vinci.  Of  the  source  from 
which  he  derived  his  clear  and  comprehensive  knowledge  he  himself 
thus  gives  an  intimation  in  his  teaching  for  other  artists;  "One 
painter  ought  never  to  imitate  the  manner  of  any  other ;  because  in 
that  case  he  cannot  be  called  the  child  of  Nature,  but  the  grand- 
child. To  have  recourse  to  Nature,  which  is  replete  with  such 
abundance  of  objects,  is  always  better  than  to  go  to  the  productions 
of  old  masters  who  learned  everything  from  her."  As  the  very  last 
of  his  three  hundred  and  sixty-five  chapters  he  gives  this  precept, 
urging  the  constant  review  and  widening  range  of  these  studies  in 
Nature;  "Whosoever  flatters  himself  that  he  can  retain  in  his  me- 
mory all  the  effects  of  Nature,  is  deceived ;  for  our  memory  is  not  so 
capacious.     Therefore  consult  Nature  for  everything." 

In  Lionardo's  application  of  his  general  principle  to  coloring,  sug- 
gested methods  of  copying  Nature  are  intermingled  with  studies 
of  her  hues.  As  the  foundation  of  the  modifications  of  hues  in 
Nature  he  teaches  the  distinction  between  transparent  and  opaque 
colors;  through  the  former  of  which  other  colors  underlying  them 
can  be  seen,  while  the  latter  hide  entirely  an  opposite  color  beneath. 
He  illustrates  the  effect  of  transparent  colors  by  the  use  of  colored 
glasses ;  whose  tints,  when  held  between  the  eye  and  landscape,  fall 
upon  the  varied  hues  of  nature  and  produce  in  each  a  special  change. 
This  effect  is  observed  in  smoke ;  which  before  a  black  sooty  back- 
ground appears  bluish,  but  higher  up  of  a  reddish  brown.  So  lake, 
a  pigment  extracted  from  dark  red  clay,  laid  on  blue  turns  it  to 
violet;  while  yellow  upon  blue  changes  it  to  green.  To  be  preserved 
pure,  each  transparent  color  should  be  laid  upon  a  white  ground. 
In  nature  this  efl^ect  is  produced  by  the  reflection  of  one  color  upon 
another.  If  the  face  of  a  red  object  be  so  presented  to  the  sun's 
rays  as  to  reflect  them  upon  another  object,  the  reflected  rays  will 
take  on  a  red  hue ;  making  the  object  on  which  they  fall,  if  itself 
red,  of  a  brighter  shade ;  if  yellow  of  an  orange  hue.  Again,  shade, 
the  cutting  off"  of  white  light,  not  only  darkens  but  varies  the  hue  of 
an  object;  an  effect  which  some  ascribe  to  the  varied  colors  of  shades 
themselves ;  but  which  really  results  from  the  fact  that  all  colors 
when  the  light  is  cut  off*  from  them  gradually  approach  one  another 
in  aspect  on  account  of  their  indistinctness,  until  they  are  lost  in  one 


VARIETY   OF   COLORS   IN   NATURAL   OBJECTS.  495 

common  black ;  as  is  illustrated  by  looking  in  through  the  open  door 
of  a  darkened  Church  at  the  pictures  upon  its  walls. 

A  variety  of  illustrations  from  objects  whose  color  depends  on 
shades  and  hues  reflected  upon  them  are  given  in  detail.  The  green 
of  trees  and  plants,  though  precisely  that  of  the  grass-field,  appears 
darker ;  having  more  of  blue  from  the  atmosphere  intermingled  with 
it.  At  sea  the  blue  sky  gives  the  water  a  blue  tint ;  looking  from  the 
shore  it  is  of  the  color  of  reflected  objects  near,  and  dark  at  a  distance 
when  ruffled  so  as  to  produce  no  reflection ;  and  in  general  water  is 
of  the  color  of  surrounding  objects.  Smoke  is  lighter  at  its  base  and 
darker  above;  yet  it  hides  objects  more  below  than  it  does  above, 
because  it  is  more  attenuated  as  it  rises ;  and  it  is  most  transparent 
looking  at  objects  between  the  eye  and  the  sun,  and  most  dense  when 
the  eye  is  between  the  sun  and  the  object.  Dust  and  fog  are  darkest 
at  the  base  and  lighter  above;  but  follow  the  law  of  smoke  in  the 
second  particular  mentioned.  Rain  beginning  to  fall  darkens  the 
air  most  opposite  the  sun;  all  objects  seen  through  it  are  indistinct; 
but  those  objects  seen  through  it  opposite  the  sunlight  are  least 
obscured  because  the  rain  takes  only  the  shadows  from  them,  while 
it  takes  both  the  light  and  shadows  from  objects  between  the  eye  and 
the  sun.  In  Autumn  the  leaves  of  the  oldest  branches  of  trees  and 
of  particular  plants  fade  away  and  change  color  first;  and  each  has 
its  own  special  color.  In  winter  near  the  sea-shore  and  in  southern 
latitudes  the  aspect  of  the  earth  and  of  vegetation  differs  from  that 
of  northern  regions  where  the  dark  firs  are  seen  among  the  white 
snow.  Desert  shrubs  and  trees  have  more  boughs  and  twigs  of  a 
sharper  outline  than  trees  covered  with  foliage  and  widened  by  its 
spread.  Wind  has  the  eflTect  not  simply  to  bend  the  limbs  of  trees 
by  its  sweep  but  to  darken  and  dim  the  aspect  of  all  objects  by  the 
dust  it  raises.  The  shadow  of  a  bridge  can  never  be  seen  on  the  sur- 
face of  clear  water,  but  its  image  is  reflected  as  from  a  mirror;  the 
shadow  is  only  seen  when  the  water  is  too  turbid  to  reflect  the  image. 
The  distinction  between  fire-light,  or  any  other  artificial  light,  which 
is  reddish-yellow,  and  the  sun-light  which  is  white,  is  also  to  be 
observed.  It  is  best  remarked  at  evening  or  morning  twilight ;  or  in 
a  darkened  room  by  day  when  the  sunbeam  is  allowed  to  come  in 
through  a  small  aperture,  and  is  contrasted  with  the  light  of  a  candle. 
The  yellow  of  the  lamp-light  falling  for  instance  on  blue  makes  it 
green. 

Among  modern  writers  Ruskin  has  interspersed  his  works  with 
varied  observations  upon  the  colors  found  in  nature;  and  he  has 


496  ART   CRITICISM. 

criticised  the  works  of  ancient  and  modern  Landscape  Painters  as 
to  the  truth  and  success  of  their  execution  of  Nature's  tints.  Some 
of  his  hints  are  but  the  repetition  of  what  Lionardo  and  other  early- 
painters  had  long  since  noted;  while  some  of  his  criticisms,  as  of 
course  was  to  be  expected,  have  been  objected  to  by  able  artists.  In 
his  work  on  Drawing  he  mentions  that  grass  has  more  of  a  yellowish 
hue  according  to  the  strength  of  the  sunlight  upon  it ;  a  fact  which 
he  thinks  has  not  been  sufficiently  noted ;  though  Lionardo  mani- 
festly had  referred  this  to  the  fact  that  green  is  made  up  of  yellow 
and  blue,  and  that  a  dark  shade  brings  out  the  blue  and  a  strong 
light  the  yellow.  In  the  color  of  water  he  remarks  these  three 
things;  first,  the  attenuated  tops  of  waves  are  white  because  the 
light  is  perfectly  seen  through  them ;  second,  the  color  deepens  in 
the  body  of  the  wave  according  to  its  thickness ;  and  third,  the  color 
of  objects  seen  through  the  waves,  or  of  its  shadow  reflected  from 
them,  is  a  complementary  color.  The  black  hulk  of  a  Venetian 
gondola  casts  a  dark  green  shadow;  a  white  object  in  the  water 
appears  blue ;  and  the  smooth  surface  is  red  or  violet,  or  emerald- 
green  from  the  reflection  of  sunset  clouds.  To  obtain  cloud  tints, 
the  great  Venetian  painters  made  the  ground  blue ;  then,  when  this 
was  dry,  they  streaked  it  with  golden  brown,  which  with  the  blue, 
gave  an  olive  green.  On  a  careful  examination,  he  states,  that  the 
flowers  which  are  generally  regarded  as  blue,  are  found  never  to  be 
of  a  pure  blue. 

Leslie  has  some  scattered  observations  worthy  of  note  in  this  same 
department  of  the  painter's  exhaustless  study.  As  to  the  difficulty 
of  the  study  he  says,  "  Form  may  be  measured ;  its  anatomical  struc- 
ture may  be  investigated ;  its  lines  are  not  changed,  as  tints  perpetu- 
ally are,  by  the  shifting  light  of  day  or  by  the  accidents  of  reflexes.  If 
the  beauties  of  form  are  subtle,  those  of  color  are  evanescent;  and 
combined  with  chiaroscuro,  from  which  in  Nature  they  are  insepa- 
rable, they  become  the  last  refinement  of  the  Art,  as  it  addresses 
itself  to  the  eye."  As  specimens  of  the  liability  to  oversight  even 
by  the  best  artists  and  critics  in  observing  real  appearances,  he  cites 
the  shadow  made  by  a  beam  of  wood  in  Turner's  "  Dido  building 
Carthage,"  which  would  require  the  sun  to  be  much  higher  than  it 
really  is  in  the  picture;  and  again  he  reviews  Ruskin's  criticism  on 
Canaletti's  representation  of  water  in  a  canal,  ruffled  into  ripples  byJ 
a  breeze  where  it  is  open,  while  "three  hundred  yards  away  all  th< 
houses  are  reflected  as  clear  and  as  sharp  as  in  a  quiet  lake;"  th< 
critic  forgetting  that  a  row  of  houses  would  so  shelter  the  water  oi 


THE    INFLUENCE   OF   COLOR   IN    PRESENTING   FORM.       497 

a  narrow  canal  that  its  surface  would  be  thus  mirror-like  behind 
them.  He  suggests  again  that  artists  "  rather  theorize  than  observe, 
who,  when  they  give  a  yellow  tinge  to  all  objects  in  noon-day  sun- 
shine, infer  that  so  it  must  be  because  the  local  color  of  the  sun  is 
yellow ;"  while  "  in  fact,  excepting  in  the  morning  or  evening,  white, 
in  sunshine,  is  only  a  purer  white,  and  blue  receives  not  the  least 
tint  of  green:"  as  to  which  statement  it  is  perhaps  to  be  observed 
that  the  season  of  noon-tide's  pure  and  clear  white  light  is  rarely 
chosen  by  the  landscape  painter;  and  that  if  it  were  the  artist's 
chosen  hour,  the  pure  white  sun-light  without  any  reflex  from  colored 
objects  around  could  not  anywhere  be  secured.  The  little  failures 
of  critics  themselves  to  regard  all  the  circumstances  conspiring  to 
modify  colors  in  nature  is  no  indication  -of  want  of  skill  and  care  in 
the  observer,  but  of  the  inexhaustible  variety  in  nature. 

Sect.  2.  The  Relation  of  Color  to  Form;  and  the  Demands  of  Ana- 
tomy -AND  General  Symmetry  in  Painting. 

In  drawing,  mere  lines  present  form  to  the  eye.  A  pencil  line  in 
the  form  of  a  circle  gives  the  impression  of  but  one  dimension ;  the 
dark  crayon  being  virtually  a  shade,  causing  the  appearance  of  a  line 
without  breadth  or  thickness.  If  a  faint  shading  be  traced  evenly 
over  the  entire  area  enclosed  by  the  circular  line,  that  area  will  have 
the  aspect  of  a  surface,  having  two  dimensions.  If  again,  the  shading 
be  traced  upon  one  side  only  of  the  circular  area  the  line  of  faintest 
shading  being  a  curve  leaving  more  than  half  enlightened,  then  the 
impression  of  a  third  dimension  constituting  a  sphere  is  irresistible 
to  the  beholder.  In  either  case  it  is  the  black  line,  giving  the  im- 
pression of  an  intervening  body  cutting  off*  the  rays  of  light,  that 
conveys  to  the  eye  the  outline  of  a  form. 

The  same  cause  substantially  produces  the  impression  of  form 
when  instead  of  cutting  off  white  light  from  a  white  ground,  of  which 
the  black  crayon  line  is  a  copy,  a  shade  is  produced  either  by  cutting 
off  white  light  from  a  colored  object,  or  colored  light  from  a  white  or 
)lored  object;  which  effects  are  secured  by  coloring  proper,  or  paint- 
When  white  light  is  thus  cut  off  from  a  colored  object  the 
ipression  of  form  is  even  more  distinct  in  the  case  of  shaded  white 
bjects ;  as  the  sphericity  of  the  sun's  disc  is  more  manifest  when  its 
3e  is  reddened  by  intervening  haze  than  when  white  in  a  clear 
losphere,  and  as  a  snow-capped  mountain  top,  a  chalky  cliff,  or 
by  white  object  is  less  distinct  in  its  projection  and  rotundity  than 
when  set  off  by  some  color.     The  painted  portrait  ought  therefore  to 

42*  8   N 


498  ART   CRITICISM. 

present  truth  even  in  form  more  fully  than  a  crayon  drawing  or  an 
engraving.  The  common  impression,  true  of  the  work  of  ordinary 
portrait  painters  perhaps,  that  a  photograph,  or  even  a  pencil  draw- 
ing copied  in  an  engraving,  gives  personal  features  with  more  accu- 
racy than  does  an  oil-painting,  arises  doubtless  from  the  fact  that 
while  the  photograph,  or  even  the  pencil-drawing,  may  give  the  out- 
lines of  form  accurately,  no  skill  of  art  can  attain  like  truth  in  color- 
ing. If,  therefore,  the  coloring  be  far  from .  accuracy,  it  positively 
takes  from  the  impression  of  truth  to  nature,  which  correct  form 
would,  if  alone,  afford.  If,  however,  the  coloring  be  that  of  a  mas- 
ter, it  will  enhance  the  vividness  with  which  form  strikes  the  eye. 

There  are  two  causes,  probably,  of  the  definiteness  which  color 
gives  to  our  impression  of  form.  In  the  first  place,  the  idea  of  sub- 
stance is  more  vividly  presented  when  color  is  added  to  a  form,  j 
Spectres  are  always  conceived  as  white  or  colorless ;  for  the  very  idea  % 
of  color  in  cheek  or  mantle  would  be  conceived  as  an  attribute  of  a 
real  being;  while  too  a  cloud,  or  any  other  object  known  to  be  real 
and  material  though  attenuated  and  evanescent,  gives  a  stronger 
impression  of  being  substantial  when  tinged  by  some  vivid  color.' 
In  the  second  place,  as  shade  alone  indicates  the  projection  of  thejj 
third  dimension  or  that  perpendicular  to  the  line  of  vision,  and 
color  alone  even  without  shade  gives  the  impression  of  substanc 
when  these  two  unite  in  an  image  executed  by  the  painter,  the  im-j 
pression  of  form  is  enhanced  by  the  combined  appeal  addressed 
the  eye  by  shade  and  by  color,  as  distinct  yet  conspiring  attribute 
It  may  be  added  that  the  almost  undefined  line  wrought  by  thil 
brush,  so  different  from  the  sharp  line  with  a  definite  limit  execute 
by  the  pencil,  perhaps  aids  the  mind  to  positiveness  though  not  defiJ 
niteness  of  form;  since  the  eye  in  beholding  objects  in  nature  is  fixed 
on  the  central  substance,  having  only  a  general  observation  of  the 
outline,  which,  under  the  painter's  brush  seems  as  in  nature  to  melt 
into  the  substance  of  other  objects  around. 

While  the  relation  of  color  to  form  is  important  in  painting  every 
variety  of  objects,  it  is  especially  to  be  regarded  in  the  execution 
of  the  human  figure  in  portrait  and  historical  subjects.  The  pupil 
in  drawing  and  sculpture,  having  only  form  to  represent,  may  study 
the  human  figure  in  plaster  casts  alone;  but  the  painter  must  have 
as  his  model  the  human  form  itself,  or  some  former  master's  Avork 
founded  upon  such  a  study.  The  sculptor  may  indeed  resort  to  living 
models ;  but  the  form  alone  is  his  study,  to  the  disregard  of  both  color 
and  shade.    The  painter,  however,  having  first  attained  to  the  sculp- 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  COLOR  IN  REPRESENTING  SHADES.      499 

tor's  study  in  executing  his  preliminary  drawing,  is  now  to  go  beyond 
that  attainment,  and  seek  to  be  master  of  the  colored  shades  which 
alone  assure  the  beholder  of  the  correct  anatomy  of  his  figures. 

The  great  painters  of  ancient  as  well  as  of  modern  times  have 
regarded  this  principle  alike  in  their  teaching  and  in  their  practice. 
Parrhasius  and  Apelles  painted  from  living  nude  models ;  the  former 
indiiferent  to  the  piercing  shrieks  of  the  captive  old  man  on  the 
rack  as  he  sought  to  catch  the  flushed  or  livid  hues,  as  well  as  the 
contortions  of  dying  agony;  and  the  latter  insensible  to  the  blush 
of  shrinking  modesty  in  his  lovely  maiden  captive,  while  he  only 
thought  of  transferring  the  tints  of  that  blush  to  his  canvass.  Lio- 
nardo  has  the  following  among  his  hints  for  students  upon  the  study 
of  Anatomy  as  indicating  the  relation  of  color  to  form.  "Black 
drapery  will  make  the  flesh  of  the  human  figure  appear  whiter  than 
it  really  is;  white  will  make  it  appear  darker;  while  yellow  will 
render  flesh  more  highly  colored,  and  red  paler  than  it  is."  Van- 
dyke understood  this  principle  thoroughly  in  his  portraits;  choosing, 
for  instance,  black  velvet  as  the  dress  of  a  lady  whose  complexion 
he  wished  to  make  of  a  specially  delicate  tint. 

Sect.  3.  The  Eelation  of  Color  to  Light  and  Shade,  and  the  exe- 
cution OF  Chiaroscuro  in  Painting. 

Color  brings  out  form  and  heightens  its  effect  not  only  in  portrait 
but  in  landscape  painting.  The  half-light  and  half-shade,  or  chia- 
roscuro, which  gives  such  a  delightful  softness  to  objects  seen  in  the 
distance,  becomes  an  enchanting  charm,  when,  as  at  sunset,  all  this 
agreeable  delicateness  takes  on  the  richest  coloring.  As  in  portrait 
so  in  landscape  painting,  shades  are  to  be  studied  cast  by  colored  as 
well  as  by  white  lights.  With  the  painter,  therefore,  the  study  of 
chiaroscuro  has  respect  to  coloring  as  well  as  to  shading.  In  draw- 
ing perspective  precedes  chiaroscuro,  because  the  diminution  of  size 
by  distance  is  the  fundamental  principle  ;  to  which  difference  of  shade 
is  subordinate.  In  coloring,  however,  the  main  aim  is  to  give  to  the 
drawing,  made  the  foundation  of  all  painting,  the  hues,  shades  and 
tints  of  nature ;  the  securing  of  the  tinge  that  indicates  distance  being 
a  special  means  to  this  general  end. 

I  Art  Critics  agree  in  stating  that  the  true  study  of  chiaroscuro 
gan  with  the  scientific  Lionardo  da  Vinci,  and  that  it  attained  its 
irfect  majesty  in  Michel  Angelo  and  its  magical  perfection  of  life 
Correggio ;  three  artists  of  the  same  age.     Lionardo  conceived  the 


500  ART   CRITICISM. 

gradually  diminishing  the  light  upon  remoter  objects;  and  his  pre- 
cepts show  the  exhaustive  method  of  his  study.  He  suggests  as  an 
illustration  of  the  effect  of  colored  shades  that  a  light  blue  object,  as 
a  cylinder,  be  placed  between  a  black  and  an  opposite  white  wall. 
One  side  of  the  cylinder  will  then  appear  much  darker  than  the 
other ;  the  shade  varying  throughout  the  entire  semi-circular  front 
exposed  to  the  view.  To  execute  this  gradation  of  shade,  the  artist 
should  first  paint  the  two  walls,  one  pure  white  and  the  other  pure 
black;  then,  placing  on  his  pallet  pure  blue,  he  should  take  three 
parts  of  black  and  one  of  blue  to  begin  the  dark  side  of  the  cylinder, 
constantly  adding  more  blue  to  this  mixture,  until  pure  blue  com- 
pletes the  front  view.  In  general,  he  says,  "The  shadows  of  any 
color  whatever  must  partake  of  that  color  more  or  less  as  it  is  near 
to  or  remote  from  the  mass  of  shadows;  and  also  in  proportion  to  its 
distance  from  or  proximity  to  the  mass  of  light.  The  shadow  of 
every  white  body  must  have  a  tinge  of  blue,  which  it  receives  from 
the  air;  and  the  shadows  from  objects  of  any  color  falling  on  a  white 
ground  will  have  more  of  the  tinge  of  the  object  than  when,  those 
shadows  fall  on  a  darker  ground.  When  one  white  body  terminates 
on  another  of  the  same  color,  if  one  be  in  itself  of  a  different  shade, 
the  front  object  will  readily  be  made  to  detach  from  the  back  one 
by  care  in  copying  that  tinge ;  while,  if  there  be  no  difference  of  tinge, 
the  rounding  of  the  front  object  where  it  terminates  on  the  back  one 
should  be  made  a  little  darker  than  the  general  ground ;  because,  as 
may  be  seen  by  holding  one  sheet  of  white  paper  a  little  before  an- 
other, there  is  an  edge  of  shade  cast  by  the  foremost  upon  the  hinder 
sheet,  which  makes  it  stand  out  from  it.  In  general,  a  light  colored 
object  before  a  light  back-ground  looks  darker  than  it  is;  while  the 
same  object  before  a  dark  back-ground  looks  lighter  than  its  natural 
shade.  Colors  reflected  are  less  brilliant  than  the  same  colors  seen 
directly;  its  brilliance  depending  also  on  the  distance  and  the 
smoothness  of  surface  of  the  body  which  reflects  the  color.  No 
reflected  color  can  be  simple,  even  if  there  be  but  a  single  color 
reflected ;  and  when  two  or  more  reflections  of  difterent  colors  fall 
on  the  same  body,  the  intensity  of  each,  and  therefore  the  resulting 
tinge  will  depend  on  the  character,  the  intensity  and  the  distance  of 
each  of  the  several  reflexes ;  and  all  are  modified  by  the  blue  of  the 
air  through  which  they  pass.  The  light  from  flesh  color  reflected 
upon  flesh  color,  on  account  of  its  nearness  and  lively  character, 
makes  the  shaded  part  of  a  far  redder  hue."  Lionardo's  exhaustless 
mine  of  suggestive  hints  as  to  the  methods  of  observing  and  copying 


COLORED   REFLEXES;    AND   AERIAL   PERSPECTIVE.        501 

varied  reflexes,  some  of  which  Goethe  has  developed  by  personal 
observations,  and  his  instructions  as  to  the  means  of  making  varied 
colors  meet  and  blend  with  each  other,  indicate  what  treasures  of 
independent  wealth  are  open  to  every  zealous  student  of  art. 

Among  English  critics,  Fuseli  regards  Lionardo's  development  of 
the  study  of  colored  reflexes  as  the  climactic  work  marking  the 
revival  of  art.  He  pronounces  the  head  of  Jesus  in  the  Last  Sup- 
per of  Lionardo,  from  which  as  a  centre  the  light  is  made  to  radiate, 
the  first,  as  it  is  one  of  the  most  finished  masterpieces  of  chiaroscuro ; 
he  characterizes  the  boat  of  Charon,  the  centre  of  M.  Angelo's  Last 
Judgment,  as  the  perfection  to  which  Lionardo's  teaching  led  the 
bold  genius  of  his  pupil ;  and  he  counts  the  entrancing  fascination 
of  Correggio's  sky  the  most  perfect  illusion  of  modern  art.  Ruskin 
brings  the  subject  of  chiaroscuro  into  immediate  connection  with 
that  of  Tone  or  Harmony;  the  two  meeting  in  the  just  relation,  not 
only  of  the  shades  but  of  the  colors  of  the  shadows,  to  the  central 
figure.  He  dwells  on  the  distinction  between  the  action  of  clear 
white  sunlight  in  bringing  out  local  tints,  and  that  of  the  light  of  a 
clouded  sky  in  modifying  local  hues;  citing  the  palpable  difference 
between  the  light  out  of  doors,  and  that  coming  through  a  window. 
He  remarks,  "  Nature  gives  limited  or  full  light,  soft  or  deep  shade ; 
much  tender  light  in  clouds  and  w^ater,  and  much  tender  shade  in 
foliage  and  buildings." 

Among  American  critics,  Leslie,  though  an  ardent  admirer  of 
Raphael,  places  him  low  in  the  rank  of  colorists,  because  he  did  not 
study  and  practice  the  art  of  chiaroscuro  as  developed  by  his  con- 
temporary Lionardo.  He  observes,  "The  discovery  of  chiaroscuro 
has  much  increased  the  difficulties  of  coloring ;  and  unfortunately, 
ever  since  the  time  of  Raphael,  indolence  in  a  study  so  difficult  has 
been  able  to  shelter  itself  under  the  example  of  him  who  was  indo- 
lent in  nothing  that  belonged  to  the  art."  He  dwells  particularly 
on  the  importance  of  blue  in  the  execution  of  the  coloring  of  nature, 
since  this  is  the  color  which  all  rays  of  light  must  take  on  in  passing 
_  through- the  air;  and  he  cites  as  a  specimen  of  its  beauty  in  contrast  a 

I.ded  vane  upon  a  clear  blue  sky. 


P.  4.  The  Kelation  of  Color  to  Perspective;  and  Aerial  Effects 
IN  Painting. 


i 


Aerial  Perspective,  or  the  indication  of  distance  from  the  appear- 
ance of  objects  seen  through  the  air,  has  a  relation  to  drawing;  but 
has  a  closer  connection  with  coloring.     The  means  by  which  we 


502  ART   CRITICISM. 

judge  of  distance  are  properly  three;  first,  the  diminution  of  size  in 
objects  of  fixed  proportions,  which  leads  to  the  introduction  of  the 
figure  of  a  man  as  a  measure  into  landscape  drawings ;  second,  the 
number  of  objects  intervening  between  the  eye  and  a  distant  object, 
the  absence  of  which  on  the  water  makes  us  always  misjudge  of  dis- 
tances; and  third,  the  dimness  of  outline  which  distance  naturally 
produces.  The  latter  of  these  has  relation  directly  to  Aerial  Per- 
spective; and  this  is  to  be  copied  in  pencil  drawings  as  well  as  in 
painting.  The  dim  outline  of  a  near  object  seen  in  a  fog  makes  it 
seem  distant ;  and  the  pencil  may  copy  without  the  aid  of  color  this 
indistinctness  of  contour.  The  study  of  chiaroscuro  in  its  relation  to 
color  immediately  suggests  that  the  compounded  tints  of  many  differ- 
ent reflections  on  a  mountain-side,  as  well  as  the  azure  hue  caused 
by  the  body  of  air  intervening,  may  be  seized  upon  by  the  painter  as 
a  means  of  indicating  great  distance. 

Lionardo  after  treating  at  length  of  Linear  Perspective,  introduces 
a  division  of  his  work  entitled  "  The  Perspective  of  Colors ;"  and  the 
following  are  among  his  suggestions.      The   lighter  a  color  is  in 
nature,  the  lighter  it  will  appear  when  removed  to  a  distance;  bu 
with  dark  colors  it  is  the  reverse,  since  the  blue  of  the  atmosphen 
lightens  colors  darker  than  azure,  and  darkens  colors  lighter  than 
itself.     An  object  of  the  same  color,  with  another  behind  it,  has 
edge,  according  to  the  direction  of  the  light,  either  darker  or  lightel 
than  its  back-ground;  this  difference,  as  in  folds  of  drapery,  whei 
copied  by  the  painter,  will  make  the- one  stand  out  before  the  other 
but  care  must  be  taken  that  the  outlines  be  made  more  or  less  precis( 
according  to  nearness  or  remoteness.      As  a  dark  object  appea 
lighter  the  farther  it  is  removed  from  the  eye,  the  foot  of  a  colurai 
or  distant  mountain  appears  less  distinct,  and  hence  farther  off,  thai 
their  top.     The  blue  on  distant  mountains  is  the  color  of  the  ail 
Intervening;  the  green  of  foliage  appears  darker,  having  more  blue 
when  distant.     Colors  change  more  from  the  intervening  air  whei 
peen  on  a  level  with  the  eye  than  when  seen  from  an  elevated  height 
fhQ  air  being  denser  in  its  lower  strata,  and  therefore  imparting  mort 
of  its  own  color  to  objects  seen  through  it.     The  colors  of  the  central 
figures  should  be  pure  and  simple;  and  as  the  objects  retire  they 
should  partake  more  the  color  of  the  horizon.     When  the  sun  tinges 
the  clouds  on  the  horizon  red  objects  which  are  bluish  from  their 
distance  will  partake  of  a  mixture  of  azure  and  red. 

Lionardo  illustrates  the  distinction  between  linear  and  aerial  per- 
spective by  their  effects.     "A  thick  air  interposed  between  the  eye 


COLORS  IN  THEIR  INFLUFNCE  ON  HUMAN  SENSIBILITIES.      503 

and  any  object  will  render  the  outlines  of  such  object  undetermined 
and  confused,  and  make  it  appear  of  larger  size  than  it  is  in  reality  ; 
because  the  linear  perspective  does  not  diminish  the  angle  which 
conveys  the  object  to  the  eye.  The  aerial  perspective  carries  it  far- 
ther off;  so  that  the  one  removes  it  from  the  eye  while  the  other  pre- 
serves its  magnitude.  To  practice  himself  in  executing  the  Perspec- 
tive the  artist  should  select  in  the  country  several  trees  of  the  same 
kind,  but  at  the  distance  of  a  hundred  cubits,  or  about  150  feet,  from 
each  other ;  and  should  then  draw  and  paint  each  side  by  side,  with 
their  color  as  modified  by  the  different  distances.  He  may  select  a 
cloudy  day,  and  thus  secure  both  the  indistinct  outline  and  modi- 
fied color  of  distant  objects." 

Among  moderns,  Ruskin  has  treated  largely  of  Aerial  Perspective, 
in  connection  with  Tone  and  Chiaroscuro.  "Aerial  Perspective"  he 
defines  as  "the  expression  of  distance  by  any  means;  by  the  sharp- 
ness of  outline  or  by  vividness  of  color."  "The  old  masters"  he 
contends,  "made  a  sunny  sky  a  clouded  one."  He  calls  attention  to 
"  the  distinction  between  the  action  of  white  sunlight  in  bringing  out 
local  colors,  and  the  same  light  colored  by  the  clouds  so  as  to  modify 
local  tints;  as  windows  soften  the  light's  brilliancy  on  objects  in  a 
room."  He  argues,  "it  is  not  tint,  but  depth  and  softness  that 
represents  distance.  A  mountain  near  is  green  or  gray ;  afar  off  it 
is  purple.  A  yellow  box  is  soft  yellow  at  a  distance.  Distance 
alone  only  softens  colors.  The  color  of  the  sun  on  snow,  however, 
is  as  intense  in  the  distance  as  it  is  near  at  hand."  The  subject, 
however,  is  exhaustless;  and  these  hints  of  the  best  Art  Critics  are 
only  specimens  to  direct  the  observing  student. 

Sect.  5.  The  Kelation  of  Color  to  Human  Sensibilities;  and  the 
Address  of  Varied  Emotions  by  Painting. 

Colors  both  in  nature  and  art,  through  the  laws  considered,  instruct 
the  mind ;  they  also  affect  the  sensibilities  by  the  aesthetic  impres- 
sions they  were  designed  to  produce.  This  influence  is  seen  in  the 
child  or  savage,  in  the  philosopher  and  the  unlettered  man  alike; 
the  inspired  wise  man  declaring  the  truth  universal,  "A  pleasant 
thing  it  is  for  the  eyes  to  behold  the  sun."  Poets  appeal  to  this  law 
of  the  sensibilities,  by  the  general  reference  to  nature  as  dressed  in 
robes  of  lively  or  gloomy  hues.  It  is  the  artist's  office,  so  to  analyze 
both  these  effects  and  their  causes,  as  to  be  able  to  copy  the  special 
hues  which  produce  on  the  human  organism  special  impressions. 

Writers  on  Mental  Philosophy  and  on  Principles  of  Criticism 


504  ART   CRITICISM. 

notice  this  law.     The  dark  colors  in  general  are  expressive  of  gloom, 
and  the  light  of  cheerfulness;    and  hence  when  employed  by  the 
artist  they  produce  the  impressions  of  which  they  are  the  index.  J 
Black  therefore  seems  to  have  been  naturally  chosen  as  the  garb  of    ■ 
mourning;  and  the  gathering  of  the  black  storm-cloud,  the  darken- 
ing of  evening,   and   funeral   drapery,  instinctively   beget   gloom. 
White,  on  the  other  hand,  appears  as  naturally  to  have  been  chosen 
to  be  the  emblem  of  joy,  at  marriage  ceremonies,  feasts  and  festivals. 
It  has  also  been  selected  as  the  symbol  of  the  peace  allied  to  joy,  j 
conceived  to  dwell  with  purity,  embodied  in  priests'  vestments ;  while,  M 
even  as  the  drapery  at  a  child's  burial,  this  higher  idea  of  innocence 
and  joy  prevails  over  the  lower  sentiment  of  corruption  and  gloom. 
The  positive  as  well  as  the  negative  colors  have  also  their  aesthetic 
employ.     The  sky,  the  cloud  and  the  mountain,  distant  and  uncom-    i 
panionable,  take  on  blue  and  the  graver  hues;  the  flowers  springing  ^ 
close  at  our  feet  delight  in  red,  yellow,  and  the  lively  tints  of  cheerful 
intimacy;  while  the  green's  quiet  relief  is  the  carpet  on  which  the 
eye  most  rests.     Man's  severer  life  of  out-door  toil  makes  him  select 
the  graver  colors  for  his  garb ;  while  woman  chooses  the  gayer  hues  J 
for  her  less  wearing  life  and  in-door  adornment.     Even  the  arching  ,1 
"bow  in  the  clouds"  seems  to  speak  of  the  alternating  lights  and 
shades  and  the  passive  intervals  of  life,  when  it  is  observed  that  the 
gloomy  indigo,  violet  and  blue  form  but  its  earthward  ring,  that 
the  cheerful  red,  orange  and  yellow  are  the  heavenward  circlet, 
while  the  two  are  separated  by  the  quiet  and  soothing  green. 

Philosophy  finds  difficulty  in  discriminating  at  times  between  the 
dicta  of  fashion  and  the  teachings  of  true  culture  in  matters  of  taste. 
Fuseli  remarks,  "Glare  is  always  the  first  feature  of  a  savage  or 
infant  taste;"  a  sentiment  illustrated  in  their  first  works  of  art  as  well 
as  in  their  dress.  Yet,  European  and  even  English  taste  clings  to 
gold  and  scarlet  as  the  dress  appropriate  to  royalty  and  the  court; 
and  it  doubts  the  legitimacy  of  the  American  use  of  black  as  the 
garb  appropriate  to  civic  ceremony  and  social  festivity.  The  taste 
of  the  child  and  the  savage  prefers  the  essential  colors,  yellow,  red 
and  blue,  addressed  to  the  eye;  as  it  does  the  whole  tones  on  a  pipe 
of  seven  notes  addressed  to  the  ear ;  and  this  preference  is  in  one  sense 
nature's  voice.  But  true  culture  leads  to  the  love  of  demi-tiuts  and 
half  notes,  and  of  combination  and  chromatic  approximation  in  hues 
and  tones.  It  certainly  is  a  mark  of  semi-civilization  when  the 
Oriental  chieftain  flaunts  woman's  gaudy  colors  in  his  robe  and  tur- 
ban; and  it  must  be  set  to  the  account  of  advancing  civilization 


COLOR   AS   A  STUDY   IN   DESIGN.  605 

when  a  late  Turkish  Sultan  exchanged  that  glaring  costume  for  the 
plain  dark-blue  frock-coat  and  pantaloons  now  worn  by  the  highest 
officers  of  state  around  the  golden  throne  of  the  Sublime  Porte. 
Still  it  need  not  appear  surprising  that  even  in  the  galleries  of  the 
Louvre,  since  in  the  living  court  pageant  of  the  Tuileries  the  same 
rule  of  judgment  prevails,  the  painter  who  excels  in  gaudiness  of 
coloring  should  outshine,  even  in  the  esteem  of  intelligent  critics, 
the  perfect  master  in  quiet  landscape  tints ;  and  that  Kubens  should 
outrank  Lionardo  in  popular  Parisian  esteem. 

Practical  writers  on  art  have  sought  to  apply  these  suggestions  of 
philosophic  thinkers.  New  and  more  extended  analyses  of  aesthetic 
effects  are  made  as  the  field  of  art  in  painting  widens;  and  practice 
refines  as  culture  liberalizes.  The  grave  and  gay  of  drapery  and 
costume  in  scenic  and  histrionic  decoration  are  refined  into  the  warm 
and  cold,  the  subdued  and  the  rugged  of  landscape  painting.  The 
decorations  of  rooms,  one  having  a  cold  northern  or  a  shaded  expo- 
sure relieved  by  hangings  of  a  lively  hue,  and  another  a  warm 
southern  or  a  sunny  aspect  offset  by  furniture  of  graver  tone,  pre- 
pares the  way  for  the  greatest  masters;  men  whose  works  are  an 
embodiment  of  the  laws  of  aesthetic  power  in  art.  The  sunny  glow 
on  the  "glistering  white"  of  the  robes  of  Jesus,  of  Moses,  and  of 
Elijah,  in  "Raphael's  Transfiguration,"  the  dreary  "blackness  of 
darkness"  shrouding  the  condemned  in  Angelo's  "Last  Judgment," 
and  the  subdued  and  mellow  evening  radiance  falling  on  the  faces 
of  Jesus  and  the  "beloved  disciple,"  in  Lionardo's  "Last  Supper," 
irresistibly  and  insensibly  arouse,  inflame  and  subdue  the  beholder 
to  the  sentiment  of  each  separate  scene.  Color  even  more  than 
form  speaks  in  art  to  the  sensibilities. 

Sect.  6.  The  Eelation  of  Color  to  Design  and  its  Special  Applica- 
tions IN  Painting. 

While  design  in  drawing,  sculpture  and  architecture  has  regard 
to  form  alone,  in  painting  it  has  a  relation  to  color  also.  It  is  here 
that  the  two  arts  of  special  adornment,  sculpture  and  painting,  are 
brought  into  special  contrast.  Painting  like  sculpture  seeks  the  three 
ends  of  private  ornament,  of  civic  memorial,  and  of  religious  impres- 
sion. Painting,  however,  is  an  in-door  adornment;  being  excluded 
from  the  field  of  out-door  art,  such  as  funereal  or  civic  monuments 
and  landscape  ornamentation.  It  has,  however,  its  own  field ;  from 
which  sculpture  is  excluded.  An  altar  piece,  or  a  mural  tablet  may 
be  in  sculpture;  but  the  broad  field  of  historical  illustration,  the 

43  3  0 


506  ART   CRITICISM. 

boundless  expanse  of  landscape  representation,  and  the  pervasive 
panorama  of  wall  and  ceiling  decoration  which  may  bring  the  my- 
riad life  of  a  city  into  a  single  chamber,  belongs  to  painting  alone. 
In  the  field,  therefore,  wherein  design  is  to  be  exerted,  painting  has 
its  special  superiority. 

It  is,  moreover,  a  higher  order  of  design  that  can  be  sought  in 
painting;  and  in  many  respects  its  power  to  produce  the  effects  of 
art  is  superior  to  that  of  drawing  or  sculpture.  The  ablest  artists 
have  taught,  as  we  have  seen,  that  an  engraving  which  is  only  an 
artificially  executed  copy  of  a  drawing,  fails  in  its  designed  effect 
unless  the  engraver  have  the  genius  to  give  to  his  work  those  speak- 
ing touches  which  go  beyond  the  mere  enunciation  of  form,  and  fur- 
nish an  expression  kindred  to  that  of  color;  an  admission  that  the 
brush  has  its  own  special  power  of  appeal,  which  the  pencil  may  seek 
to  imitate,  but  cannot  realize.  There  is,  doubtless,  force  in  the  view 
of  Guizot,  already  alluded  to,  that  sculpture  will  fail  in  the  effort  if 
it  attempts  to  give  anything  else  than  the  expression  of  that  strength 
and  beauty  which  belongs  to  objects  at  rest;  a  view  which  leaves  the 
whole  field  of  action  in  the  representations  of  art  as  the  peculiar  pro- 
vince of  painting. 

While  in  these  general  respects,  relating  to  the  field  of  its  exercise 
and  the  character  of  the  efiects  it  seeks,  painting  is  a  superior  art, 
in  each  of  the  special  parts  of  the  act  of  design  painting  is  the  art 
of  arts.  The  work  of  conceptioUy  the  first  part  of  design,  which  with 
the  sculptor  ends  with  the  form  of  an  ideal,  in  the  painter  embraces 
the  fixing  of  the  colors  which  will  conspire  to  produce  the  effect 
desired.  A  common  marble  carver  might  cut  without  any  exercise 
of  conception  a  second  Apollo  Belvidere  from  the  model  before  him ; 
but  no  artist  ungifted  and  uncultured  in  design  could  copy  in  Guido's 
crucifixion  the  hues  of  cloud  and  tints  of  flesh,  when  darkness  strug- 
gled with  the  light,  which  threw  its  uncertain  gleam  upon  the  radiant 
form  of  the  sufferer  and  on  the  shifting  mist  around.  In  invention, 
too,  the  painter  has  a  work  beyond  that  of  the  sculptor.  Thus  in 
foreshortening,  the  painter  does  not  like  the  sculptor  directly  execute 
the  dimensions  of  those  parts  of  his  work  which  are  to  be  viewed 
obliquely ;  he  must  represent  them  by  a  skilful  gradation  of  colored 
shades  on  the  retiring  limb ;  a  work  tasking  the  highest  powers  of 
invention.  In  composition  again,  so  few  figures  can  enter  into  a  work, 
of  sculpture,  and  so  impossible  is  it  even  in  bas-relief  to  introduce 
any  appreciable  back-ground  in  which  retiring  figures  may  be 
grouped,  that  the  Greeks  seem  never  to  have  used  the  word  compo- 


PAINTING  THE  SPECIAIi   ART   OF   DESIGN.  507 

sition  except  ill  application  to  the  grouping  of  the  central  and  retir- 
ing figures  and  objects  in  a  painting.  Yet,  again,  expression  is  pre- 
eminently the  province  of  the  painter;  for,  if  in  apparent  contradiction 
to  the  view  of  Cousin,  Michel  Angelo  in  a  glow  of  enthusiasm 
addressed  a  matchless  statue  as  if  it  ought  to  speak  to  him,  from  the 
day  Apelles  made  the  arm  of  Alexander  seem  even  to  a  Cicero  to 
stretch  forth  from  the  canvass,  painting  has  been  the  art  that  has 
seemed  able  to  impart  actual  life  to  its  creations. 

As  the  Greeks  limited  composition,  one  part  of  design,  to  painting, 
so  the  able  masters  and  critics  of  art  in  modern  times  seem  to  have 
this  art  specially  in  view  in  treatises  on  Design.  Thus  Lionardo,  in 
treating  of  design,  says,  "The  first  thing  to  be  regarded  is  the  relief; 
that  the  central  figure  from  which  the  light  is  cut  off  by  those  on  the 
sides  have  the  deepest  shades  around  it.  The  second  is  that  the 
order  and  disposition  of  the  figures  be  accommodated  to  the  subject. 
The  third  is  that  the  figures  be  alive  to  the  occasion,  with  expressions 
suited  to  their  attitudes."  Again,  the  critic  Jarves  remarks:  "True 
criticism  follows  the  law  of  Intellectual  Philosophy ;  if  gross,  it  looks 
at  form  alone ;  if  opposite  in  tendency  it  regards  the  spiritual.  The 
first  ofiice  of  criticism  is  to  penetrate  to  the  motive;  this  including 
the  inspiration,  the  intention,  the  compass  and  composition;  and 
especially  in  ancient  art  we  must  always  ask,  'why?  wherefore?' 
before  we  criticize.  The  second  ofiice  of  criticism  is  to  judge  how  the 
artist  has  carried  out  his  intent  in  the  material  employed.  More 
especially  choice  is  to  be  regarded;  that  is,  after  the  motive,  skill  in 
carrying  out  the  design  by  selection  of  a  theme.  Composition  comes 
next;  or  the  skill  of  making  the  whole  from  its  parts.  The  charac- 
teristics of  skill  in  composition,  as  in  design,  so  far  as  forms  are  con- 
cerned, include  breadth,  strength,  freedom,  grace,  fertility,  transpa- 
rency, depth,  gradation,  fusion,  lucidity,  clearness,  harmony  and 
tone.  ...  In  itself  color  is  neutral ;  but  in  composition,  as  in  design, 
the  critic  demands  at  least  purity,  fitness  and  harmony;  the  more 
because  that  in  color  a  corrupt  taste  is  liable  to  control."  The  use 
of  the  word  "shades"  by  Lionardo,  and  of  "color"  by  Jarves,  as 
well  as  the  general  tenor  of  their  statement,  indicates  that  it  is  the 
art  of  painting  which  naturally  rises  to  the  mind  when  the  principles 
of  Design  in  general,  and  especially  of  Composition  as  one  of  its 
branches,  is  considered. 


508  ART   CRITICISM. 


CHAPTER    III. 

MATERIALS  AND  SPECIAL  METHODS  OF  USING  THEM  IN  COLORING; 
AND  CONSEQUENT  CLASSIFICATION  OP  AGES,  STYLES  AND  SCHOOLS 
IN   PAINTING. 

The  character  of  the  objects  to  be  represented  and  of  the  effects 
to  be  secured  by  painting  leads  to  the  consideration  of  general  prin- 
ciples ruling  the  choice  of  colors.  The  classes  of  materials  furnished 
to  artists,  from  which  to  make  selection  in  the  execution  of  their 
work,  has  led  to  special  methods  of  coloring ;  and,  as  these  methods 
have  been  improved  by  experience  and  culture,  different  ages  and 
schools  in  painting  have  arisen  and  succeeded  each  other.  The  field 
of  the  history  of  painting  is  as  wide  in  space  as  the  earth's  face  where 
men  have  dwelt,  and  as  lasting  in  time  as  the  roll  of  the  recorded 
annals  of  human  life ;  and  every  variety  of  character  and  grade  of 
excellence  is  to  be  found  among  paintings  of  the  same  land  and  age. 
Classification,  and  study  of  the  principles  on  which  classification  must 
rest,  are  essential  to  the  student  who  would  comprehend  so  vast  a 
field,  and  rightly  appreciate  such  varied  execution.  The  leading 
points  on  which  classification  of  ages  and  of  schools  turns,  relate  to  pig- 
ments or  coloring  materials,  vehicles  or  mixing  agents,  tablets  or 
substances  on  which  colors  are  laid,  subjects  or  themes  to  be  repre- 
sented, objects  or  the  purposes  for  which  paintings  are  designed,  and 
styles  or  the  special  manner  of  execution  practised  by  different 
schools  and  by  rival  artists. 

Sect.  1.  Pigments;  or  Materials  used  as  Colors. 

The  first  pictures  were  executed  either  as  mere  drawings,  without 
any  color  at  all,  or  with  color  used  without  regard  to  its  propriety 
as  an  adjunct  to  the  drawing.  As  outlines,  cut  with  a  hard,  sharp 
pencil  into  the  material  on  which  the  picture  was  to  be  drawn,  such 
as  wax,  stone  or  copper  plate,  were  the  germs  of  sculpture,  so  drawing 
executed  with  a  soft  pencil  of  adhesive  texture,  such  as  crayon,  char- 
coal or  chalk,  which  left  a  line  of  its  own  substance  on  the  material, 
was  the  first  stage  of  painting.  These  primitive  pictures  were  called 
sJdagrams  by  the  Greeks,  because  they  were  drawn  in  shade ;  which 
were  followed  by  monochromatic  pictures,  or  those  executed  in  one 
color  with  simple  ochres  or  vegetable  tints.     Afterwards,  though  the 


■ 


PIGMENTS   CLASSIFIED   AS   TO   COLOR   AND   MATERIAL.     609 

most  eminent  painters  of  the  climactic  age  in  Greece,  as  Apelles,  are 
said  to  have  used  but  four  colors,  a  large  number  of  different  pig- 
ments were  tested  and  either  adopted  or  rejected  as  experience  deve- 
loped their  merit. 

The  classification  of  pigments  in  the  early  eras  of  the  history  of 
art  is  made  to  depend  on  their  color  or  external  appearance  when 
laid  on;  and  hence  the  lists  of  blacks  and  whites,  reds,  yellows  and 
blues  made  by  Pliny  as  well  as  by  modern  writers  on  art.  The 
nicer  analysis  of  a  cultured  age  classifies  coloring  materials  according 
to  their  essential  chemical  elements,  as  vegetable  and  mineral.  The 
method  of  classification  according  to  hue  may  be  traced  back  to  very 
early  times;  and  it  has  been  so  uniform  that  West  has  suggested 
that  the  idea  originated  from  observation  of  the  rainbow.  The  able 
Indian  philosopher  Kanada  taught  that  there  are  seven  distinct 
colors;  among  which  he  included  black  and  white.  A.  E.  Mengs, 
who  died  A.  D.  1779,  in  his  notes  upon  Winckelmann,  remarked 
that  the  colors  used  by  the  Egyptian  painters  were  six  in  number, 
white,  black,  blue,  red,  yellow  and  green ;  which  he  says  they  laid 
on  "toujours  pures  et  sans  melange,"  always  pure  and  without  mix- 
ture. At  a  later  period,  and  seeking  a  more  elementary  analysis,  the 
able  chemists,  of  Napoleon's  expedition  A.  D.  1798,  and  later  English 
chemists,  have  decided  that  though  the  pigments  used  by  the  Egyp- 
tian artists  were  chiefly  ochres  or  earths,  colored  by  metallic  oxides, 
they  were  also  partly  metallic  and  vegetable.  The  same  conclusion 
as  to  those  employed  by  Assyrian  artists  has  been  reached  by  Layard 
and  others.  The  study  of  the  pigments  used  by  the  Greek  painters 
as  developed  by  Pliny  and  other  able  Greek  and  Roman  writers, 
shows  the  recognition  of  the  same  fundamental  principles  as  to 
colors;  while  too  the  same  three  sources  whence  colors  are  to  be 
derived  are  recognized,  the  earthy,  the  metallic,  and  the  vegetable. 

The  analyses  of  Modern  Chemistry  have  enlarged  the  number 
of  articles  used  as  paints ;  it  has  led  to  a  knowledge  of  the  elements 
of  which  compounds  are  made;  it  has  enabled  the  philosophic  artist 
to  effect  new  combinations,  to  form  new  theoretical  conclusions  as  to 

e  durability  of  different  pigments,  and  to  enlarge  the  list  of  vary- 

g  shades,  hues  and  tints ;  yet  the  same  natural  and  artificial  colors 
which  by  practice  the  ancients  found  to  be  the  best  are  still  retained, 

d  are  generally  acknowledged  to  be  superior.     The  extended  lists 

pigments  now  used  and  the  exhaustive  analysis  of  their  elements 
found  in  modern  treatises  present  the  connection  between  ancient 

d  modern  art  quite  as  intimate  in  the  department  of  painting  as 
43  * 


510         ~  ART   CRITICISM. 

of  sculpture  and  of  architecture.  The  classification  of  hues  extends 
farther,  embracing  the  analysis  of  elementary  and  mixed  colors,  of 
primaries,  secondaries,  tertiaries,  and  semi-neutrals.  The  chemical 
analysis  has  led  to  subdivisions ;  the  mineral  being  classified  as  me- 
tallic or  earthy,  and  the  vegetable  as  acid  or  alkaline.  Some  of 
these,  mentioned  in  every  period  of  the  history  of  painting,  are  found 
in  their  natural  state,  or  are  obtained  by  decoction  or  combustion 
of  animal  and  vegetable  substances,  or  by  the  action  of  heat  in  pro- 
ducing mineral  compounds.  As  examples  of  universally  employed 
pigments  these  three  classes  are  prominent;  the  English  madder,  the 
rubia  tindoria  of  the  Romans,  and  the  eruthra  of  the  Greeks,  extracted 
from  a  plant  whose  root  yields  a  bright  and  always  favorite  red; 
ochre  from  the  Greek  ochros,  pale,  opposed  by  Aristotle  in  human 
complexions  to  eruthra,  a  term  applied  to  earths  of  various  dull 
colors,  all  produced  by  that  common  coloring  ingredient  of  fertile 
soils  the  oxide  of  iron ;  and  lake  from  the  Indian  word  lacca,  a  desig- 
nation of  the  combination  by  boiling  of  vegetable  tinctures  with 
earthy  ingredients,  particularly  clays.  Nearly  every  variety  of 
these  three  classes  of  non-metallic  pigments,  as  well  as  some  of  the 
more  important  metallic  compounds,  are  found  now  in  use  among 
the  Chinese,  a  people  the  modern  counterpart  of  the  ancient  Egyp- 
tians, and  whose  authentic  historic  records  run  back  to  the  same 
early  period ;  while,  too,  these  same  classes  of  pigments,  and  that  of 
different  colors,  may  be  traced  directly  back  from  modern  times 
through  the  Middle  Ages  to  Rome  and  Greece,  and  thence  to  Egypt 
and  Assyria.  As  proof  of  their  use  among  the  Greeks  and  Romans, 
Linton  in  his  treatise  on  "Ancient  and  Modern  colors,"  after  giving 
the  complete  list  of  metallic  pigments  now  used,  finds,  that  of  forty- 
two  mentioned  by  Pliny  and  other  ancient  writers  thirty-one  are  now 
employed  by  painters. 

The  general  results  of  the  analyses  made  by  chemists  of  Egyptian 
pigments  under  the  direction  of  Sir  Gardner  Wilkinson,  and  of 
Assyrian  under  Dr.  Layard,  have  been  brought  together  by  Linton. 
The  analyzers  of  the  Egyptian  colors  state  the  following:  The  blues 
"all  appear  to  be  oxides  of  copper."  Of  reds  two  were  used;  one 
brownish  and  the  other  brick-red ;  the  brown  being  an  oxide  of  iron 
with  lime.  The  red,  or  scarlet,  on  the  mummy  cloths  was  madder, 
the  coccus  of  Pliny;  red  ochres,  or  ferruginous  earths,  were  used  in 
the  tombs.  The  yellows  were  ochres  on  grounds,  and  vegetable  on 
cloths.  The  greens  were  blue  glass  mixed  with  ochres ;  also  on  the 
stucco  at  Thebes  a  vegetable  yellow,  probably  the  henneh  so  common 


PIGMENTS   KNOWN   TO   ANCIENT   PAINTEKS.  511 

in  Egypt,  mixed  with  copper-blue.  For  blacks,  calcined  bones,  lees 
of  wine,  asphaltum  or  burnt  pitch,  charcoal  and  soot  were  used. 
For  whites,  a  very  pure  chalk,  lime,  and  gypsum  were  employed. 
This  modern  analysis  agrees  with  and  illustrates  the  hints  of  ancient 
Greek  and  Koman  writers.  Thus  Theophrastus  records,  "A  certain 
king  of  Egypt  first  made  artificially  a  liquid  blue  imitating  the 
natural ;"  which  cyanos  Egyptius,  as  the  Latins  called  it,  is  a  silicate 
of  copper,  of  which  Vitruvius  again  says  that  it  was  "brought  to 
Puteoli  in  Italy  from  Egypt."  Chaptal,  Botta  and  Layard,  alike 
found  the  three  primaries,  red,  yellow  and  blue,  as  well  as  the  neu- 
trals black  and  white  used  by  ancient  Assyrian  painters;  Layard 
also  mentions  green,  purple,  violet  and  brown.  The  blue  he  regarded 
as  copper,  and  the  green  as  composed  of  a  yellow  iron  ochre  mixed 
with  copper-blue,  like  the  Egyptian;  while  among  the  blacks  he 
found  iron  ochre  and  calcined  bones,  and  among  the  whites  alabaster 
and  gypsum,  all  of  which  are  met  in  Egypt.  The  unbroken  connec- 
tion of  history  in  pigments  is  strikingly  illustrated  in  the  "  Vermil- 
lion"^ mentioned  by  the  Hebrew  writers;  the  Hebrew  being  directly 
traceable  through  allusions  in  translations  of  the  Old  Testament  and 
such  writers  as  Strabo,  Dioscorides  and  Pliny,  to  the  Chaldee  shashur 
of  India,  the  7nilto8  of  the  Greek,  and  the  sinopis  of  the  Latin. 

The  study  of  the  nature  of  pigments  was  in  ancient  as  truly  as  in 
modern  times  an  experimental  science.  Hippocrates  and  Aristotle 
among  the  earlier  Greeks,  followed  Kanada  the  Indian  philosopher; 
and  Theophrastus,  Vitruvius,  Dioscorides,  Galen,  Plutarch  and  Pliny, 
among  later  Greek  and  Latin  writers,  devoted  pages  to  the  painter's 
art  and  to  the  analysis  of  pigments.  During  the  early  and  middle 
ages  after  the  Christian  era,  while  philosophy  lived  in  every  depart- 
ment, though  hid  in  the  cloister,  instead  of  making  its  visible  mark 
on  men  and  nations,  minds  of  active  and  original  cast  turned  to  the 
entrancing  charms  of  art,  as  some  were  devoted  to  scholastic  dogma- 
tism and  others  to  metaphysical  speculation.  The  allusions  of 
Herodotus,  Plato  and  Aristotle  show  that  the  investigation  of 
the  properties  of  drugs  was  pursued  by  men  devoted  to  it  for  the 
united  ends  of  art  and  of  medical  science.  Hippocrates,  the  Greek 
physician,  who  wrote  before  Plato,  about  B.  C.  420,  remarks 
that  "the  writings  of  physicians,  or  physicists,  had  less  regard 
medicine  than  to  arts  of  design."     The  word  pharmaJcon  was 


Jer.  xxii.  14 ;  Ezek.  xxiii.  14. 


512  ART   CRITICISM. 

used  for  pigment  as  well  as  medicine  by  Greek  writers  from  He- 
rodotus to  Plutarch.^ 

Pliny  in  his  Natural  History  has  the  fullest  development  extant 
of  the  nature  of  the  pigments  used  by  the  ancients,  and  the  history  , 
of  their  employ.  He  begins  his  Thirty-third  Book  on  Metals,  by  I 
stating  that  they  have  a  dignified  use  as  "pigments."  In  speaking 
of  monochromata,  or  pictures  in  one  color,  he  says,  "  The  ancients 
painted  monochromata  in  vermillion  (cinnabari) ;  also  in  Ephesian 
red  lead  (minio),  which  has  been  abandoned  because  of  the  great 
labor  of  its  preparation.  Moreover,  since  both  of  these  were  thought 
too  vivid  (acre)  there  was  a  transition  to  bright-red  and  dull-red 
ochres  (rubricam  et  sinopidem)."  It  was  evidently  a  flesh-color  the 
Greeks  were  seeking  for  their  paintings  done  in  one  color;  and  the 
dull  color  was  found  preferable  to  the  bright.  In  his  Thirty-fifth 
Book  on  Painting  and  Colors,  Pliny  divides  pigments  into  austeri  et 
floridi,  grave  and  gay ;  and  gives  a  long  list  of  colors  and  of  coloring 
materials;  including,  as  already  observed,  a  large  number  of  pig- 
ments still  found 'to  be  the  best  among  metals  and  earths,  animal 
and  vegetable  ingredients.  To  the  enthusiastic  student  of  art  his 
minute  descriptions  of  the  location,  nature  and  methods  of  preparing 
these  pigments  by  the  ancients  is  intensely  interesting  as  well  as 
eminently  instructive. 

In  the  ages  after  the  introduction  of  Christianity,  when  painting 
in  both  the  Eastern  and  Western  Churches  was  so  extensively  em- 
ployed for  Church  decorations,  a  most  exhaustive  study  of  ingre- 
dients furnishing  pigments  was  made;  and  to  this  study  more  than 
to  aught  else,  pursued  chiefly  by  monks  and  others  devoted  to  the 
interests  of  the  Church,  the  world  is  indebted  for  the  discoveries  of 
Modern  Chemistry.  The  celebrated  Byzantine  manuscript  found 
among  the  monks  at  St.  Athos,  and  the  scattered  allusions  of  early 
Italian  writers  on  Painting,  reveal  secrets  carefully  guarded  then  by 
monastic  orders  and  ecclesiastic  artists.  Thus  Vasari  mentions 
Kaphael's  delight  that  the  Pope  had  appointed  "an  aged  friar"  to 
assist  him  in  the  decorations  of  St.  Peter,  because  he  expected  to 
"  learn  some  secrets  of  the  art  from  so  experienced  an  associate." 

In  the  progress  of  modern  painting  the  ambition  to  secure  improved 
pigments  has  almost  rivalled  the  ardor  of  men  of  the  Middle  Ages 
in  search  of  the  philosopher's  stone.     In  this  pursuit,  as  the  work  of 


'Herodot.  I.  98;  Plat.  Kepub.  420,  c;  Arist.  Eccl.  735;  Hippoc.  de  Vet. 
Med.  c.  36;  Dion.  Halic.  de  Comp.  Verb.  c.  21;  Plutarch  de  Defect.  Orac. 


VEHICLES;   WATER  AND   TEMPERA   OR   GUM- WATER.      513 

Eastlake  shows,  the  thorough  study  of  the  writers  on  Greek  painting 
has  best  pointed  out  the  paths  which  have  been  thoroughly  searched 
through,  and  those  which  invite  farther  scrutiny.  The  investigation 
of  the  pigments  tested  by  such  artists  as  Lionardo  and  Raphael,  Van 
Eyck  and  Rubens  is  necessarily  imperfect  without  previous  study  of 
the  sources  whence  they  drew  their  first  principles. 

Sect.  2.  Vehicles  and  Varnishes;  or  Materials  used  for  Spreading 
Colors  and  giving  them  Clearness,  Brilliance  and  Durability. 

Pigments  are  chiefly  in  a  solid  form ;  and  they  need  to  be  converted 
into  a  semi-fluid  condition  in  order  to  render  them  susceptible  of 
being  spread.  So  far  as  this  alone  is  concerned,  any  solvent  or 
liquid  with  which  the  pigment  might  combine,  or  in  which  it  would 
float  suspended  in  mixture,  would  meet  the  demand.  Three  subor- 
dinate ends,  however,  were  found  to  be  desirable  even  in  the  early 
stages  of  the  history  of  painting ;  and  as  the  art  has  been  perfected 
the  search  for  fit  vehicles,  or  carriers  of  colors,  was  as  earnest  a  study 
with  artists  as  for  worthy  pigments.  The  first  and  essential  quality 
in  a  vehicle  is  ease  of  flow  and  smoothness  of  spread,  as  opposed  to 
daubing  and  pasting  in  laying  on  colors;  a  second  and  important 
characteristic  is  adhesiveness  to  the  ground  on  which  they  are  laid, 
and  consistency  in  themselves,  so  that  they  shall  not  scale  or  crum- 
ble ;  while  a  third  and  desirable  property  is  lucidness  and  transpa- 
rency in  the  color  when  laid  on,  the  vehicle  neither  covering  so  as 
to  hide  the  color,  nor  leaving  it  unaftected  by  the  polish  of  thfe 
liquid  with  its  own  dull  metallic  or  earthy  aspect,  but  giving  its  own 
sparkling  lustre  to  the  pigment  which  it  allows  to  be  seen  through 
itself 

Water  the  natural  and  universal  solvent,  the  fluid  which  the 
Creator  has  made  his  own  vehicle  for  moulding  and  beautifying 
forms  in  the  vegetable  and  animal  kingdom,  was  naturally  first 
selected  in  rude  ages  as  an  agent  with  which  to  mix  paints.  It  is 
the  simple  liquid  which  the  child  and  savage  use,  whether  they  em- 
ploy vegetable  coloring  matters  mixed  to  their  hands,  or  the  colored 
clays  which  must  be  moistened  before  being  used ;  it  was  the  only 
solvent  used  by  ancient  Egyptian  and  Grecian  painters  even  when 
considerably  advanced  in  art ;  it  has  remained  from  the  days  of  the 
earliest  Egyptian  tombs  the  only  vehicle  proper  for  fresco  painting; 
and  to  this  day  painting  in  water  colors  is  an  important  branch  of 

Ie  finished  art.     Its  use  is  so  simple  and  natural  that  it  requires 
tie  more  than  the  mention,  when  used  alone,  as  a  vehicle. 
V  3P 


514  ART   CRITICISM. 

The  ancients  had  learned  the  qualities  in  water  which  make  it 
eyen  now  to  be  preferred  as  a  vehicle  in  painting  delicate  objects 
such  as  flowers.  It  dries  rapidly,  so  that  the  artist  can  complete  his 
or  her  work,  laying  on  coat  after  coat  of  paint,  without  waiting  for 
hours  or  days  to  let  each  be  separately  dried ;  and  by  its  employ  the 
perishing  flower,  whose  fleeting  beauty  literally  fades  in  an  hour, 
may  be  completely  copied  ere  the  special  hue  of  its  prime  and  the 
fresh  brilliance  of  its  gloss  is  gone.  Water  again  being  only  a 
vehicle,  evaporating  completely  so  as  to  leave  none  of  its  own  sub- 
stance, but  only  the  pure  pigment  behind,  has  no  tendency  to  change 
the  hue  of  the  pigment  laid  on  with  it.  The  ancients,  however, 
learned  that  waters  from  the  soil  are  always  liable  to  be  impregnated 
with  mineral  or  salt  ingredients ;  which  may  afiect  the  hue  of  the  pig- 
ment, though  the  water  would  not.  Rain  water,  therefore,  and  in 
the  advance  of  art  filtered  rain  water  or  distilled  spring  or  well 
water,  have  been  sought  to  avoid  any  acid  from  the  atmosphere  or 
alkali  from  the  soil  whose  chemical  change  might  in  time  injure  the 
color.  The  ancients,  too,  as  well  as  the  moderns,  observed  the  ease 
with  which  water  colors  could  be  removed;  a  quality  most  unde- 
sirable to  the  artist  who  sought  to  preserve  his  name  in  a  permanent 
perfected  work,  though  very  convenient  when  from  any  cause  he 
wished  to  change  his  design  or  modify  its  execution.  This  was  illus- 
trated when  Apelles  used  to  place  his  completed  painting  in  the 
window  of  his  study  in  order  to  listen  concealed  to  the  criticisms  of 
passers  by,  which  might  give  him  hints  for  their  improvement.  It 
was  illustrated  in  the  method  employed  by  Bufi*ulmacco,  the  Italian 
painter,  so  called  from  his  fondness  for  buflbonery,  when  he  provoked 
the  horror  of  pious  ecclesiastics  by  representing  in  his  sacred  themes 
St.  Luke  blowing  the  ink  out  of  his  pen,  and  the  Virgin  Mary  nurs- 
ing a  bear's  cub  in  place  of  the  infant  Jesus ;  these  scandalous  appen- 
dages being  merely  laid  on  his  oil  painting  with  water  colors  which 
a  wet  sponge  would  readily  remove. 

It  was  an  advance  in  the  admixture  of  colors  when  the  method 
styled  tempera,  was  introduced ;  some  glutinous  vegetable  substance, 
or  gelatinous  animal  matter,  being  added  to  the  water  to  temper,  or 
give  proper  consistency  to  the  admixing  fluid ;  as  glass  is  softened 
and  iron  hardened  by  being  tempered.  In  the  later  Latin  the  term 
distemperata  came  to  be  used  for  the  classic  temperata,  supplanting  the 
word  tempera,  which  came  into  use  in  the  Middle  Ages.  The  Eng- 
lish expression  "to  paint  in  distemper"  implies  the  using  of  any 
other  vehicle  than  water  or  oil;  whether  it  be  vegetable  gluten  or 


VARIOUS   GUMS   USED   IN   DISTEMPER.  515 

animal  glue.  The  viscid  substance  thus  employed  gave  cohesion  to 
admixtures ;  so  that  the  colors  laid  on  both  adhered  to  the  ground 
and  cohered  in  their  own  layers.  Sometimes  a  dry  vegetable  sub- 
stance as  gum,  or  animal  matter  as  glue,  was  dissolved  in  water, 
sometimes  natural  watery  vegetable  juices  as  wine,  vinegar  and  fig- 
juice,  or  watery  animal  liquors  as  the  white  of  eggs,  the  serum  of 
blood  and  cow's  milk,were  employed  either  with  or  without  admix- 
ture of  water.  The  Greek  painters  certainly  at  an  early  day  used 
glutinous  or  gelatinous  substances  in  mixing  their  paints;  and  there 
are  indications  that  they  learned  it  from  Egyptian  artists  who  before 
them  had  used  tempering  ingredients  to  give  adhesiveness  to  their 
paints.  Pliny  constantly  alludes  to  the  use  of  animal  and  vegetable 
substances  in  the  admixture  of  paints,  mentioning  a  great  variety  of 
preparations  of  gums,  resins,  oils,  and  their  mixtures  with  milk, 
honey,  fig-juice,  etc.,  employed  by  artists.  That  these  same  gums 
and  glues  were  used  by  the  Egyptian  painters  is  inferred  from  the 
fact  that  Egyptian  varieties  of  many  of  them  are  noted  as  especially 
valuable.  In  mediaeval  times,  as  Eastlake  states,  fig-juice  was  a 
favorite  vehicle  because  it  attained  a  consistency  that  made  it  du- 
rable. Vasari  mentions  that  Cimabue  adopted  the  art  of  painting 
in  tempera  from  the  Greeks,  and  was  followed  in  its  use  by  Giotto 
and  his  successors.  In  Germany  and  England,  where  fig-juice  could 
not  be  obtained,  and  in  Venice  also,  honey  was  employed ;  as  appears 
from  a  manuscript  of  the  Fifteenth  Century  found  in  the  Public 
Library  at  Strasburg,  Germany,  in  which  a  recipe  is  given  for  mak- 
ing a  size  of  "the  parings  of  parchments  boiled  in  water,"  which 
when  used  for  mixing  pigments  was  to  be  "dissolved  in  warm  water 
mixed  with  honey."  In  modern  times  among  gums,  Tragacanth, 
Arabic,  Ammoniac  and  Isinglass,  and  among  animal  matters,  albu- 
men, serum  and  milk  are  used  for  tempera  admixtures  to  give  cohe- 
sion. To  give  adhesion  in  painting  on  ivory  or  glass,  animal  gall, 
borax,  or  a  mild  alkali  are  employed.  Alcohol  in  admixture  acts 
as  an  antiseptic;  guarding  against  mildew  and  frost.  In  Italy  wine 
has  been  used  to  mix  paints,  and  in  Germany  beer. 

Though  gums  and  glues  thus  used  in  the  mixing  of  paints  gave  to 
pigments  coherence  in  themselves  and  adherence  to  grounds  they  did 
not  furnish  transparence  to  the  colors  floating  in  the  vehicle,  and  a 
varnished  gloss  and  protection  to  the  surface  of  the  picture.  The  great 
Author  of  all  things,  the  Divine  painter  of  the  broad  face  of  Nature, 
who  had  furnished  the  water  and  the  gum,  hinted  to  men  His  own 
supply  for  this  lack  also.     Every  plant  had  been  made  to  secrete  a 


516  ART   CRITICISM. 

substance  distinct  from  gum  in  both  its  chemical  and  physical  pro- 
perties, but  as  viscid  and  easily  spread ;  dissolved  by  heat  instead  of 
water,  and  less  transparent  but  firmer  far;  coating  with  extreme 
tenuity  the  upper  surface  of  leaves  and  the  petals  of  flowers,  giving 
them  a  smooth  polish  to  prevent  the  rain  from  adhering  to  and  pene- 
trating into  their  surface,  and  giving  a  gloss  which  added  greatly  to 
their  beauty.  This  material,  stored  more  largely  on  petals  and 
stamen  heads,  had  been  made  to  adhere  to  the  limbs  of  bees  as  they 
pressed  their  heads  and  bodies  to  the  honey-cells  at  the  base  of  the 
flower;  so  that  with  each  load  of  sweets  to  be  stored  these  tiny  archi- 
tects carried  a  supply  of  material  with  which  to  build  up  the  requisite 
cells.  It  was  natural  that  men  in  appropriating  the  honey  should 
avail  themselves  also  of  the  wax ;  and  that  artists  should  use  it  to 
give  protection  from  the  damp  and  a  finished  gloss  to  their  colors. 

The  use  of  wax,  keroa  in  Greek,  cera  in  Latin,  as  a  vehicle  for 
mixing  pigments,  originated,  as  Pliny  mentions,  at  a  very  early  day ; 
even  Polygnotus  in  the  days  of  Phidias  employing  it.  The  sugges- 
tion of  the  method  seems  to  have  originated  with  the  painters  of  the 
gaudy  prows  of  vessels ;  who  observed  how  the  sun's  heat  caused  the 
wax  used  in  calking  ships  to  flow  over  the  painted  surface,  and  to 
give  a  firm  and  glossy  surface.  Three  methods,  in  the  progress  of 
the  art,  arose;  which  took  name  from  the  mode  of  spreading  the. 
pigment,  mixed  as  it  was  with  wax.  In  the  first,  the  pigment  was 
plastered  upon  the  flat  ground  with  a  spreading  scraper  called  rab- 
dion;  in  the  second  it  was  laid  in  engraved  lines  cut  into  the  ground, 
in  the  manner  afterwards  called  niello  in  Italy,  and  impressed  with 
an  iron  graver  called  kestron;  and  in  the  third  it  was  laid  on,  as 
with  other  vehicles,  by  the  brush  called  penieillum.  When  laid  on, 
by  either  of  these  methods,  a  heated  iron  was  held  over  the  surface  > 
to  burn  in  the  pigment;  this  finishing  process  giving  the  name^ 
encaustic^  from  the  Greek  enkaio,  to  this  style  of  painting.  Its  dis-, 
covery  was  to  the  Greeks  what  oil-painting  was  to  moderns ;  Lycip- 
pus,  the  predecessor  of  Apelles,  writing  upon  his  wax-paintingS; 
instead  of  the  epoiese,  or  fecit,  of  ordinary  artists,  the  word  enekause, 
burnt  it.  The  descriptions  given  by  Pliny  and  other  ancient  writers 
of  the  methods  of  preparing  and  laying  on  wax-mixed  pigments  are 
minute  and  interesting  to  the  student  of  art.  The  advantages  of 
encaustic  painting  were,  the  distinctness  of  hue  caused  by  the  floating 
and  consequent  glistening  of  the  particles  of  pigment  in  the  dissolved 
wax;  and  the  protection  of  the  color  from  the  action  of  moisture 
and  from  friction  in  cleaning  the  surface.     For  ages  this  art  was  a 


THE   DISCOVERY  OF  OIL   AS   A   VEHICLE.  517 

favorite;  Horace  and  other  critics  extolling  the  masters  in  it;  Ter- 
tullian  and  other  Christian  writers  commending  it,  and  Chrysostom 
the  great  preacher  practising  it  as  an  auxiliary  accomplishment; 
the  Byzantine  painters  continuing  it  to  this  day,  and  the  Venetians 
only  giving  it  up  for  a  superior  invention. 

The  chief  disadvantages  of  wax  as  a  vehicle  and  varnish  were  its 
extreme  gloss  and  consequent  excess  of  reflection,  which  prevented 
the  painting  being  seen  to  advantage  except  in  one  light ;  its  stiffness 
and  consequent  exposure  to  crack  from  bending  of  the  ground ;  and 
especially  the  want  of  an  easy  flow,  which  might  allow  the  particles 
of  different  pigments  so  to  intermix  as  to  give  gradation  of  hues. 
Another  vehicle  was  therefore  eagerly  and  perseveringly  sought  by 
able  artists.  The  discovery  by  Van  Eyck,  the  Dutch  painter,  A.  D. 
1410,  of  the  method  of  using  oil  to  meet  this  want  is  the  commence- 
ment of  the  last  great  era  in  the  history  of  vehicles  used  by  painters. 
Eastlake  has  devoted  years  of  study  to  the  tracing  of  the  history  of 
this  art.  The  ancient  Greeks  and  Romans,  and  even  the  Egyptians, 
as  Pliny's  record  shows,  were  acquainted  with  most  of  the  essential 
and  vegetable  oils  now  known,  olive  oil  and  linseed  being  of  the 
number,  and  from  very  ancient  times  they  were  used  to  a  certain 
extent  in  the  admixture  of  pigments;  as  early  as  the  days  of  Charle- 
magne linseed  was  employed  as  a  drying  oil;  but  no  practical 
method  of  making  oil  a  vehicle  for  pigments  in  the  higher  class  of 
art  was  known,  chiefly  from  the  fact  that  oil  alone  dried  so  slowly. 
Cimabue  and  other  leaders  in  the  revival  of  the  art  of  painting  in 
Italy  used  tempera;  which,  though  fluid,  did  not  so  float  pigments  as 
to  permit  a  thorough  intermixture  of  different  colors.  Vasari,  the 
art-historian  of  the  era  thus  records  the  discovery  of  John  Van  Eyck. 
"Giovanni  of  Bruges,  pursuing  the  art  in  Flanders,  began  to  try 
experiments  with  colors;  and  being  fond  of  alchymy,  to  prepare 
various  oils  for  the  composition  of  varnishes  and  other  purposes.  He 
^t  length  found  that  linseed  oil  and  walnut  oil,  among  many  which 
had  tested,  were  more  drying  than  any  others.  These,  therefore, 
)iled  with  other  mixtures  of  his,  furnished  him  the  varnish  which 
le  and  all  painters  of  the  world  had  long  desired.  Continuing  his 
iperiments  he  observed  that  the  mixture  of  colors  with  these  kinds 
oil  gave  them  a  very  firm  consistence,  which  when  dry  was  proof 
jainst  water;  and  moreover  that  the  vehicle  lit  up  the  colors  so 
)werfully  that  it  gave  them  a  gloss  of  itself  without  varnish ;  and 
lat  which  appeared  to  him  still  more  admirable  that  it  allowed  the 
lending  of  the  colors  infinitely  better  than  tempera."  Van  Eyck's 
44 


518  ART   CRITICISM. 

secret,  afterwards  made  known  to  Antonelli  an  Italian  painter, 
spread  to  Italy  and  thence  to  all  Europe.  Subsequent  experimenters 
and  masters,  as  Lionardo,  perfected  the  method  of  preparing  and 
using  oil;  introducing  gums,  turpentine,  alcohol  and  other  ingre- 
dients to  hasten  its  drying. 

The  last  requisite  in  painting -was  a  varnish  whose  smooth  polish 
should  at  once  protect  and  beautify  the  colors  employed.  The  Egyp- 
tians in  their  sculpture  manifestly  understood  the  importance  of  a 
high  polish  in  preserving  and  adorning  their  works;  for  never  did 
coarse  granite  have  its  beauty  so  brought  out  and  its  lustre  so  pre- 
served as  in  the  finished  obelisks  of  Thebes.  The  Grecian  statuaries 
not  only  gave  to  ivory  and  marble  the  most  exquisite  polish,  but 
Praxiteles  even  added  a  varnish  to  increase  the  perfection  of  the 
finish  given  to  the  fine  texture  of  Pentelican  and  Parian  marble. 
It  was  natural  that  both  Egyptian  and  Grecian  painters  should 
gather  a  hint  from  the  sculptor  in  their  art.  The  Egyptian  sarco- 
phagi made  of  cotton  prepared  with  lime-cement  and  richly  colored, 
show  to  this  day  the  varnish  laid  upon  them.  The  study  of  Praxi- 
teles and  afterwards  of  Apelles,  in  search  of  a  varnish  at  once  firm 
and  transparent  is  the  theme  of  Pliny's  special  comment;  his  word 
drcumlitio  seeming  to  imply  that  a  peculiar  rounding  out  of  the 
figure  was  produced  by  the  added  varnish  in  sculpture,  and  a  projec- 
tion of  the  figure  from  the  canvas  in  painting.  The  ancients  used 
mastic  dissolved  in  oil;  in  place  of  turpentine,  employed  in  later 
times.  The  modern  use  of  Indian  lac,  however,  shows,  that,  in  the 
main  ingredients  of  varnish,  little  progress  has  been  made. 

Sect.  3.  Grounds;  on  Surfaces  on  which  Paintings  are  executed. 

In  rude  tribes  man's  fondness  for  gay  colors  has  shown  itself  in 
the  hues  of  his  dress  and  scanty  equipage.  The  American  Indian 
daubed  bright  colors  on  the  buflfalo  robe  that  formed  his  cloak,  on 
the  buck-skin  which  he  wrought  into  his  mocassins,  and  even  upon 
the  parts  of  his  person  most  conspicuous,  as  his  face,  arms  and  breast; 
while  his  carved  tomahawk,  war-club  and  pipe  were  all  the  more 
admired  if  the  wood  was  of  some  pure  clear  color.  The  Ethiopians 
of  Central  and  Southern  Africa  have  their  beads  and  knife-handles, 
their  baskets  and  other  trinkets  either  adorned  with  some  rich  color 
artificially  laid  on,  or  they  seek  a  material  which  in  itself  is  of  a 
bright  color.  As  articles  of  personal  adornments  were  the  first  to  be 
decorated  with  colors,  so  the  grounds,  or  material,  on  which  the 


MATERIAL   OF   GROUNDS   IN   WALL   PAINTING.  519 

painter  first  executed  his  finer  works  were  the  same  in  substance  as 
their  ornaments. 

When  painting  came  to  be  a  cultured  art  there  were  two  fields  for 
its  exercise;  first,  articles  attached  to  the  person  as  dress  and  other 
ornaments;  and  second,  large  objects  connected  with  abodes  and 
equipage,  house-walls,  ship's-prows,  furniture  and  wall-tablets  in  pri- 
vate and  public  edifices,  as  shrines  of  deities.  As  the  art  became 
perfected,  and  the  best  materials  were  sought  for  finished  works,  the 
painter's  productions  resolved  themselves  substantially  into  three 
classes;  miniature,  wall  and  easel  paintings.  Ivory  became  the 
favorite  material  for  the  former ;  a  stucco  of  lime  for  the  second ;  and 
wood  and  afterwards  linen  for  the  third. 

Miniatures,  a  name  derived  from  the  Latin  word  minium,  red  lead, 
with  which  pigment  as  the  best  flesh  color  small  portraits  were  first 
executed,  seem  from  Pliny's  mention  to  have  been  early  worn  like 
engraved  gems,  as  finger  ornaments.  Their  outline  scratched  upon 
ivory  in  delicate  lines  with  a  sharp  pencil,  was  traced  afterwards  in 
carmine,  or  crimson.  In  the  middle  and  later  ages,  parchment  and 
even  paper  were  made  grounds  for  miniature  paintings  in  water  or 
tempera;  especially  in  the  work  of  limning  or  the  adorning  of  manu- 
scripts; and  vellum,  a  finely  whitened  parchment,  was  esteemed  by 
early  painters  in  oil.  The  term  vigneites  was  given  to  small  isolated 
heads  wrought  into  the  borders  of  manuscript  pages ;  the  name  being 
derived  from  the  delicate  vine  often  interwoven  into  the  border,  from 
which,  as  flowers,  cherub  heads  were  made  to  depend. 

Wall-painting  on  plaster  was  of  very  early  origin.  As  we  have 
observed,  the  walls  of  Egyptian  tombs  and  of  Assyrian  palaces  were 
covered  with  a  cement,  which,  while  it  received  the  nice  touches  of 
the  chisel,  was  also  the  ground  for  rich  paintings.  The  principal 
ingredient  of  this  cement,  as  the  ancient  Hebrew,  Chaldee  and  Greek 
words  show,  was  lime.  Pliny  minutely  describes  the  method  of  pre- 
paring stuccoed  walls  for  painting ;  the  lime,  chalk,  or  gypsum  being 

Lten  with  a  mortar  and  mixed  until  it  will  not  cohere.     In  marshy 

round  a  first  coat  of  brick-dust  was  laid  on  to  arrest  the  communi- 

ition  of  dampness.  The  mortar  was  mixed  with  gum-water,  some- 
imes  with  milk.     The  ancient  wall-painting  seems  to  have  been  in 

30,  or  on  dry  plaster ;  and  Pliny  carefully  designates  the  pigments 

^hose  nature  was  not  affected  by  the  lime  of  the  ground.     The  un- 

buried  houses  of  Pompeii,  whose  walls  are  covered  with  paintings  on 

plaster,  show  the  extent  to  which  among  the  Romans  this  art  was 

carried. 


520  ART  CRITICISM. 

Fresco  painting  proper  seems  to  be  of  modern  origin.  The  name 
implies  that  the  pigments  are  laid  on  when  the  mortar  is  fresh ;  this 
condition  of  the  ground  allowing  the  colors  to  sink  in  to  a  consider- 
able depth,  so  that  the  wear  of  time  and  of  frequent  cleaning  does 
not  injure  the  effect.  This  method  requires  that  the  painter's  work 
be  executed  in  sections ;  no  more  space  being  prepared  than  the 
artist  can  finish  at  a  sitting,  or  in  a  day's  time.  It  is  difficult  to  pre- 
vent the  junctures  of  the  work  of  succeeding  days  from  showing;  and 
it  is  a  study  with  the  artist  to  have  the  lines  of  each  day's  work  fall 
in  the  shades,  where  the  darker  colors  hide  them.  Some  critics  have 
supposed  that  on  the  painted  walls  of  ancient  Pompeii  they  could 
detect  these  junctures ;  and  hence  have  inferred  that  fresco  proper 
was  known  to  the  ancients.  Others  have  supposed  that  only  what  is 
called  in  modern  Italian  seceo-fresco,  or  the  wetting  of  a  dry  wall 
already  prepared,  was  practised  by  the  Roman  painters. 

The  modern  progress  and  perfection  of  fresco  painting  has  been  a 
subject  of  earnest  study  by  art-critics.  Cimabue  introduced  wall- 
painting  in  the  early  revival  of  the  art;  using  evidently  the  dry 
wall  and  painting  in  tempera.  Giotto  drew  his  outline  on  a  first 
coat,  and  to  increase  its  depth  laid  on  an  upper  stratum  called  i7ito- 
naceo;  while  Orvieto,  a  successor  of  Giotto,  A.  D.  1390,  seems  to 
have  been  the  first  to  use  fresco  proper ;  the  character  of  the  distinct 
work  of  these  two  artists  on  the  walls  of  the  Campo  Santo  at  Pisa 
being  specially  marked  in  its  decay.  For  two  centuries  fresco  was 
the  favorite  method  with  the  ablest  artists ;  because  of  the  freedom 
and  scope,  as  compared  with  oil  and  easel  painting  which  it  allowed. 
Lionardo's  chief  works  were  in  fresco;  and  M.  Angelo  admired  it  as 
"  large-hearted." 

The  two  materials  used  for  grounds  in  painting  easel  pieces,  to  be 
suspended  as  ornaments  and  in  galleries,  are  wood  and  canvas. 
The  use  of  these  two  kinds  of  material  seems  to  have  been  coeval 
with  the  origin  of  painting  as  an  art ;  while  the  mode  of  their  prepa- 
ration as  grounds  for  painting  was  in  ancient  Egypt  much  the  same 
as  in  later  Grecian,  Byzantine  and  Italian  art.  The  qualities  requi- 
site in  the  material  for  a  tablet  are  "durability,  infrangibility  and 
inflexibility."  Metallic  tablets  expand  too  much  by  heat;  parch- 
ment and  cloth  bend  easily ;  and  both  thus  cause  the  painting  on 
them  to  crack.  Wood,  or  canvas  stretched  upon  a  frame,  best  meet 
these  conditions.  A  wonderful  history  of  ingenuity  is  opened  up  to 
view  in  the  devices  of  ancient  and  modern  painters  to  preserve  the 


MATERIAL   OF   GROUNDS   IN    EASEL   PAINTING.  521 

tablets  on  which  they  executed  their  master-pieces  from  the  decay 
caused  by  heat  and  damp,  and  by  the  tooth  of  time  and  of  worms. 

The  ancient  Egyptians  formed  their  ordinary  coffins,  on  whose 
exterior  some  of  their  richest  paintings  were  executed,  of  the  two 
kinds  of  material  referred  to.  The  more  massive  and  costly,  aside 
from  the  granite  sarcophagi  used  only  for  the  bodies  of  kings,  were 
of  wood ;  whose  lid,  carved  into  a  statue  in  relief,  was  painted  with  rich 
colors  thickly  laid.  A  cheaper  coffin  was  made  of  layers  of  linen 
cloth,  united  by  intervening  coats  of  lime-cement,  to  the  thickness  of 
about  one-fourth  of  an  inch.  This  mere  shell  of  linen,  thin  as  it  was, 
hardened  to  the  stiffness  and  strength  of  a  board  of  much  greater 
thickness;  showing  the  admirable  consistency  of  the  cement  itself, 
and  the  skill  of  the  Egyptians  in  giving  both  "  inflexibility  and  in- 
frangibility "  to  what  was  to  be  at  once  the  enduring  depository  of 
the  sacred  dead,  and  the  ground  of  their  equally  enduring  painting. 
The  exterior  was  coated  with  a  fine  white  cement,  which  Eastlake 
thinks  was  composed  of  chalk  ground  in  size ;  whose  surface  was 
rubbed  to  a  fine  polish  when  paintings  of  great  variety  and  elegance 
were  to  be  executed  upon  it.  Among  the  Greeks  Pliny  mentions  the 
use  of  both  wood  and  linen  for  tablets.  Protogenes,  and  the  ablest  of 
Grecian  painters,  were  employed  by  their  countrymen,  proud  of  their 
navy,  in  painting  the  wooden  prows  of  vessels ;  and  this  employ  evi- 
dently suggested  the  method  of  their  finer  works  as  to  their  grounds, 
as  well  as  to  their  pigments.  So  common  indeed  was  wood  as  the 
material  on  which  easel  paintings  were  executed,  that  the  word 
tabula,  according  to  Pliny,  came  to  be  ordinarily  employed  as  the 
synonym  for  easel  pictures;  the  word  machina  being  the  name  for 
the  easel  itself  That  canvas,  or  linen  cloth,  was  used  by  the  Greek 
painters,  is  equally  clear  from  the  allusions  of  Pliny.  Thus  in  his 
account  of  the  contest  of  Parrhasius  with  Zeuxis  he  speaks  of  the 
linteum  pietum  in  a  manner  which  indicates  not  simply  that  Parrha- 
sius painted  a  linen  curtain,  but  that  the  painting  was  on  linen, 
the  same  connection  he  mentions   that   "Nero  had  ordered  a 

)lossal  painting  of  himself  120  feet  high  to  be  executed  in  linteo" 
canvas. 

::t.  4.  Subjects  of  Painting;  the  Objects  in  Nature  and  Themes 
IN  Thought  or  History  susceptible  of  being  Eepresented  by  the 
Painter. 

The  mind  of  man  derives  instruction  and  pleasure  from  things 
jrceived  by  the  senses,  from  ideas  conceived  in  the  understanding 

44  *  3  Q 


522  ART  CRITICISM. 

and  images  framed  by  the  imagination,  and  from  remembrances 
recalled  and  reproduced  by  memory.  In  the  youth  of  an  individual 
or  of  a  nation  things  are  the  objects  of  thought  and  effort;  in  the 
maturity  of  a  man  or  a  people  ideas  are  the  study  and  the  employ 
of  human  reason ;  while  old  age,  be  it  that  of  an  individual  or  of 
society,  lives  in  the  memories  of  the  past.  From  these  three  fields 
of  human  thought,  emotion  and  action  the  artist  must  select  his  sub- 
jects ;  and  in  these  three  departments  the  spirit  of  art  in  every  age 
and  nation,  has  shown  its  rise  and  progress. 

Things  are  the  first  subjects  of  the  young  artist's  attempt  with  the 
pencil,  chisel,  or  brush.  The  common  child  draws  houses  or  other 
simple  objects;  while  genius,  such  as  that  of  Giotto  or  West,  may 
attempt  to  picture  a  sheep,  or  even  to  sketch  a  babe  in  the  cradle. 
The  rude  savage  and  the  half-civilized  Asiatic  paint  single  objects; 
first,  as  the  American  Indian,  coloring  the  objects  themselves;  then  as 
the  Egyptians,  laying  colors  on  pencil  drawings  made  to  represent 
simple  objects.  One  of  the  higher  orders  of  this  class  of  subjects  for 
painting  was  the  "  limning "  of  the  Middle  Ages ;  the  drawing  and  - 
coloring  of  ornamented  letters  in  the  "missals"  or  books  containing  I 
the  order  of  service  in  the  Church ;  a  style  of  painting,  which,  though 
fragmentary  and  embracing  properly  single  figures  only,  yet  called 
forth  and  employed  the  genius  of  an  age  which  under  more  favorable 
auspices  would  have  produced  great  masters  in  art. 

Ideas  next  suggest  themes  for  artists.  Causes  producing  effects  are 
noted ;  and  the  series  of  changes  in  things  and  men  which  indicate 
connection  and  succession  are  studied.  The  very  first  impression  of 
thinking  man  seems  to  lead  to  the  idea  of  a  Deity,  the  author  and 
sustainer  of  all  things;  and  at  the  same  time  the  conviction  of  duty 
to  adore  that  being,  and  the  effort  through  some  image  wrought  by 
men  of  superior  genius  to  approach  him  seems  to  arise.  The  first 
idea,  attempted  by  art,  has  been  carved  and  painted  images  of  Deity ; 
at  first  rude  in  form  and  coarse  in  color,  like  the  Mexican  and  Feejee 
idols ;  then  richly  colored  and  gilt  like  the  Budh  of  China  and  Hin- 
dostan;  then  artistic  in  form  though  without  expression,  as  the 
colossal  statues  of  deified  men  in  ancient  Egypt ;  and  last  in  this 
stage  of  art  pictured  representations  of  deities  on  walls  or  tablets. 
With  advancing  intelligence  artists  have  formed  definite  ideas  of 
distinct  attributes  belonging  to  superior  beings;  until  a  Jove  and 
Venus  from  the  chisel  of  Phidias  and  Praxiteles  seem  to  move  and 
speak  from  their  fixed  pedestals,  and  the  Jupiter  Tonans  to  be  hurl- 
ing his  thunder-bolt  from  the  canvas  of  Apelles.     The  higher  orders 


IDEAS,  AFTER   THINGS,  AS  SUBJECTS   OF   PAINTINGS.      523 

of  coloring,  beginning  with  a  loftier- yet  common  idea,  have  shown 
different  tendencies  in  human  thought,  and  have  led  to  new  varieties 
of  subjects  for  the  brush.  From  pictures  of  gods  men  passed  to  pic- 
tures of  men,  ennobled  by  various  classes  of  qualities,  and  illustrious 
in  different  spheres.  Among  people  of  limited  range  of  thought  and 
of  enterprise,  dwelling  unambitious  in  their  own  native  limits  like 
the  Egyptians  and  Chinese,  the  artist's  field  of  subjects  has  been 
comparatively  narrow.  Among  the  Greeks,  a  people  roving  away 
from  home  for  commerce  and  conquest  ever  since  the  days  of  the 
Argonauts  and  of  old  Troy,  this  range  widened ;  heroes  in  war  next 
after  gods,  being  themes  for  their  painters ;  then  athletes  in  active  con- 
flict, and  i^hilosophers  and  statesmen  in  their  quiet  walks ;  and  finally 
forms  of  female  beauty,  born  in  their  own  cities  and  brought  home 
as  captives  by  their  military  chieftains.  In  all  these  cases  an  ideal 
of  character,  conceived  by  the  artist  beyond  the  perfection  of  his 
model,  was  the  painter's  theme;  even  portraits,  as  of  Alexander, 
presenting  only  the  general  lineaments  of  the  original;  while  in 
spirit,  in  accessories,  in  tone,  a  thought  above  his  subject  animated 
the  painter.  With  the  impulse  given  to  sentiment  by  Christian 
truth  and  its  spiritual  renovation,  as  it  spread  through  the  Roman 
world  to  the  people  of  every  clime  and  of  three  continents,  all  the 
influences  of  genius  in  art  were  intensified  in  spirit  and  widened  in 
their  field.  Beginning  with  the  simple  symbols  of  the  early  spiritual 
faith,  taking  on  then  for  ages  the  gorgeous  ornament  of  a  religion  of 
persons  and  things  held  specially  sacred,  and  finally  in  later  ages 
stretching  its  sphere  to  the  vast  range  of  ideas  and  things  called  forth 
by  the  universal  civilization  resulting  from  spiritual  Christianity, 
the  area  of  its  themes,  yet  unexplored,  forbids  all  attempts  at  enu- 
meration or  exhaustive  classification.  The  last  stage  developed  in 
this  line  of  progress  has  been  landscape  painting ;  in  which  the  ideas 
of  the  highest  science  as  to  mathematical  and  optical  effects  are 
made  real;  while  also  a  delicacy  of  conception  and  execution  in 
making  cloud  to  float,  and  water  to  reflect,  to  ripple  and  to  foam  has 
been  attained,  which  seems  almost  magical,  and  above  human  power ; 
a  class  of  subjects  never  attempted  by  the  Greeks,  into  which  the 
finest  masters  of  the  climactic  period  of  art  in  modern  Italy  did  not 
penetrate,  and  which  has  been  fully  ventured  upon  only  by  later 
German,  French,  English  and  American  painters. 

Memories  of  the  past  have  furnished  a  third  class  of  themes  for 

f  inters;  prompted  by  whose  suggestions  cabinets  and  picture  gal- 


624  ART   CRITICISM. 

in  this  class  of  demands  is  that  for  family  portraits ;  likenesses  of 
departed  ones  which  keep  them,  though  dead,  still  in  life.  When 
such  portraitures  present  the  features  of  an  individual  in  his  quiet  , 
life,  the  artist's  work  but  perpetuates  a  simple  memory.  When,  how- 
ever, the  painter  seeks  in  portraiture  to  embody  an  elevated  senti- 
ment, and  to  this  end  strives  to  catch  and  fix  in  expression  some 
striking  characteristic  of  mind,  the  superior  range  of  subjects  called 
"historic,"  is  reached  by  the  artist;  the  highest  to  which  the  Grecian 
artist  aspired,  and  above  which  only  one  class  of  themes  has  in  later 
times  risen  in  exaltation.  Under  the  influence  of  Christian  revela- 
tion the  inimitable  moral  beauty  pictured  in  the  lives  of  Old  Testa- 
ment "friends  of  God,"  and  the  unapproachable  spiritual  grandeur 
that  was  manifest  in  almost  every  incident  in  the  life  of  Christ  and 
in  many  events  in  the  history  of  his  apostles,  has  furnished  a  fertility 
and  fascination  in  the  subjects  touched  by  the  genius  of  modern  art 
beyond  the  conceptions  of  the  ancients.  The  variety  of  those  themes 
called  "  Scriptural  Illustrations,"  and  the  unlimited  improvement  in 
the  methods  of  presenting  them  attained  by  artists  during  the  pro- 
gress of  eighteen  centuries,  is  the  most  remarkable,  as  it  is  the  all- 
pervading  characteristic  of  modern  painting.  The  height  of  human 
conception  in  exalted  forms  was  perhaps  reached  when  Lionardo,  for 
weeks,  now  roamed  the  crowded  streets  of  Milan,  and  now  sat  for 
hours  absorbed  in  eflbrts  of  imagination;  till  he  almost  despaired  of 
ever  realizing  his  ideal  of  the  countenance  of  Jesus.  When  to  the 
perfection  of  form  attained  in  sacred  themes  by  the  Italian  masters 
shall  be  added,  what  has  never  yet  been  fully  attempted,  truth  to 
landscape  views  in  the  Holy  Land,  a  new  if  not  the  climactic  subject 
for  the  painter  will  have  been  reached.  When  the  uniting  of  the 
most  sacred  memories  with  the  strictest  historic  truth  shall  be 
attained,  when  to  the  form  and  features  of  Jesus  as  given  by  Guide 
in  his  Crucifixion,  by  Kaphael  in  his  Transfiguration,  and  by  Lio- 
nardo in  his  Last  Supper,  shall  be  added  the  perfect  truth  in 
Oriental  landscape  achieved  by  the  pencil  of  Bartlett  in  sketching 
the  scenery  of  Palestine,  and  this  shall  be  touched  with  the  shade, 
the  tint,  the  aerial  enchantment  of  a  Claude,  a  Turner,  or  a  Church, 
the  master  painter  of  the  ages  will  have  appeared. 

Sect.  5.  The  Uses  of  Painting;    the  Ends  sought  by  Painters,  and 
THE  Classes  of  Woeks  designed  for  Different  Effects. 

The  word  "use"  implies  an  end  sought  in  an  object  made;  and 
an  end  to  be  attained  implies  a  want  in  human  nature  which  gives 


PEKSONAL   AND   NATIONAL   DEMANDS   FOR   PAINTING.    525 

the  impulse  to  its  attainment.  As  we  have  seen  human  wants  are 
individual  or  private,  growing  out  of  man's  self-interests;  social  or 
public,  relating  to  his  fellows  of  the  same  race;  and  religious,  or 
devotional,  based  on  his  relation  to  his  Creator  and  the  spiritual 
world.  All  these  wants  exist  in  man  as  man,  displaying  themselves 
in  the  early  stages  of  the  history  both  of  individuals  and  of  nations; 
they  call  for  works  of  art  when  men  are  yet  rude  in  their  concep- 
tions and  coarse  in  their  skill  at  execution ;  and  they  grow  and  ripen 
in  their  demands  as  a  people  are  refined  by  culture.  In  this  progress, 
modifying  as  it  does  the  uses  of  painting,  there  are  at  least  three 
stages  to  be  observed. 

The  earliest  demand  for  works  of  art,  sought  as  ornaments  for  the 
person,  grows  out  of  course  of  an  individual  want ;  and  works  of  art 
in  sculpture  or  painting  must  in  this  stage  be  of  limited  extent  and 
perfection.  The  child  has  less  interest  in  the  fine  old  portraits  that 
adorn  the  walls  of  the  family  mansion,  or  in  the  historic  paintings 
filling  panels  in  a  town  hall  or  State  capitol,  than  he  has  in  the 
gaudy  colors  of  the  picture  book  which  heireceives  as  his  birth-day 
gift.  So  in  the  lowest  stage  of  savage  life,  before  barbarous  tribes 
have  learned  to  have  a  common  standard  or  painted  banner  as  the 
first  emblem  of  nationality,  this  individual  craving  for  rich  coloring 
displays  itself  in  equipments  for  war ;  the  elaborateness  of  implements 
and  dress  varying  with  chieftain  rank.  Even  the  religion  of  men,  in 
this  lowest  type  of  humanity,  seems  to  be  an  individual  interest; 
showing  itself  unsatisfied  with  the  idea  of  a  spiritual  being  every- 
where present,  or  of  a  common  and  public  deity  far  off"  in  some  dis- 
tant temple ;  and  seeking  an  embodiment  of  a  supernatural  power  in 
some  shrine  in  the  family  dwelling,  or  some  image  worn  about  the 
person.  This  tendency  of  the  religious  nature  always  demands  art, 
and  especially  skill  in  coloring;  forming  the  "fetich"  of  the  South 
African,  stained  with  berry  juices;  the  beetles  made  of  potter's  clay, 
colored  with  ochre,  and  hung  upon  necklaces  worn  on  the  breasts  of 
the  living  and  the  dead  among  the  ancient  Egyptians ;  as  also  in  the 
carved  and  painted  symbols  called  "charms,"  now  sought  even  in 
Christian  lands  where  culture  is  yet  in  its  incipient  stages. 

The  second  stage  in  the  progress  of  art,  so  far  as  its  uses  are  con- 
cerned, is  reached  when  the  mind  passes  beyond  the  individual,  the 
family  and  the  tribe,  and  takes  in  the  broader  relation  of  a  State  or 
nation;  and  in  nothing  is  the  era  of  this  transition  more  marked 
than  in  the  demand  then  manifest  for  new  works  of  sculpture,  and 
especially  of  painting.     At  this  period  in  the  history  of  a  people, 


626 


ART   CRITICISM. 


as  all  history  coafirms,  when  separate  tribes  consolidate  into  a 
nation,  and  architecture  becomes  an  art  because  public  buildings 
are  needed,  paintings  on  a  scale  of  magnitude  and  in  a  style  of 
merit  adequate  to  such  structures,  are  first  called  for.  Thus  when 
the  Egyptians  after  two  centuries  of  tribal  life  reared  the  Pyramids, 
when  the  Hebrews  consolidated  under  a  king  and  sought  in  Jeru- 
salem as  a  fortified  capital  a  castle,  a  palace  and  a  temple,  when 
the  Greeks  first  had  civil  governments  which  gave  them  nationality, 
when  the  tribe  which  founded  the  city  of  Komulus  aspired  to  be  a 
nation,  when  the  Arabs  who  before  had  no  city  or  public  building 
became  consolidated  under  Muhammed  and  his  successor  Omar,  in 
fine  in  every  land,  and  among  every  people,  the  era  of  civil  union 
demanding  grand  structures  in  architecture  has  been  the  origin  of  a 
new  type  of  painting,  and  of  new  uses  for  this  climactic  art. 

The  character  of  coloring  which  the  architectural  age  of  a  natioi 
calls  for  is  specially  wall  paintings;  and  these  are  mainly  of  tw< 
classes ;  columnar  decorations  for  the  prominent  parts  of  the  exterior 
and  fresco,  including  p^iel  and  ceiling  paintings,  or  wall  painting 
proper,  for  the  depressions  and  recesses  of  the  interior.  Thus  ii 
ancient  Egypt  at  the  marked  period  when  architecture  became  trul] 
an  art,  the  columns  of  temples  and  the  walls  of  tombs  began  to 
covered  with  the  rarest  variety  of  painted  objects  and  scenes, 
the  Athenians,  at  the  era  when  Pericles  was  rebuilding  in  the  acm< 
of  architectural  splendor,  the  temples  and  other  public  edifices  oi 
their  city,  sent  as  far  as  the  Isle  of  Rhodes  for  painters  competent 
execute  the  wall  paintings  which  should  suitably  adorn  the  entramn 
to  the  incomparable  Parthenon ;  while,  too,  at  about  the  same  era  th< 
Romans  were  employing  painters  from  Greece  to  fresco  the  walls  of 
their  newly  erected  Capitol  at  Rome.  The  whole  history  of  Churcl 
architecture  is  yet  more  to  the  same  point;  commencing  with  coai 
columnar  decorations  and  rudely  carved  and  dull-colored  images  oi 
Christ,  of  the  Madonna  and  of  other  Saints  in  the  Western  Church( 
and  of  stifily  drawn  but  gorgeously  colored  pictures  of  the  same  ii 
the  Eastern  Church ;  maturing  in  the  constantly  improving  frescoes 
whose  perfection  culminated  under  Raphael,  Lionardo  and  Correggio, 
till  the  walls  of  Churches  seemed  to  re-enact  the  scenes  of  Christian 
history,  and  the  ceilings  to  open  Heaven  with  its  etherial  inhabitants; 
and  finally  showing  its  ripest  fruits  when  oil-painting  came  to  rival 
fresco,  and  to  fill  the  panels  of  Churches  and  other  public  edifices 
with  broad  fields  of  canvas  devoted  to  historic  and  sacred  themes. 
The  successive  erection  of  such  Churches  as  St.  Peter's  at  Rome,  of 


HIGHER  WANTS   MET   BY   CABINET   PAINTINGS.  527 

St,  Paul's  at  London,  and  of  the  Madelaine  in  Paris,  and  of  such 
civic  edifices  as  the  palace  of  Versailles,  the  new  Parliament  Houses 
of  London,  or  the  IJ.  S.  Capitol  at  Washington,  illustrate  the  fact, 
that,  as  an  accessory  of  architectural  works,  painting  aspires  to  a 
second  stage  of  advancement. 

There  is  yet  another  stage  of  still  higher  advance  in  the  art  of 
painting  to  which  every  nation  of  true  cullure  has  attained;  the  age 
of  "tablet"  paintings  as  denominated  by  the  ancients,  the  "easel" 
or  "cabinet"  pieces  of  the  moderns.  When  the  walls  of  the 
main  public  edifices  are  all  covered  with  frescoes,  and  temple  and 
capitol  niches  and  panels  are  filled  with  wall  paintings  proper,  the 
spirit  of  art  creation  has  not  exhausted  itself,  nor  is  the  demand  of  a 
cultured  people  for  its  superior  works  sated.  On  the  other  hand, 
genius  is  at  this  era  just  aroused,  called  out,  trained  and  nerved 
for  yet  higher  designs  and  efforts;  and  as  science,  philosophy  and 
literature  in  every  department  are  still  advancing  art  finds  constantly 
increased  subjects  calling  for  its  embodiment,  and  a  taste  for  yet 
more  perfect  execution  craving  an  improved  order  of  painting.  The 
age  of  easel  painting,  of  pictures  executed  On  large  yet  movable 
tablets,  has  arrived.  Works  of  every  variety,  fruit  pieces,  animal 
sketches,  portraits,  historical  pieces.  Scripture  incidents,  landscape, 
all  to  be  executed  on  principles  broader  and  ideas  maturer  than 
those  of  the  former  era,  are  demanded.  Wide  halls  and  long  gal- 
leries reared  by  private  fortunes  or  private  munificence,  invite  the 
collection  of  works  of  art  specially  to  instruct  and  refine  the  already 
cultured  public  taste.  Laboring  in  this  highest  department  and  for 
this  end  Zeuxis  and  Parrhasius,  Apelles  and  Protogones  stretched 
their  canvas  and  smoothed  their  wooden  tablets,  fixed  them  as 
they  toiled  on  movable  machines,  and  wrought  pictures  which  not 
only  gave  the  last  glory  to  Grecian  art,  but  which  borne  to  Kome 
conquered  "rude  Latium"  and  subdued  it  to  "captured  Greece."  So 
now  this  climactic  era  of  the  painter's  skill  rules  in  the  collections 
of  the  Vatican  at  Rome,  of  the  Pitti  Palace  at  Florence,  of  the 
Louvre  at  Paris,  and  of  the  National  Gallery  at  London ;  while  the 
germs  gathered  at  the  Atheneum  of  Boston  and  the  Dusseldorf  Gal- 
lery of  New  York,  as  also  such  private  galleries  as  those  of  Harrison 
at  Philadelphia,  and  Corcoran  at  Washington,  are  indications  that 
the  country  whose  people  call  for  such  collections  has  entered  at 
least  on  the  verge  of  the  highest  stage  of  advance  in  the  ends  sought 
by  the  art  of  painting. 


628  ART   CRITICISM. 


Sect.  6.  Styles  of  Painting;  the  Methods  of  Coloring  characteriz- 
ing    DIFFERENT     AgES     AND     NATIONS,     AND     ORIGINATING      DIFFERENT 

Schools  among  Painters. 

There  is  a  radical  difference  in  the  mental  cast  of  nations  which 
leads  to  most  different  styles  in  art,  especially  in  coloring.  The 
Asiatic,  as  represented  by  the  ancient  Egyptian  and  Assyrian  and 
by  the  modern  Chinese  and  Arabians,  never  has  attained  to  the 
higher  principles  of  the  art  of  painting,  such  as  perspective  in  draw- 
ing and  chiaroscuro  in  shading  and  coloring.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  European,  as  represented  by  the  ancient  Greek  and  the  modern 
Italian,  has  seemed  instinctively  and  from  his  first  essays  in  art  to 
have  recognized  these  higher  principles  of  excellence,  to  have  studied 
to  attain  them,  and  after  long  practice,  sometimes  of  generations,  to 
have  reached  his  aspiration  for  perfection  in  execution.  Thus  the 
Ages  of  greater  and  of  less  success  in  design  and  execution  have 
been  marked  out.  Even  in  Egyptian  painting  eras  of  improvement 
are  visible;  and  in  Greece  no  comparison  could  be  made  between 
the  early  essays  of  the  hero  painters  and  the  finished  ideals  of 
Apelles  in  the  last  stage  of  Grecian  advance  in  this  art.  So  in 
modern  times  there  have  been  ages  in  the  history  of  Christian  art 
most  marked;  for,  while  in  the  Eastern  or  Greek  Church  the  old 
Byzantine,  of  Asiatic  cast,  has  never  broken  free  from  the  trammels 
of  ecclesiastical  standards,  in  the  Western  Church  no  transformation 
could  be  greater  than  that  which  passed  upon  Christian  painting 
from  the  Twelfth  to  the  Fifteenth  Century,  or  from  the  age  before 
Cimabue  to  that  of  Kaphael.  Yet  again,  in  the  last  stages  of  the  art, 
Schools  of  painting  have  arisen ;  determined  by  the  mental  east  and 
consequent  taste  of  the  people  of  different  sections  and  of  the  artists 
of  different  sects  in  the  same  country  and  at  the  same  age.  The 
divisions  in  the  classification  of  the  history  of  painting  arising  from 
different  nationalities,  and  also  in  different  ages,  is  so  manifest,  that 
it  needs  only  the  mention  before  proceeding  to  that  classification. 
The  division  of  painters  in  the  perfected  ages  of  their  art  into  differ- 
ent schools  requires  more  particular  notice. 

The  causes  of  the  differences  to  be  marked  in  the  style  of  coloring 
characterizing  different  nations  and  ages  may  be  found  in  the  con- 
siderations of  the  previous  sections  of  this  Book ;  while  the  grounds 
of  the  separation  of  artists  into  schools  is  to  be  sought  in  a  more 
radical  principle  of  mental  philosophy.  Progress  in  painting  has 
depended  in  part  on  the  number  and  kind  of  pigments  used;  for 


ORIGIN   OF   ANCIENT   SCHOOLS    IN   PAINTING.  529 

Pliuy  carefully  marks  the  distinction  between  the  employ  of  one 
color  by  the  monochromatic  painters  and  the  use  of  four  or  more  in 
advance  of  the  art ;  and  there  is  also  a  necessary  distinction  between 
the  painting  of  savages  who  used  berry-juices  as  coloring  material, 
the  Egyptians  who  used  chiefly  ochres,  and  the  Greeks  who  used 
mineral  pigments.  Again  the  kind  of  vehicles  employed  has  had  its 
great  influence  in  developing  a  new  power  in  coloring ;  for  the  water 
colors  of  crayon  and  ochre  sketching,  the  clear  and  open  lines  of 
fresco,  and  the  deep  round  moulding  of  oil  painting,  are  in  their  best 
state,  so  distinct,  as  to  separate  into  widely  difierent  classes  the  prac- 
titioners who  followed  one  or  the  other  class  of  painting.  These 
causes,  however,  have  less  influence  than  might  at  first  be  supposed 
to  make  an  artist,  or  to  divide  schools.  Thus  Pliny  is  careful  to 
state  that  Apelles  even,  and  other  of  the  greatest  Greek  painters,  used 
"only  four  colors;"  out  of  whose  skilful  intermixtures,  of  course, 
they  produced  all  their  effects ;  while  the  Egyptians  used  at  least  six 
distinct  colors.  Again,  both  Eaphael  and  Michel  Angel  o,  as  well  as 
Lionardo  da  Vinci,  with  all  their  great  skill  in  oil  painting  yet  loved 
the  free  scope,  the  quick  execution  and  the  striking  effects  of  fresco. 
The  fact  that  schools  of  painting  have  not  arisen  until  the  art  has 
reached  its  last  stage  of  advancement,  points  indisputably  to  other 
causes  for  the  origin  of  this  separation. 

In  the  field  of  Asiatic  painting  there  has  been  no  division  of 
schools ;  the  mere  wall  painting  of  Egypt  giving  no  occasion  for  such 
discrimination.  The  earliest  known  division  in  Greece,  the  Hellenic 
or  Greek  proper,  and  the  Asiatic  or  provincial,  was  made  after 
painting  had  come  to  be  recognized  as  a  sister  art  with  perfected 
sculpture  and  architecture;  and  it  grew  out  of  the  fact  that  the  bold 
freedom  in  conception,  and  the  study  of  nature  in  execution,  peculiar 
to  the  Greek,  came  in  this  art  into  marked  contrast  with  the  stereo- 
typed and  trammeled  spirit  of  the  Asiatic;  which  forbade  independ- 
ence in  the  choice  and  treatment  of  a  theme,  and  the  modifying  of 
methods  of  coloring  which  experience  suggested  to  the  artist.  The 
second  division  of  Greek  schools,  which  distinguished  the  Athenian 
from  the  Sicyonic,  arose  from  a  different  cast  of  mind  in  the  people 
of  the  two  sections  of  Greece ;  the  spirit  of  Athens,  the  centre  of  com- 
mercial life  and  literary  refinement,  whose  people  lived  under  a 
democratic  constitution  which  made  every  man  in  aspiration  and  in 
self-esteem  a  prince,  causing  the  artists  of  this  city  to  be  the  expo- 
nents of  freedom  and  progress  in  art,  while  the  people  of  Sicyon,  in 
a  secluded  part  of  Greece  and  under  a  monarchy,  became  sectional 
16  3  R 


630  ART  CRITICISM. 

and  wedded  to  old  ideas.  This  distinction  in  cast  of  mind  among 
the  people  of  Greece,  as  in  other  lands  since  that  early  day,  had  a 
double  tendency,  first  to  create  and  then  constantly  to  widen  the 
breach  between  the  two  schools ;  first  because  the  taste  of  the  people 
led  them  to  patronize  only  their  own  preferred  style  in  art;  second, 
because  this  patronage  and  popular  favor  drew  from  every  part  of 
Greece  proper,  and  even  from  the  isles  and  more  distant  provinces, 
artists  whose  own  taste  and  cast  of  mind  corresponded  with  that  of 
the  two  several  sections. 

In  the  later  periods  of  the  ancient  history  of  the  art  of  painting,  in 
the  Augustan  age  of  Rome,  three  distinct  schools  again  arose,  almost 
precisely  akin  to  the  three  Grecian  schools  just  mentioned;  namely, 
the  Byzantine,  the  Grecian  and  the  Etruscan.  The  Byzantine,  hav- 
ing its  centre  at  Byzantium,  afterwards  Constantinople,  and  its  field 
in  the  Eastern  or  Asiatic  half  of  the  Roman  Empire,  retained  the 
stiffness  in  form  and  gorgeousness  in  color  belonging  to  the  old 
Asiatic  school.  The  Greek  proper,  whose  people  now  under  Roman 
sway  lived  amid  the  scenes  of  former  renown  in  their  classic  native 
land,  aspired  after  the  grace  amid  the  departed  glory  of  their  days 
of  political  independence ;  and,  inspired  by  the  philosophy  of  Plato, 
its  artists  sought  to  be  masters  in  the  painting  of  ideal  and  spiritual- 
ized subjects.  The  Etruscan,  whose  pupils  of  Grecian  descent  and 
most  truly  possessed  by  the  spirit  of  early  Grecian  art  lived  now 
under  the  courtly  shadow  of  Rome,  the  Imperial  City,  became  the 
representative  of  the  natural  school ;  instinct  with  the  truth  in  form 
and  color,  in  life  and  expression,  which  had  marked  the  early  Greek 
artists,  both  in  sculpture  and  painting. 

In  modern  times  wider  and  more  numerous  divisions  of  schools 
are  to  be  met  and  marked ;  since  painting  has  become  an  advanced 
art  among  so  many  different  nations,  all  of  the  same  European  stock. 
Commencing  with  Italy  where  art  was  first  revived,  we  shall  find 
numerous  divisions  and  sub-divisions  of  schools;  as  the  Florentine, 
the  first  to  return  to  nature  as  a  model ;  and,  springing  from  it,  the 
Venetian  devoted  to  color,  the  Roman  to  form,  the  Lombard  to 
expression,  with  several  sub-divisions  to  be  noticed  in  their  place :  then 
the  Neapolitan  Eclectic,  borrowing  from  all  the  previously  mentioned 
schools,  but  stopping  short  as  eclecticism  usually  does  with  no  spe- 
cial excellence  in  any  line ;  the  Bolognese  Eclectic,  of  the  same  cast 
with  the  Neapolitan,  but  of  later  date ;  and  the  Spanish  of  the  same 
general  character,  but  more  sombre  in  tone.  All  these  leading 
schools,  with  minor  sub-divisions,  devoted  themselves  almost  exclu- 


SCHOOLS  OF   PAINTING   IN   MODERN   EUROPE.  531 

sively  to  Christian  themes ;  the  Florentine  going  to  that  extreme  of 
the  natural  which  led  the  great  masters  to  take  living  men  and 
women  as  models  for  apostles  and  saints,  and  even  for  Mary  and 
Jesus ;  the  Paduan,  a  sub-division  of  the  Florentine,  clinging  to  classic 
forms  in  place  of  traditional  or  living  personages ;  the  Sienese,  or  old 
Koman,  keeping  the  ecclesiastic  traditions  both  as  to  form  and  color; 
while  kindred  differences  caused  other  sub-divisions. 

Passing  to  Northern  Europe,  a  class  of  schools  quite  distinct  from 
those  of  Southern  Europe  is  met.  The  Flemish,  springing  to  life  on 
the  flat  rich  alluvial  soil  of  Holland,  under  a  sky  murky  yet  healthful 
with  sea  fogs,  and  dwelling  among  a  people  hearty  and  cheerful 
almost  to  levity,  produced  a  race  of  painters  who  knew  nothing  of 
the  bright  sky  or  the  solemn  themes  of  Italy ;  but  who  in  a  union 
quite  as  much  in  contrast  pictured  cheerful  home  and  sportive  pot- 
house scenes  under  a  dingy  and  dark  sky;  in  the  one  case  as  in  the 
other  the  contending  influence  of  climate  and  cast  of  mind,  of  na- 
tional and  traditional  associations,  acting  both  as  conspiring  and 
counteracting  causes.  The  German  schools  on  the  other  hand, 
blended  Dutch  cheerfulness  with  Italian  brightness;  and  added  con- 
ceptions called  forth  by  the  literary  spirit  so  general  among  this  race 
of  leaders  in  scholastic  learning.  In  France  and  its  schools,  again, 
under  a  bright  sky  and  among  a  people  of  fickle  taste  and  of  mercu- 
rial temperament,  genius  is  seen  ever  on  the  wing;  taking  a  start 
with  Giotto  the  early  Italian  leader,  again  from  Lionardo  the  master 
in  theory  and  practice ;  yet  never  reaching,  except  in  isolated  cases, 
that  measure  of  excellence  which  must  always  result  from  native 
energy  guided  by  a  steady  fixedness  of  aim  for  generations,  and  sus- 
tained by  the  individual  devotion  and  perseverance  of  a  life-time. 
In  England,  yet  again,  the  influence  of  a  cosmopolitan  life,  with  the 
old  Roman  yearning  after  a  broad  domain,  has  bred  artists  pre- 
eminently persevering,  steady  and  conservative,  yet  open  to  advance 
and  improvement;  like  the  Romans  more  ready  to  accumulate  by 
power  and  fortune  than  to  create  by  patient  native  toil;  so  that 
instead  of  being  mother  of  a  race  devoted  to  art,  the  mistress  of  the 
seas  has  had  but  adopted  and  foster  children,  with  here  and  there  a 
native  master  w^hose  works  the  world  will  not  willingly  let  die. 
Finally  in  America  among  a  people  made  up  of  all  nationalities, 
where  artists  of  every  country  in  Europe  are  newly  mingling  with 
those  of  native  genius,  as  might  be  anticipated,  no  decided  national 
style,  unless  it  be  in  distant  mountain  scenery,  has  yet  been  estab- 
lished. 


532  ART  CRITICISM. 

The  chapters  which  follow  will  more  fully  develope  the  outline  of 
history  above  suggested ;  whose  present  consideration  may  be  closed 
with  the  general  mention  that  "methods  in  coloring"  will  be  found 
constantly  associated  with  the  history  of  the  progress  of  the  art. 
Aristotle,  writing  in  the  day  of  Apelles  and  Protogenes,  after  speak- 
ing of  the  proportions  in  which  pure  colors  must  be  intermixed  in 
order  to  produce  other  pure  colors,  says  of  this  proportionate  admix- 
ture, "This  then  is  one  of  the  methods  by  which  special  colors  are 
produced.  But  another  method  is  to  make  colors  appear  through 
each  other;  after  the  manner  which  painters  employ,  when  they 
place  a  second  color  over  one  more  vivid ;  as  when,  for  example, 
they  would  make  an  object  apparent  in  water  or  in  a  dense  atmos- 
phere ;  as  too,  in  nature,  the  sun  in  itself  appears  to  be  white,  but 
through  a  dense  atmosphere  or  through  smoke  seems  to  be  red." 
We  have  here  a  testimony  not  found  in  the  fragmentary  paintings 
of  the  ancient  Greeks  now  preserved,  that  methods  of  producing  the 
higher  aerial  effects  in  coloring  specially  studied  by  modern  artists, 
were  known  to  the  ancients.  A  kindred  illustration  of  the  influence 
of  newly  invented  methods  in  giving  a  new  character  to  painting  is 
seen  in  facts  brought  to  view  by  Eastlake,  Field,  and  others  in  the 
rise  of  the  great  modern  schools.  At  the  introduction  of  oil  painting 
from  Holland,  where  it  originated,  into  Venice  and  Florence,  the 
darker  colors  were  at  first  laid  on,  as  water  colors  had  been,  upon 
white  grounds ;  through  which  darker  colors,  though  their  body  was 
far  deeper  when  mixed  with  oil  than  when  water  was  the  vehicle, 
by  means  of  the  transparency  of  oil  which  offset  its  depth,  the  white 
ground  showed  itself  giving  lightness  to  the  overlying  dark  colors. 
The  Venetians,  however,  seem  to  have  returned  to  the  ideas  which 
they  had  learned  .from  the  Greeks.  They  commenced  with  a  dark 
ground ;  they  laid  their  dark  colors,  first,  upon  this  ground,  and  then 
spread  their  light  colors,  made  yet  more  transparent  by  a  varnish 
mixed  with  the  oil  vehicle,  over  the  dark  and  opaque  body  beneath  ; 
thus  producing  that  effect,  difficult  of  attainment  in  a  night  scene, 
the  introduction  of  faint  fire  and  torch  lights,  which  throw  a  clear 
and  radiant  effulgence  on  the  surface  of  the  dense  dark  air,  though 
they  do  not  penetrate  its  depths.  The  minute  and  extended  consi- 
deration of  the  several  modern  schools  will  suggest  frequent  reference 
to  kindred  effects  produced  by  the  efforts  of  men  of  genius,  with  dif- 
ferent casts  of  mind,  struggling  to  realize  in  execution  the  special 
classes  of  conceptions  characterizing  their  differing  schools. 


FEATURES   OF   RUDIMENTARY    PAINTING.  633 


CHAPTEE    IV. 
ASIATIC   painting;   rudimentary  coloring   devoid  of   true 

ART   IN   FORM   AND   SHADING. 

In  art  the  Asiatic  mind  has  been  quick  of  early  apprehension, 
and  rapid  in  development  up  to  a  certain  fixed  stage;  but  into  the 
higher  fields  of  progress  it  has  never  penetrated.  The  people  of  West- 
ern Asia,  as  we  have  seen  in  drawing,  sculpture  and  architecture,  had 
the  germ  of  science,  literature,  philosophy  and  religious  truth  re- 
tained, and  they  were  the  chosen  depositaries  of  spiritual  revelation 
for  ages ;  and  thus  they  were  prepared  to  be  school-masters  of  pupils 
to  outstrip  them  in  every  department  of  human,  pursuit.  In  paint- 
ing, the  highest  of  the  arts,  we  should  expect  to  see  this  characteristic 
most  marked  in  its  operation ;  because  as  color  is  added  to  form  their 
deficiency  in  both  becomes  more  apparent. 

As  teachers  of  their  own  race  in  the  art  of  painting,  the  Asiatics 
have  left  successors  true  to  the  traditions  of  their  fathers;  the 
Chinese  now  having  painters  of  the  old  Egyptian  type.  As  the  mas- 
ters and  instructors  of  the  races  peopling  Africa,  quick  and  energetic 
in  grasping  rudimentary  conceptions,  docile  as  learners,  and  untiring 
in  application,  Asiatic  lords  have  advanced  this  art  among  rude 
tribes,  as  they  did  in  ancient  Egypt,  just  so  far  and  so  long  as  their 
rule  has  extended;  while  the  rudest  barbarism  prevails  where  their 
influence  has  not  gone.  Brought  into  contact  with  the  Japhetic  race 
in  India,  Persia  and  the  Greek  provinces,  Asiatic  teachers  gave  a 
spring  to  minds  more  active  than  their  own,  the  pupil  advancing  most 
after  being  separated  from  his  teacher.  The  consideration  of  this 
field  in  the  History  of  Painting  naturally  requires,  first,  a  brief  sur- 
vey of  rudimentary  painting;  second,  a  special  notice  of  Egyptian 
painting  as  the  type  of  its  class ;  third,  a  rapid  glance  at  the  declin- 
ing phase  of  this  order  of  art  as  we  turn  eastward;  and  fourth,  a 
mere  allusion  to  the  westward  advance,  opening  into  the  grand  vista 
of  the  Grecian  history  of  this  art. 

Sect.  1.  The  Ktjdimentary  Stages  in  the  Eakly  History  of  Painting. 

tThe  childhood  of  an  individual  is  illustrative  of  the  childhood  of 

(e  human  race;  and  as  some  individuals  never  go  beyond  child- 

)d's  developement,  so  it  has  been  with  some  families  of  mankind. 

45  * 


534  ART   CRITICISM. 

The  rudimentary  stages  of  painting  as  an  art  seem  to  have  been  at- 
tained by  the  Asiatics  at  the  very  earliest  period  of  authentic  his- 
tory ;  and  in  their  preserved  works  the  germs  of  the  art  are  readily 
traced. 

A  child's  first  effort  at  coloring  is  limited  to  the  mere  putting  of 
color  on  some  object,  as  on  the  engravings  in  a  school-book,  whose 
form  has  awakened  an  interest.  The  simple,  pure,  uncompounded 
colors  are  his  first  delight;  and  he  is  never  happier  than  when  with 
simple  red,  yellow,  and  blue  he  can  cover  one  picture  with  this  and 
another  with  that  color.  The  Asiatic  painter  has  retained  perma- 
nently this  first  characteristic  of  rudimentary  painting,  the  love  of 
the  simple  or  gaudy  colors. 

A  second  stage  is  entered  when  the  child  from  the  desire  for 
contrast  introduces  more  colors  than  one  into  the  same  picture; 
spreading  one  of  his  gay  colors  on  one  object  and  another  on  an- 
other, or  painting  one  part  of  an  object,  as  the  coat  of  a  man,  of 
one  color,  and  another  part,  as  his  hat,  of  another  color.  In  this 
second  essay,  though  the  idea  of  contrast  has  dawned  on  his  mind, 
no  idea  of  propriety  has  been  conceived ;  for  a  tree  may  be  painted ; 
red,  a  cow  blue,  a  man's  hat  yellow,  without  any  apparent  thought] 
whether  the  color  chosen  is  appropriate  or  not  to  the  object.  It 
seems  to  be  enough  that  objects  shall  be  colored,  and  the  colors  be  in 
contrast;  without  regard  to  the  color  which  each  object  really  has  in 
nature  and  should  have  in  art.  This  stage,  again,  may  become  per-] 
manent  in  rudimentary  art. 

A  third  stage  of  a  child's  progress  in  coloring  is  reached  when  thej 
germ  of  the  idea  of  distinctive  colors  arises;  though  only  approxi-j 
mate  in  its  conceptions  and  partial  in  its  applications.  The  human] 
countenance  seems  to  claim  early  attention  as  peculiar  in  its  hue;, 
and  as  an  approximation  to  its  tinge  the  color  red  is  chosen.  The] 
whole  face,  however,  lips,  cheeks,  forehead,  have  no  gradation,  from^ 
the  ruby-red  of  flesh-tint  proper  to  the  almost  white  of  a  portion  of  i 
the  features.  It  is  only  the  germ  of  the  idea  of  propriety  in  color! 
that  has  been  conceived ;  it  is  but  a  distant  semblance  to  reality  that  i 
is  attempted,  and  it  influences  the  artist's  choice  of  colors  only  in  ] 
parts  of  his  work,  such  as  blue  for  a  coat,  and  red,  yellow  or  some 
other  counter  color  for  a  vest  or  trowsers.  This  feature,  again,  of  the  ■ 
child's  early  essays  becomes  a  permanent  one  in  Asiatic  painting, 
and  can  be  traced  in  every  land  and  age  where  it  has  prevailed. 

The  last  stage  of  advance  in  this  order  of  painting  has  been  a  j 
simple  increase  in  the  number  of  materials  employed  as  pigments. 


CHARACTERISTICS   OF   EGYPTIAN   PAINTING.  535 

The  Egyptians,  as  careful  observers  agree,  used  at  least  six  different 
colors;  while  the  Japanese  of  modern  times  employ  a  much  greater 
variety.  These  varied  colors,  however,  seem  not  to  have  been  pro- 
duced by  the  intermixture  of  pigments  so  as  to  create  at  the  artist's 
will  new  intermediate  hues  of  studied  adaptation  to  the  subject 
painted.  They  were  manifestly  substances  found  colored  in  nature,  and 
used  as  found ;  having  no  definiteness  of  hue,  and  incapable  of  being 
made  real  copies  of  the  endless  varieties  of  color  found  in  nature. 
As  the  natural  result  of  the  use  of  such  natural  pigments,  as  well  as 
the  convincing  proof  that  they  are  thus  natural,  not  artificially  mixed 
colors,  there  is  in  rudimentary  painting  no  gradation  of  hues;  this 
effect  being  secured  by  the  continual  and  increasing  addition  to  the 
fundamental  color  of  a  lighter  pigment  to  produce  a  lighter  hue  and 
a  similar  addition  of  a  darker  pigment  to  produce  a  darker  shade. 
The  lack  of  graded  color  is  a  feature  characteristic  of  rudimentary 
painting;  almost  always  observable  in  Asiatic  coloring. 

It  is  to  be  observed  that  the  coloring  thus  described  is  laid  upon 
drawings  imperfect  in  form,  lacking  anatomical  correctness  and  sym- 
metry, entirely  destitute  except  in  the  exceptions  to  be  noticed  of 
perspective,  and  having  no  indication  of  rotundity  from  shading. 
So  palpable  to  observers  in  all  ages  is  this  utter  deficiency  in  rudi- 
mentary painting  that  JElian,  the  Eoman  historian,  remarks,  that  the 
early  painters  inscribed  under  the  pictures  they  had  executed,  ''This 
is  an  ox,  that  is  a  horse ;  this  is  a  man,  that  is  a  tree."  In  fact  while 
Asiatic  sculpture  and  architecture  may  lay  some  claim  to  merit  as 
works  of  art,  because  form  may,  as  Chinese  skill  shows,  be  accurately 
copied,  while  color  cannot  be,  the  rudimentary  painting  of  the  Asiatic 
can  scarcely  be  ranked  as  a  fine  art. 

Sect.  2.  Egyptian  Paintings;  the  type  or  Simple  Coloring,  without 

PERSPECTIVE,  shading  OR   PROPRIETY  OF  HUES. 

The  abundant  relics  of  Egyptian  paintings,  which,  though  exc- 
ited centuries  before  the  Greeks  began  their  career  in  art,  have 
irvived  for  ages,  while  the  works  of  that  superior  people  have  per- 
jhed,  has  given  them  a  place  in  the  history  of  the  art  such  as  their 
)mparative  merit  does  not  justify.     That  preservation,  however,  due 

part  to  the  peculiar  dryness  of  the  climate,  in  part  to  the  skill  of 
le  Egyptians  in  hiding  the  entrances  to  their  tombs  and  thus  pro- 

;ting  their  interiors,  has  given  a  rare  opportunity  for  the  study  of 
le  methods  of  those  ancient  artists. 

The  influence  of  Asiatic  mind  upon  the  art  of  painting  in  Egypt, 


536  ART   CRITICISM. 

alluded  to  in  the  statement  of  their  association  with  the  Hebrews  in 
the  Old  Testament  history,  is  illustrated  also  by  Herodotus  and  Pliny 
in  their  mention  of  the  Arab  tribes  on  the  edge  of  the  desert,  who 
mingled  with  the  Egyptians  though  they  could  not  eat  together,  and 
communicated  by  an  interpreter.  Pliny,  moreover,  states  expressly 
that  "Gyges  the  Lydian  introduced  painting  into  Egypt;"  the  Lyd- 
ians  being  among  the  most  advanced  of  the  Asiatic  family.  As  to 
the  antiquity  of  the  art  in  Egypt  Pliny  adds,  "the  Egyptians  affirm 
that  it  was  invented  among  themselves  six  thousand  years  before  it 
passed  over  into  Greece;"  which  he  regards  "a  vain  boast,"  as  to  ex- 
tent, though  not  as  to  precedence  of  time. 

The  character  of  the  coloring  matters  used  in  Egyptian  painting 
alluded  to  by  ancient  historians  is  illustrated  by  modern  investiga- 
tion. Herodotus  mentions  the  oils  now  used  by  painters  as  products 
of  Egypt,  and  Pliny  alludes  to  Egyptian  varieties  of  the  ochres  and 
other  mineral  pigments  used  by  the  Greek  painters  of  his  day ;  while 
he  gives  a  description  of  their  mode  of  painting  on  silver,  and  of 
their  skill  in  fixing  colors  in  dyeing,  that  intimates  a  knowledge  of 
practical  chemistry  in  its  relation  to  the  arts.  Wilkinson  makes  the 
statement,  "  That  the  Egyptians  possessed  considerable  knowledge  of 
the  metallic  oxides  is  evident  from  the  nature  of  the  colors  applied 
to  their  glass  and  porcelain.  They  were  even  acquainted  with  the 
influence  of  acids  upon  colors;  being  able  in  the  process  of  dyeing 
or  staining  cloth  to  bring  about  changes  in  the  hues  by  the  same  pro- 
cess adopted  in  our  own  cotton  works."  The  grounds  upon  which  the 
Egyptians  executed  their  paintings  were  three.  They  painted  uten- 
sils, and  carved  work ;  laying  colors  on  statues,  altars  and  columns  of 
stone ;  and  also  spread  metallic  pigments  on  pottery  and  other  mould- 
ing in  clay  to  be  burned  in  by  the  heat  of  the  furnace.  Next,  they 
carried  wall  painting  to  an  extent  unexampled  in  the  history  of  na- 
tions ;  the  entire  interior  of  their  extended  tombs,  and  of  many  of  their 
vast  temple  halls,  being  completely  covered  with  painting  laid  upon 
stucco.  The  third  class  of  grounds  employed  by  them  were  cotton 
prepared  with  bitumen  and  lime  cement,  also  papyrus  paper  made 
of  the  vegetable  fibre  of  the  various  species  of  water  lily,  whose  own 
gum  gave  it  at  the  same  time  the  consistency  it  needed  as  writing 
material  and  painters'  canvas;  whose  use  was  the  germ  of  limning 
and  missal,  and  even  of  tablet  and  easel  paintings. 

The  general  style  of  Egyptian  painting  and  the  stages  to  which  it 
advanced,  were  marked  as  clearly  by  the  Roman  historian  as  it  can  be 
now  observed  by  the  student  of  art  in  Egypt.     Pliny  after  alluding 


to  the  high  antiquity  of  painting  as  it  existed  in  his  day  in  Egypt, 
adds:  "All  agree  that  the  first  stage  of  painting  was  the  tracing 
of  the  shadow  of  a  man  in  lines  on  a  wall ;  that  the  second  was  exe- 
cuted with  single  colors  in  the  style  called  monochromaton ;  afterwards 
that  a  more  elaborate  style  was  invented ;  and  such  it  continues  even 
now."  Upon  a  mere  outline  drawing  entirely  destitute  of  shading, 
consisting  of  figures  of  men  and  every  variety  of  object  placed  side  by 
side  or  in  lines  above  each  other  without  any  regard  to  the  diminu- 
tion of  size  by  distance,  the  Egyptian  painter  with  his  six  colors 
gave  to  each  one  unvaried,  ungraduated  hue.  Their  imitative  skill, 
however,  enabled  them  to  give  a  definiteness,  though  not  an  accuracy, 
of  hue  that  is  the  constant  admiration  of  the  tourist  as  he  lingers  for 
days  with  torch  in  hand  tracing  the  varied  representations  on  the 
walls  of  Egyptian  tombs.  The  Egyptian  artist  always  distinguished 
the  native  from  two  classes  of  foreigners  both  in  color  and  form; 
making  not  only  the  features  of  the  Egyptian  intermediate  between 
the  thick  bulging  lips,  the  flat  nose  and  the  curly  hair  of  the  Ethiopian 
and  the  aquiline  nose,  thin  compressed  lips  and  straight  hair  of  the 
Arab,  but  also  giving  him  a  reddish-brown  color  mediate  between  the 
jet  black  of  the  African  and  the  straw-yellow  of  the  Asiatic.  Differ- 
ent kinds  of  grain  are  distinguished,  not  simply  by  the  shape  but  by 
the  color  of  the  kernel,  as  wheat  by  its  brown-red  and  barley  by  its 
yellow-gray  hue;  while  in  the  representations  of  workers  in  metal 
gold  is  known  by  its  yellow  tinge,  bronze  by  its  greenish  cast  and 
steel  or  hardened  iron  by  its  azure  hue. 

Of  the  connection  between  Egypt  and  Greece  in  the  history  of 
painting  and  of  the  reason  Avhy  Egypt  made  no  advance  beyond 
rudimentary  art,  while  Greece  having  first  learned  from  her  as  a 
primary  teacher  went  far  beyond  her  instructor,  Plato  says  in  his 
"  Laws,"  "  The  art  we  have  proposed  for  the  education  of  youth  was 
known  long  ago  to  the  Egyptians;  that  nothing  but  beautiful  forms 
and  finished  music  should  be  allowed  an  introduction  where  the 
young  are  gathered.  This  people  having  fixed  by  statute  what  forms 
and  what  music  should  thus  be  licensed,  they  had  them  represented  in 
their  temples.  Nor  was  it  lawful  for  painters  or  other  inventive 
artists  to  execute  forms  different  from  the  established  model ;  neither 
in  painting,  nor  in  sculpture,  nor  in  any  department  over  which  the 
Muses  presided,  was  it  admissible  to  make  the  least  deviation  from  the 
authorized  standard.  Upon  careful  examination,  indeed,  it  will  be 
found  that  the  pictures  and  the  statues  made  by  this  people  ten  thou- 
sand years  ago  are  neither  an  advance  upon,  nor  inferior  to  those 

3S 


638  ART  CRITICISM. 

which  they  now  execute.''  The  Egyptians  were  thus  in  their  paint- 
ing the  true  type  of  the  Asiatic  style ;  incapable  of  passing  beyond 
rudimentary  notions;  while  of  the  higher  principles  of  art  they 
never  showed  any  practical  conception. 

Sect.  3.  The  Painting  of  Eastern  Asia;  the  declining  phase  of  ru- 
dimentary COLORING. 

In  tracing  the  art  of  painting  eastward  from  Egypt,  where  its  true 
type  was  left  embalmed  with  its  dead  artists  for  all  future  ages  to 
study,  we  might  pass  over  the  entire  track  already  followed  in  con- 
sidering the  history  of  sculpture  and  architecture.  In  India,  ancient 
and  modern,  in  Burmah  and  Siam,  and  thence  through  the  great 
Chinese  Empire  along  the  line  of  the  Pacific  Isles  into  Western, 
Central  and  Southern  America,  we  should  find  the  same  general 
characteristics,  with  a  tendency  towards  greater  degeneracy  as  we 
proceed  Eastward ;  illustrating  the  fact  that  the  Asiatic  family  sim- 
ply maintains  its  ancient  stage  of  progress  where  no  causes  unfavor- 
able exist,  while  it  declines  in  art  if  any  circumstance  intervenes  to 
break  up  its  hereditary  cast  or  connection.  It  will  suffice  to  notice 
as  single  specimens,  the  true  traditional  type  in  China;  the  some- 
what improved  style,  arising  from  the  energy  imparted  by  insular 
life  and  perhaps  by  intercourse  for  two  or  three  centuries  with  Euro- 
peans met  in  Japan ;  and  the  most  degraded  degeneracy  found  among 
the  Indians  of  North  America. 

The  traveler 'in  China,  so  far  as  painting  in  one  of  its  branches  is 
concerned,  sees  perhaps  a  reconstruction  of  ancient  Egyptian  life 
with  its  perishable  works  of  art ;  and  this  reflection  may  serve  as  a 
key  to  the  resemblances  and  the  differences  between  ancient  Egyptian 
and  modern  Chinese  painting.  In  China  most  of  the  painting  which 
attracts  the  observing  student,  specimens  of  which  are  abundant  in 
every  mart  having  large  commerce  with  Europe,  is  of  two  of  the 
classes  already  mentioned  as  found  in  Egypt.  Wall  painting  has 
by  no  means  the  large  place  it  had  in  Egypt;  the  northern  climate 
of  China  forbidding  the  decoration  of  tombs,  while  the  walls  of  struc- 
tures above  ground  are  built  of  a  lighter  and  more  fragile  material 
scarcely  justifying  the  Egyptian  elaborateness  of  coloring.  Most  of 
the  Chinese  painting  proper  is  executed  upon  paper,  cloth,  glass,  por- 
celain or  some  kindred  ground.  On  paper  and  cloth  the  colors  are 
chiefly  vegetable,  sometimes  ochres ;  and  are  evidently  done  with  water 
as  a  vehicle.  Often  the  ground  lacks  the  consistency  essential  to 
prevent  the  spreading  of  the  pigments;  as  is  illustrated  in  the  pic- 


CHINESE  AND  JAPANESE  PAINTING.  539 

tured  fans  and  other  kindred  articles  imported  from  China,  whose 
consideration  belongs  properly  to  Decorative  Art.  The  paintings  of 
portraits  on  porcelain,  glass  or  kindred  material  have  an  adhesion 
to  the  ground,  a  depth  and  indeed  embossment  of  colors,  a  clearness 
if  not  transparence  of  hue,  and  a  finish  and  polish  of  varnish  that 
speaks  of  a  power  quite  equal  to  that  of  the  Egyptian  artists.  There 
is  however  manifestly  no  genuine  likeness  to  the  original;  for  while 
mere  constume  is  made  to  vary  in  hue,  there  is  no  departure  from 
the  stereotyped,  placid,  passive  expression.  There  is,  moreover,  no 
attempt  at  gradation  of  tint;  all  flesh  is  the  same  flesh,  and  all  blue 
or  gold  is  unchangeably  one  in  shade.  In  the  third  department,  that 
of  terra  eotta  staining,  the  Chinese  coloring  on  porcelain  shows  an  art 
perhaps  not  surpassing  that  of  the  Egyptians  in  their  palmy  days, 
but  certainly  surpassing  the  kindred  art  of  modern  times ;  a  fact  to 
be  considered  in  Decorative  Art.  In  each  of  these  three  departments 
it  is  specially  to  be  remarked,  however,  that  none  of  the  higher  prin- 
ciples of  art  are  traceable.  As  to  back-ground  there  is  only  an 
apparent  not  a  real  attempt  at  perspective ;  for  while  the  Egyptian 
made  figures  designed  to  be  more  distant  occupy  separate  compart- 
ments, as  distinct  pictures,  marked  off"  by  separating  lines,  the  Chinese 
trace  indeed  a  connecting  ground-plot,  designed  to  extend  back  to 
figures  in  the  rear;  their  attempt,  however,  being  so  destitute  of  sci- 
entific accuracy  as  to  make  this  ground-plot  a  perpendicular,  on 
which  the  rear  figures  seem  to  hang  suspended  over  those  in  the 
front,  and  to  be  falling  forward  out  of  the  picture. 

Passing  eastward  from  China  the  large  island  of  Japan  presents  a 
people  truly  Mongolian  or  Asiatic  in  cast  of  mind  as  of  features ;  but 
from  their  insular  position,  which  makes  them  necessarily  a  specially 
commercial  people,  they  are  gifted  with  rare  energy  and  inventiveness 
and  have  a  readiness  to  learn  from  foreigners.  Either  in  earlier  or 
later  times,  perhaps  since  the  settlement  of  Portuguese  and  Dutch 
merchants,  the  Japanese  painters  have  learned  the  rudiments  of  ad- 
mixture and  gradation  in  colors,  of  perspective  and  of  chiaroscuro. 
In  addition  to  the  colors  used  by  Egyptian  artists,  black,  white,  red, 
yellow  and  blue,  the  intermediate  hues  crimson,  scarlet,  pink,  rose, 
purple,  saffron,  purple-maroon,  light  and  dark  blues,  and  also  various 
shades  of  brown,  are  employed  by  them.  In  their  landscape  views 
rivers  with  groups  of  men  in  front,  boats  on  the  stream,  and  trees  and 
mountains  on  the  opposite  side,  are  presented ;  with  a  marked  though 
not  accurate  diminution  from  distance  which  indicates  an  intuitive, 
though  not  cultured  perception  of  the  laws  of  perspective.     Still 


640  AKT  CRITICISM. 

more,  in  the  representation  of  water  and  cloud,  in  whose  execution 
so  as  to  have  anything  like  the  appearance  of  nature  there  must  be  a 
certain  measure  of  the  knowledge  of  chiaroscuro,  the  Japanese  have, 
from  some  quarter,  learned  at  least  the  first  lessons.  In  the  sky  of 
their  landscapes  there  are  lines  of  clouds  representing  twilight ;  the 
lower  ones  being  of  a  pink-tint  and  the  upper  of  a  darker  purple ; 
while  in  water,  that  near  the  shore  is  painted  of  a  saffron  tinge,  and 
that  farther  off  of  a  maroon  or  purple  brown.  In  neither  clouds, 
water  or  flesh  tints,  however,  is  there  any  gradation  proper  of  shades 
and  tints  indicating  true  admixture  of  pigment:  the  only  approach 
to  it  being  a  sort  of  dilution  or  decreased  thickness  in  the  laying  on  of 
the  pigments  towards  the  border  of  a  color,  giving  it  only  an  appar- 
ent shading  into  the  hue  next  to  it.  The  Japanese,  therefore,  neither 
in  form  or  color  nor  in  their  approach  to  perspective  and  chiaroscuro, 
have  science  or  art  proper.  Like  the  Chinese  their  painting  is  not  the 
product  of  that  originating  genius  which  makes  the  arts  of  design,  but 
the  mere  imitative  skill  which  gives  birth  to  the  mechanic  arts. 

Leaving  this  home  of  the  most  advanced  Asiatic  family,  the 
smaller  isles  of  the  Pacific  and  the  coast  of  America  with  their  pres- 
ent population,  evidently  of  Asiatic  origin,  present  only  the  rudest 
attempts  at  coloring.  Though  the  ancient  inhabitants  of  the  Amer- 
ican coasts  evidently  brought  with  them  the  true  traditional  type  of 
Asiatic  painting,  as  well  as  of  sculpture  and  architecture,  the  more 
perishable  monuments  of  this  art  are  obliterated  or  unknown ;  and 
the  savage  tribes  that  have  succeeded  them  have  no  painting  proper, 
but  only  implements  colored  with  one  hue,  and  rude  figures  traced 
in  one  or  more  of  the  pure  colors,  on  sandals,  robes,  girdles  or  head- 
dresses made  from  the  skins  of  animals. 

Sect.  4.  The  Painting  of  Western  Asia  ;  the  advancing  phase  of  Ku- 
dimentary  coloring. 

The  line  of  improving  art  in  painting,  as  we  go  northward  through 
the  western  part  of  Asia,  is  as  manifest  as  that  of  architecture  and 
sculpture  already  traced ;  though  its  memorials  of  past  ages  are  more 
decayed  because  more  fragile.  In  Arabia  the  past  history  of  paint- 
ing has  no  monument  or  authentic  record  to  illustrate  its  character; 
that  of  the  Hebrews  in  Syria  is  commemorated  only  by  scattered 
allusions  of  their  sacred  historians  and  poets ;  but  the  unburied  mon- 
uments of  Assyria,  some  relics  in  Persia,  and  some  faint  traces  of  the 
past  in  Asia  Minor,  are  now  revealing  its  true  character.  All  these 
successive  testimonials  show  an  enlarging  phase  of  the  art,  brighten- 


HEBREW   AND   ASSYRIAN   PAINTING.  641 

iiig  as  it  moves  towards  Greece,  and  confirming  the  fact  that  always 
in  human  improvement  the  links  of  gradual  advance  exist,  though 
they  may  not  always  be  traced.  The  modern  style  of  coloring,  now 
met  in  all  this  region,  is,  as  we  shall  see,  no  index  to  its  past  charac- 
ter ;  since  Greece  itself  in  this  art  has  for  long  ages  presented  nothing 
but  the  old  Asiatic  type. 

In  the  line  thus  hinted,  the  Hebrew  painting  is  first  to  call  atten- 
tion. In  this  art,  as  in  sculpture  and  architecture,  there  are  three 
culminating  eras  to  be  observed;  that  of  Moses  and  of  Egyptian 
teaching ;  that  of  Solomon  and  of  Phoenician  or  Assyrian  influence ; 
and  that  of  Herod  the  Great  and  Roman  control.  In  the  first  age 
the  art  had,  in  respect  to  pigments,  advanced  beyond  pure  colors;  for 
we  read  not  only  of  red  and  blue,  but  also  of  scarlet  and  purple.^ 
The  art  of  that  day,  however,  reveals  nothing  as  to  coloring  except 
in  dyed  and  needle-work,  executed  upon  skins  and  linen ;  for,  a  wan- 
dering shepherd  race,  such  as  the  Hebrews  then  were,  have  only 
coats,  girdles  and  tent-hangings  on  which  to  bestow  their  skill  in  color- 
ing.^ The  colors  employed  were  vegetable ;  Josephus  mentioning  of 
the  materials  furnished  by  the  people  that  they  brought  "flowers  for 
the  purple  color  and  others  for  the  white;  with  wool  also  dyed  by  the 
flowers  before  mentioned."  The  figures  wrought  in  by  needle-work 
were  after  the  order  of  Egypt,  though  probably  of  a  higher  finish, 
and  avoiding  their  gross  conceptions ;  since  Josephus  states  that  the 
"curtains  were  composed  of  fine  linen,  blue,  purple  and  scarlet;  and 
were  embroidered  with  numerous  and  various  kinds  of  figures,  ex- 
cepting the  figures  of  animals."  In  the  second  era  of  the  art  of  the 
Hebrew  coloring,  in  addition  to  the  customs  of  the  former  age,  pave- 
ments of  mosaic  inlaid  with  stones  are  introduced;  for  which,  in 
making  his  preparation  for  the  rearing  of  the  temple, Solomon  pro- 
vided "glistening  stones  of  varied  colors,"  to  which  as  they  gleamed 
on  the  temple  pavement  Isaiah  poetically  alludes  in  Jehovah's  pro- 
mise; 

"Behold  I  will  lay  thy  stones  with  fair  colors; 
I  will  lay  thy  foundations  with  sapphires."  * 

In  this  age,  too,  wall  painting  proper  seems  to  have  existed;  for 
though  the  inner  walls  of  the  Hebrew  temple-shrine  were  all  overlaid 
with  gold,  which  admitted  engraving  but  no  coloring,  sumptuous 


I 


'  Exod.  XXV.  4,  5. 

"Gen.  xxxvii.  3;  Exod.  xxv.  5;  xxvi.  36;  xxviii.  39;  Judg.  v.  30. 
'1  Chron.  xxix.  2;  2  Chron.  iii.  6;  Isa.  liv.  11. 
46 


642  ART  CRITICISM. 

private  mansions  were  "ceiled  with  cedar  and  painted  with  ver- 
milion." ^  In  the  third  era,  though  structures  for  secular  purposes, 
as  the  palaces  erected  by  Herod,  took  the  characteristics  of  Roman 
art  in  painting  as  well  as  architecture,  yet  no  painting  proper  is  found 
in  the  description  of  the  sacred  temple;  only  the  curtains  being 
spoken  of  as  adorned  with  "purple  flowers." 

In  Assyria  the  researches  of  Layard,  aided  by  the  scholarship  of 
Wilkinson  the  Egyptian  antiquary,  have  thrown  much  light  on  the 
character  of  this  department  of  ancient  painting.  Of  the  colors 
employed  we  have  a  testimonial  in  the  sacred  narrative  of  Esther; 
the  author  of  which  alludes  to  a  palace  of  the  Medo-Persian  king 
as  adorned  with  "white,  green,  and  blue,  fastened  by  cords  of  pur- 
ple;" and  with  "a  pavement  of  red  and  blue  and  white  and  black 
marble."  Modern  investigators  have  found  the  same  colors  used 
in  Egypt;  and  of  these  colors  Layard  gives  the  following  illustrative 
statements :  "  The  only  colors  first  used  by  the  Assyrians,  since  they 
are  those  employed  by  all  nations  to  give  effect  to  their  earliest  efforts 
both  in  sculpture  and  architecture,  were  probably  blue,  red,  yellow, 
black  and  white."  "These  colors  alone  were  used  in  the  painted 
ornaments  of  the  upper  chambers  of  Nimroud."  "  The  tints  formed 
by  their  combinations  may  have  been  introduced  at  a  later  period." 
As  an  illustration  of  the  improvement  in  Assyria  upon  Egyptian 
coloring,  after  having  mentioned  the  "prevalence  of  red"  in  Asiatic 
colors,  Layard  says,  "The  Assyrian  red  exceeds  in  brilliancy  that  of 
Egypt."  "It  nearly  approaches  to  vermilion  on  the  sculptures  of 
Khorsabad ;  and  has  a  bright  crimson  or  lake  tint  on  those  of  Nim- 
roud."  This  fact  intimates  an  original  superiority  in  Assyrian  pig- 
ments over  Egyptian ;  as  also  superior  skill  in  the  artists  of  that  re- 
gion ;  since  the  climate  of  Egypt  has  better  preserved  like  works.  In 
confirmation  also  of  this  original  superiority  and  native  pre-eminence 
of  the  artists  of  this  region,  under  the  influence  of  Persian  teachers, 
Layard  adds  as  to  their  skill  in  modern  times,  "  Dyes  of  the  finest 
qualities,  particularly  reds  and  greens,  which  even  European  inge- 
nuity has  not  been  able  to  equal,  are  obtained  by  the  inhabitants  of 
Koordistan  from  flowers  and  herbs  growing  abundantly  in  their 
mountains." 

This  last  allusion  of  Layard  suggests  the  first  class  of  uses  made 
of  colors  by  the  ancient  Medo-Persians.  It  is  illustrated  in  the  wall 
"hangings,"  or  curtains  already  alluded  to,  as  mentioned  in  the  book 


'  2  Chron.  iii.  4,  5 :  Jer.  xxii.  14. 


MEDO-PERSIAN   AND   PERSIAN    PAINTING.  543 

of  Esther.  A  second  class  of  Assyrian  painting,  or  use  of  colors  by 
that  people  was  in  the  decoration  of  statues  and  other  sculpture; 
illustrations  of  which  are  thus  given  by  Layard.  "No  trace  of 
paint  except  in  the  eyes  and  on  the  hair  has  yet  been  found  on  the 
human  body  in  Assyrian  sculpture ;"  a  fact  illustrating  the  ancient 
as  well  as  modern  Eastern  custom  of  painting  the  eyelids  and  dyeing 
the  hair.  He  adds,  "On  the  colossal  lions  and  bulls  forming  the 
entrances  to  temples,  color  only  remains  in  the  eyes;  the  pupils 
having  been  painted  black  and  the  rest  filled  with  a  thick  white  pig- 
ment." A  kind  of  Assyrian  ornament,  partaking  of  the  nature  both 
of  porcelain  coloring  and  of  wall  painting,  is  suggested  by  Diodorus 
in  the  days  of  Augustus,  who  states  that  '  the  figures  of  men  and  of 
animals  seen  on  the  walls  of  the  palace  of  Semiramis  at  Babylon 
were  painted  on  the  bricks  before  they  were  put  in  the  furnace.' 
Either  this,  or  true  wall  painting,  is  referred  to  by  the  Hebrew  pro- 
phet, Ezekiel,  when  in  abhorrence  he  observed  that  the  corrupt 
priests  had  copied  the  customs  of  the  Chaldeans;  and  he  saw  "every 
form  of  creeping  things,  and  abominable  beasts,  and  all  the  idols  of 
the  house  of  Israel  portrayed  on  the  walls;"  a  fact  illustrated  farther 
on,  in  a  subsequent  allusion  to  the  city  of  Jerusalem  pictured  as  a 
harlot ; — 

"  She  saw  men  portrayed  on  the  wall. 
The  images  of  Chaldeans  painted  with  vermilion, 
Girded  with  girdles  upon  their  loins, 
Exceeding  in  dyed  attire  upon  their  heads, 
All  of  them  princes  to  look  to, 
After  the  manner  of  the  Babylonians  of  Chaldea, 
The  land  of  their  nativity."  ' 

True  wall  and  ceiling  painting  is  still  found  among  the  ruins  of 
Assyrian  cities :  an  instance  of  which  Layard  thus  mentions ;  "  The 
ceilings  were  divided  into  square  compartments  painted  with  flowers 
or  the  figures  of  animals." 

As  to  the  condition  of  the  art  of  painting  among  the  ancient  Per- 
sians only  scattered  allusions  in  poets  like  Homer,  and  in  historians 
like  Herodotus  can  give  any  idea,  since  there  are  no  monuments  left 
as  in  Egypt  and  Assyria,  to  serve  as  guides  in  reconstructing  the 
age.     The  fact  that  the  Persians  were  a  leading  race  in  the  arts  of 

trchitecture  and  sculpture,  and  that  now  they  are  in  advance  of  any 
Lsiatic  nation  in  painting,  as  the  specimens  of  their  works  that  now 


544  ART  CRITICISM. 

reach  Constantinople  and  meet  the  eyes  of  Europeans  show,  is  suiR- 
cient  testimony  that  the  advancing  phase  of  this  art  passed  also 
through  ancient  Persia.  The  very  early  rise,  also,  of  painting  as  an 
art  among  that  superior  race  called  Arian  by  the  ancient  Greeks,  is 
manifest  from  many  considerations.  Pliny's  mention,  already  re- 
ferred to,  that  Gyges  the  Lydian  introduced  painting  into  Egypt, 
which  must  have  been  at  least  2000  years  before  the  Christian  era 
or  before  the  days  of  the  Hebrew  patriarch  Abraham,  is  a  pregnant 
hint;  the  more  important  since  Pliny  himself  to  confirm  the  very 
early  and  Arian  origin  of  this  higher  art  refers  to  Homer's  allusions 
to  different  kinds  of  painting  existing  among  the  Greeks  at  the  time 
of  the  siege  of  Troy ;  as  the  vermilion  applied  to  finer  works,  as  well 
as  to  ship's  prows;  while  also  among  the  Trojans,  who  belonged  to 
the  older  family  of  the  Arian  stock,  abundant  evidences  of  great 
progress  in  the  art  of  coloring  are  given  by  this  early  poet  In 
tracing  the  history  of  Grecian  painting  we  shall  observe  that  its  ear- 
liest, and  in  all  future  ages  its  chief  home,  was  in  the  Asiatic  pro- 
vinces ;  in  which  region  native  Grecian  genius,  coming  into  contact 
with  a  race  inferior  to  itself,  yet  superior  to  the  Asiatic  family, 
received  its  culture,  and  prepared  itself  and  the  world  for  an  entirely 
new  era  in  this  art. 


CHAPTER    V. 

GRECIAN  painting;   NATURAL   COLOR  UNITED   TO   IDEAL   FORM. 

Though  ideal  forms,  made  up  of  associated  beauties  gathered  from 
many  examples  in  nature,  are  the  climax  of  art  in  sculpture  which 
embodies  form  alone,  the  attainment  of  nature's  perfect  coloring  is 
the  height  of  art  in  painting,  since  there  is  no  ideal  of  color  corre-i 
sponding  to  ideality  in  form.  The  Greeks  having  attained  the: 
greatest  perfection  of  ideal  form  in  their  sculpture  would  have  fal- 
tered in  their  own  chosen  pathway  of  excellence  had  they  not] 
attained  to  true  naturalness  in  color.  The  union  of  these  two  fea- 
tures, ideal  form  and  natural  color,  seems  to  have  been  the  achieve-] 
ment  of  the  Greek  painters. 

The  work  of  analyzing  the  history  of  painting  among  the  ancient  i 


pliny's  hinted  division  of  greek  painting.       545 

Greeks,  is  specially  difficult;  and  that  for  three  reasons.  First,  the 
relics  of  ancient  Grecian  painting,  unlike  their  sculpture  and  archi- 
tecture, have  all  perished ;  so  that  it  is  only  from  scattered  allusions 
in  classic  writers  such  as  Plato  and  Aristotle,  Cicero  and  Horace, 
and  brief  descriptions  by  historians  and  tourists  such  as  Pliny  and 
Pausanias,  that  material  for  such  an  analysis  can  be  gained.  Coming 
again  to  the  Greek  and  Latin  authors,  their  records  as  to  art,  that 
of  Pliny  excepted,  are  found  to  be  fragmentary ;  while  the  necessary 
employ  by  them  of  technical  terms,  partially  illustrated  in  sculpture 
and  architecture  by  comparison  with  the  works  themselves,  but  un- 
explained in  painting,  make  the  study  not  only  a  difficult  but  uncer- 
tain one.  Yet  again,  while  in  the  departments  of  Grecian  sculpture 
and  architecture,  able  critics  like  Winckelmann  have  gone  over  the 
field  with  such  thoroughness  that  the  attempt  at  a  general  analysis 
of  the  history  of  these  arts  is  made  easy,  no  kindred  analytical  works 
have  been  attempted  in  the  departmient  of  Grecian  painting.  It  is  only 
after  a  laborious  examination  and  comparison  of  the  original  autho- 
rities, with  the  aid  as  to  age  of  artists  and  references  to  their  works 
furnished  in  the  Alphabetical  list  of  Sillig,  the  study  filling  up  an 
entire  year,  that  the  chapter  here  presented  has  been  prepared. 

Pliny's  opening  allusion  in  his  brief  history  of  ancient  painting 
gives  the  germ  for  an  extended  division  of  the  subject.  After  allud- 
ing to  the  decline  of  the  art  of  painting  in  later  Roman  times,  and 
dwelling  on  its  former  high  cultivation  in  Greece,  the  progress  of 
the  art  in  Greece  is  indicated  in  these  two  condensed  statements. 
"  The  Greeks  affirm  that  the  art  of  painting  was  discovered,  some 
say  at  Sicyon,  others  among  the  Corinthians;  all  affirm  that  it  began 
with  the  mere  shadow  of  a  man  around  which  lines  were  drawn. 
Such  was  the  art  at  first ;  the  second  stage  was  in  single  colors  called 
monochromaton ;  after  which  a  more  elaborate  method  was  invented; 
and  such  it  continues  until  now."  Farther  on  he  developes  the  his- 
tory of  the  improving  methods  of  coloring,  as  distinct  from  drawing^ 
thus:  "At  length  art  distinguished  itself  and  invented  light  and 
shade;  the  employ  of  differing  colors,  alternating  with  each  other, 
producing  this  effect.  Afterwards  again  there  was  added  lustre; 
this  being  another  thing  than  light:  which,  since  it  is  between  light 
and  shade,  they  called  tonos;  while  they  named  the  commingling  of 
colors  armoge."  The  steps  of  progress  here  obscurely  hinted  seem  to 
be  the  attainment  first  of  shading  in  colors,  second  of  the  conjunction 
and  inter-blending  of  hues,  and  third  of  gradation  of  lights  or  chia- 
roscuro. This  connected  statement  of  the  only  ancient  historian  of 
46  *  3  T 


546  •  ART  CRITICISM. 

the  art,  though  obscure,  is  of  value  in  reaching  a  practical  division 
of  the  subject;  though  scattered  hints  found  in  Pliny  and  in  other 
writers  render  more  important  aid  in  the  development  of  the  history. 

Sect.  1.   The  Formative  Period  of  Grecian  Painting,  during  the 
Ages  of  the  Greek  Lyric  and  Epic 

The  period  covered  by  this  early  and  rudimentary  history  is  about 
seven  hundred  years;  commencing  with  the  fall  of  Troy  about 
B.  C.  1184,  and  ending  with  the  time  of  the  restoration  of  the  Athe- 
nian Democracy,  B.  C.  510.  It  began  with  Euchir,  so  called,  probably, 
because  of  the  beauty  of  his  execution  with  the  hand ;  whom  Aristotle 
mentions,  perhaps  symbolically,  as  the  originator  of  Greek  painting, 
speaking  of  him  as  a  near  relative  of  Daedalus,  the  early  sculptor 
and  architect,  who  lived  between  B.  C.  1200  and  B.  C.  1300.  A  cen- 
tury later,  about  B.  C.  1068,  when  after  the  conquest  of  Troy  the 
Grecian  colonies  in  Asia  Minor  were  fully  established,  in  the  age  of 
the  bards  who  prepared  the  way  for  Hesiod  and  Homer,  a  rapid 
spring  was  given  to  the  growth  of  Greek  genius  in  different  depart- 
ments of  art.  The  generous  rivalry  of  genius  at  that  age  was  sym- 
bolized doubtless  in  the  reported  contest  of  these  two  great  masters 
in  the  highest  of  the  arts,  that  of  poetry:  Homer  born  in  the 
Asiatic  colonies,  and  Hesiod  in  the  heart  of  Greece,  fitly  memorial- 
izing the  fact  that  a  noble  emulation  already  existed  in  arts  and 
letters  between  the  colonies  and  the  mother  country. 

To  this  age  four  eminent  ancient  painters  are  referred ;  to  three  of 
whom,  Philocletes,  Cleanthes  and  Crato,  so  universally  does  the 
spirit  of  ambition  call  forth  rivals  for  the  honor  of  discoveries  in 
science  and  of  inventions  in  art,  has  been  attributed  by  different  tra- 
ditions the  origin  of  drawing  in  outline;  while  two  of  them  were 
painters  of  merit  in  their  day.  The  first  of  these  was  a  native  Egyp- 
tian, who  evidently  had  come  to  seek  his  fortune  in  the  country  newly 
rising  in  his  times;  while  the  latter  two  were  native  Greeks  born 
and  reared  at  Corinth  and  its  neighbor  and  rival  city  Sicyon.  Of 
these  Cleanthes  at  least  was  a  painter;  associated  with  whom  was  an 
artist  named  Arego ;  whose  paintings  in  the  temple  of  Diana  on  the 
river  Alphseus  in  Elis,  were  mentioned  by  Strabo  as  admired  in  the 
Augustan  age  of  Home,  and  were  quoted  in  the  second  century  of 
the  Christian  era  by  both  Greek  sophists  and  Christian  apologists 
as  specimens  of  the  artistic  religious  spirit  of  the  early  Greeks.  A 
century  later,  probably,  while  Homer's  poems  not  yet  gathered  as 
an  epic  were  chanted  as  ballads,  two  other  artists  are  named,  who 


I 


GRECIAN   PAINTERS   OF   THE   FORMATIVE   AGE.  547 

were  rivals  for  the  invention  of  rudimentary  shading;  heretofore  not 
known  to  Grecian  as  it  was  not  to  Egyptian  painters.  These  im- 
proved artists  represented  those  same  two  Grecian  centres;  their 
names  being  Ardices  of  Corinth  and  Telephanes  of  Sicyon ;  and  their 
invention  Pliny  regarded  an  era  in  the  history  of  the  art  of  painting. 

Next  followed  improvement  in  coloring  proper.  Thus  far  the  mix- 
ing of  colors  for  the  purpose  of  shaded  hues  was  not  introduced; 
though,  long  before,  Philocles  the  Egyptian  had  been  familiar  with 
six  colors  as  there  used,  without  admixture  or  gradation  of  hues. 
Four  artists  are  mentioned  by  Pliny  as  leaders  in  this  department; 
one  of  whom,  Cleophantus,  a  Corinthian  painter,  living  in  the  30th 
Olympiad,  or  about  B.  C.  Q55,  used  "ground  earthen-ware"  as  a 
pigment,  evidently  seeking  a  flesh  color.  Yet  later,  but  evidently 
near  the  age  of  Homer,  arose  the  artist  Eumarus,  the  first  painter 
mentioned  as  appearing  in  Athens,  afterwards  the  mistress  of  Greece 
in  art;  of  whom  Pliny  relates  that  "he  was  the  first  to  make  a  dis- 
tinction of  sex  in  painting."  This  statement  must  of  course  have  its 
proper  qualification,  since  in  Egyptian  drawings  and  paintings,  males 
and  females  are  distinguished  by  their  dress  and  hair,  though  with- 
out the  nicer  distinctions  of  features  and  anatomical  structure. 

The  last  and  greatest  step  in  the  progress  of  this  rudimentary 
age  was  the  successful  effort  to  execute  portraits  recognized  as  like- 
nesses. Pliny  mentions  a  painter  named  Leon  who  painted  a  por- 
trait of  the  sweet  lyric  poetess  Sappho,  who  flourished  in  the  age  of 
Esop,  or  before  B.  C.  600.  Such  a  work  required  an  artist,  who, 
passing  beyond  the  mere  distinguishing  in  general  of  men  and 
women,  could  copy  the  nicer  lineaments  of  separate  features  in  which 
every  individual  man  or  woman  differs  from  his  or  her  fellow. 

While  noting  this  progress  of  the  art  in  Greece  proper,  where  the 
records  were  better  kept,  Pliny  mentions  with  enthusiasm  a  single 
instance  of  its  advancement  in  the  Greek  provinces  of  Asia  Minor. 
"Surprise,"  he  says,  "need  not  be  felt  at  the  dignity  to  which  this  art 
so  early  attained  in  Greece,  when  the  historic  fact  must  be  admitted 
that  the  picture  of  the  battle  of  the  people  of  Magnesia,  in  Lydia, 
against  the  Cimmerian  barbarians,  executed  by  Bularchus  the 
painter,  was  purchased  for  its  weight  in  gold  by  Candaules  the  king 
of  Lydia."  This  Bularchus,  Pliny  thinks  lived  in  the  age  of  Romu- 
lus, or  about  B.  C.  720. 

Sect.  2.  The  Advancing  Development  op  Grecian  Painting  under 
Aglaopho  and  Damophilus  in  the  age  of  the  Greek  Drama. 
As  the  rise  and  early  triumph  of  lyric  and  epic  poetry  in  Greece, 


548  ART  CRITICISM. 

the  twilight  after  the  ballad  dawning  of  literature,  had  doubtless  its 
influence  on  the  progress  of  the  plastic  arts,  especially  of  painting, 
so  the  second  stage  in  the  development  of  the  special  genius  of  the 
Greeks  for  poetry,  the  drama,  had  a  manifest  connection  with  the 
second  stage,  in  the  development  of  painting,  the  specially  illustrative 
art.  In  the  61st  Olympiad,  or  about  B.  C.  535,  Thespis  first  intro- 
duced scenic  representations  into  Athens.  Shortly  afterwards  TRsnby- 
lus  was  born ;  at  an  early  age  he  began  to  write  tragedy ;  and  in  the 
fourth  year  of  the  73d  Olympiad,  or  B.  C.  485,  he  gained  his  first 
prize  for  excellence.  Sophocles  grew  up  in  the  atmosphere  of  Athens 
when  the  perfected  drama  was  absorbing  public  thought;  and  in  the 
fourth  year  of  the  77th  Olympiad,  or  B.  C.  469,  he  took  the  palm 
from  his  older  rival  jEschylus.  A  little  later,  in  the  81st  Olympiad, 
about  B.  C.  455,  Euripides  was  in  the  field;  and  the  current  of 
popular  favor,  at  Athens,  set  so  strongly  towards  dramatic  literature, 
that  only  the  scurrility  of  Aristophanes,  some  fifty  years  later,  ar- 
rested it,  and  turned  the  stream  into  another  channel. 

A  double  influence  seems  to  have  been  exerted  by  this  new  bent 
of  the  Athenian  mmd  and  this  new  class  of  poetry  then  holding  sway. 
A  general  impulse  was  given  to  art  of  a  higher  order ;  the  people  who 
demanded  finely  executed  scenic  representations  were  ready  to  pay 
for  artistic  skill  in  painting,  which  could  alone  supply  it ;  and  in  con^ 
sequence  of  the  call  for  men  devoted  to  the  art  of  painting,  ne^ 
genius  was  called  out  and  higher  attempts  were  made  by  true  artisi 
in  works  asfde  from  and  far  above  the  field  of  mere  stage  decoratioi 
At  the  same  time  a  taste  for  large  and  extended  paintings,  to  be  see! 
at  a  distance,  was  awakened ;  which  led  on  to  that  higher  walk  of  th< 
art,  fresco  or  wall-painting.     In  tracing  carefully  the  scattered  hint 
preserved  of  this  age,  a  central  cluster  of  artists  developing  in  botl 
these  departments  stands  out  in  relief;  while  around  and  behin< 
them  is  grouped  a  crowd  of  inferior  men,  who  not  succeeding  in  the 
more  worthy  line  of  advancement  made  themselves  a  name  as  mei 
scenic  sketchers,  either  of  the  higher  tragic  or  lower  comic  scenes 
The  artists  in  higher  walks  were  the  leaders ;  the  scenic  painters  pre 
per  were  but  imitators. 

The  great  early  master  in  easel  studies,  or  in  historical  subjects  as 
sociated  with  higher  portrait,  was  Aglaopho,  contemporary  witl 
-3j]schylus ;  whose  son  Aristopho  is  usually  mentioned  with  him.  Then 
celebrated  paintings  were  studies  in  the  legendary  age;  the  heroe 
of  Troy  being  their  special  subjects.  Living  at  the  same  day  wi 
Cimon,  successor  in  portrait  to  Eumarus  of  the  former  age ;  who  at 


PORTRAIT   AND  SCENIC  PAINTERS.  549 

tempted  what  Egyptian  and  Assyrian  painters  had  not  assayed,  the 
taking  of  portraits  at  oblique  or  quarter  views ;  the  idea  that  such  is 
the  best  view  to  bring  out  characteristic  beauties  of  form  having 
been  already  conceived  and  made  controlling  in  sculpture  and  archi- 
tecture. The  works  of  this  noble  master  found  afterwards  a  marked 
place  in  the  allusions  of  such  critics  as  Cicero  and  Quinctilian ;  the 
latter  of  whom,  speaking  of  Aglaopho  and  his  second  son  Polygnotus, 
who  belongs  to  the  next  age,  makes  the  following  truly  philosophic 
comment.  "  First  among  those  whose  works  should  be  seen  not  simply 
on  account  of  their  antiquity,  are  the  famous  painters  Polygnotus 
and  Aglaopho ;  whose  uncompounded  color  so  captivates  the  minds 
that  study  it,  that  those  almost  rude  first  steps,  as  it  were,  in  the 
future  art  are  preferred  to  the  greater  masters  who  lived  after  them 
on  account  of  a  certain  natural  yearning  we  have  to  learn  originating 
elements." 

The  great  leading  masters  in  the  second  department  of  wall  paint- 
ing, cultivated  in  this  age,  Damophilus  and  Gorgasus,  are  yet  more 
marked  because  they  were  drawn  from  Greece  to  Kome,  then  rising 
as  a  city,  and  already  adorned  with  architectural  and  sculptural 
monuments  wrought  by  the  Etruscan  artists  living  north  of  the 
Tiber.  Speaking  with  a  sort  of  natural  pride  of  his  own  city,  Pliny 
says,  "  Damophilus  and  Gorgasus,  most  lauded  in  plastic  art,  were  at 
the  same  time  painters;  who  adorned  the  temple  of  Ceres  in  the 
Circus  Maximus  at  Rome,  with  both  kinds  of  their  art;  verses  in 
Greek  inscribed  upon  their  works  indicating,  that  those  on  the  right 
were  by  Damophilus  and  those  on  the  left  by  Gorgasus."  The  de- 
scription of  their  work  shows  that  it  was  fresco-painting  on  stuccoed 
walls ;  the  Greek  inscriptions  indicate  their  Grecian  nativity ;  con- 
temporary history  intimates  that  this  temple  was  built  and  dedicated 
B.  C.  493,  corresponding  to  the  Roman  era  A.  U.  C.  261,  and  to  the 
Grecian  Olym.  71, 4,  during  the  very  age  of  ^schylus  and  Aglaopho; 
and  the  fact  that  two  such  men  should  be  called  so  far  from  home  in 
such  an  age  is  a  testimony  both  to  the  advancement  of  this  species 
of  art,  and  to  the  rare  merit  of  these  artists  in  it. 

The  wide-spread  influence  of  the  spirit  pervading  Greek  painting 
at  this  era  is  seen  in  the  fact  that  at  Rhegium,  in  that  part  of  south- 
ern Italy  which  began  to  be  colonized  by  Greeks  about  B.  C.  1055, 
which  from  Grecian  supremacy  was  styled  Magna  Grsecia,  and  which 
at  the  period  mentioned,  about  B.  C.  500,  was  the  seat  of  the  greatest 
philosophic  school  in  the  world,  that  of  the  Greek  philosopher  Py- 
thagoras, there  appeared  at  this  very  time  an  eminent  painter  named 


550  ART   CRITICISM. 

Sillax,  belonging  to  the  class  of  wall  painters.  Two  Greek  authors 
refer  to  a  memorable  painting  of  his  on  the  walls  of  the  "portico  of 
the  Polemarchia"  at  Phlius;  the  reputation  of  this  artist  having 
called  him  in  the  opposite  direction  of  that  taken  by  the  artists  just 
named;  from  Italy  into  Greece  to  the  little  republic  nestled  between 
and  at  the  south  of  those  two  homes  of  art,  Corinth  and  Sicyon. 

The  artists  devoted  to  seenographia,  scenic  decoration  proper,  seem 
to  have  been  numerous.  Among  them  as  a  leader,  and  apparently 
a  true  historical  type  of  his  class,  was  an  artist  named  Serapio ;  of 
whom  Pliny  says,  that,  "having  proved  unsuccessful  at  portrait  paint- 
ing, he  turned  his  hand  to  scenic  painting,  in  which  he  attained  emi- 
nence." Another  of  his  class  was  Eudorus;  of  whom  Pliny  merely 
remarks,  "he  is  admired  for  his  scenic  paintings."  Yet  another  was 
Clisthenes,  an  architect,  who  in  addition  to  erecting  theatres  painted 
scenery ;  whose  son,  as  Diogenes  Laertius  mentions,  was  a  pupil  of 
Plato ;  thus  indicating  that  it  was  late  in  this  age  when  this  artist 
flourished.  A  still  later  representative  was  Pauso ;  the  moral  influ- 
ence of  whose  scenic  pictures,  tinged  with  the  spirit  of  his  contem- 
porary Aristophanes,  Aristotle  at  a  later  day  condemns.  To  this 
same  age  also  probably  belonged  the  painter  Cratinus,  mentioned  by 
Pliny  in  connection  with  other  scenic  painters,  who  adorned  the  pub- 
lic store-house  called  Pompeion  at  Athens  with  comic  scenes ;  to  whose 
daughter,  also  a  painter,  and  to  a  picture  by  her  of  a  priestess  of  the 
Eleusinian  rites  of  doubtful  moral  and  religious  character,  the  able 
Christian  Father,  Clement  of  Alexandria,  alludes  with  disapprobation. 
It  is  worthy  of  notice  that  though  the  paintings  of  this  age  belonged  to 
the  class  called  monochromatic,  or  those  of  unmixed  though  varied 
colors,  their  works  are  alluded  to  with  admiration  by  such  men  as 
Plato,  Cicero,  Quinctilian  and  numerous  kindred  authorities.  Both 
Cicero  and  Quinctilian  speak  of  these  masters  as  using  "simple"  or  "  un- 
compounded  colors."  To  this  influence  on  superior  artists  the  special 
opening  of  Egypt  by  the  Persian  Conquest,  before  as  exclusive  as  in 
modern  times  the  Chinese  have  been,  and  the  consequent  free  inter- 
course between  its  wise  men  and  Herodotus  the  tourist  and  Pytha- 
goras the  student,  a  privilege  which  must  have  reached  artists  and 
shaped  their  studies,  may  have  tended.  In  the  inferior  art  of  scenic 
painting,  the  gaudier  colors  without  graduation  of  hue,  are  always 
characteristic. 


WALL   PAINTING   ASSOCIATED   WITH   ARCHITECTUKE.     551 


Sect.  3.  The  Eecognition  of  Painting  as  a  Sister  Art  under  Micon 
and  poiiygnotus  in  the  age  of  perfected  sculpture  and  archi- 
TECTURE. 

If  the  progress  of  Poetry  as  the  noblest  of  the  Fine  Arts,  though 
of  a  class  so  different,  exerted  the  influence  already  observed  on  the 
advancement  of  Painting,  it  might  be  anticipated,  and  for  a  stronger 
reason,  that  in  the  age  when  Architecture  and  Sculpture  reached  in 
Greece  perhaps  the  hightest  perfection  they  have  ever  attained,  a 
new  and  peculiar  character  would  be  induced  in  the  third  of  the 
triple  band  of  sister  arts  called  plastic;  Drawing  of  course  being 
perfected  with  Sculpture.  The  age  of  perfected  Sculpture  and  Ar- 
chitecture in  Greece  was  the  age  of  Pericles,  the  statesman,  who 
rebuilt  Athens,  and  of  Phidias  the  comprehensive  artist  who  planned 
that  rebuilding.  Pericles  and  Phidias  were  both  born  in  the  70th 
Olympiad  or  about  B.  C.  500,  both  were  at  the  height  of  their  glory 
at  the  age  of  fifty  years,  and  both  died  when  nearly  seventy  years 
old ;  Phidias  Olym.  87,  1  or  B.  C.  432,  and  Pericles  two  years  after, 
Olym.  87,  3  or  B.  C.  430.  During  the  period  of  about  fifty  years, 
constituting  the  third  era  in  the  history  of  painting,  the  Athenian 
people  were  perfectly  absorbed  in  the  adornment  of  their  city  with 
those  works  of  sculpture  and  architecture  at  which  the  world  still 
wonders ;  this  versatile  race,  from  perfect  absorption  in  the  drama, 
gave  themselves  wholly  to  plastic  art;  as  in  the  subsequent  age  they 
thought  only  of  philosophy. 

As  during  the  previous  era  the  decoration  of  the  stage  and  scenic 
painting  had  been  the  leading  demand  and  had  given  character  to 
the  developing  art  of  coloring,  so  in  this  new  age  the  decoration  of 
works  of  architecture,  particularly  of  the  inner  walls  of  porticoes, 
was  the  absorbing  end  of  this  art.  Not  only  did  sculpture  exhaust 
its  skill  in  the  bas-reliefs  cut  on  the  inner  frieze  and  the  outer 
metopes  of  such  structures  as  the  Parthenon;  historic  paintings  as 
rich  in  color  and  expression  as  the  genius  devoted  to  that  art  could 
make  them,  covered  the  inner  walls  of  the  Propylsea,  of  the  Poicile 
and  of  other  porticoes  about  the  Acropolis  and  Agora  of  Athens. 
While  thus  there  was  a  demand  in  the  progress  of  Grecian  civiliza- 
tion for  improved  painting  there  was  an  advance  in  science  making 
it  attainable.  Mathematical  science,  perfected  in  practical  applica- 
tion as  well  as  theory  by  Pythagoras,  was  now  directed  to  the  fixing 
of  proportions  in  forms ;  the  accumulated  chemical  knowledge  of  the 
day  was  devoted  to  the  improvement  of  pigments;  and  the  germs  of 


652  ART  CRITICISM. 

the  study  of  proportion  in  hues  and  shades  in  coloring,  were  al- 
ready started.  As  an  indication  of  this  new  study,  it  was  in  this  age 
that  the  idea  of  an  azure  back-ground  in  the  marble  niches  for  statues, 
to  set  off  their  virgin  whiteness,  seems  to  have  been  conceived ;  as 
we  shall  see  at  a  later  day  statues  themselves  began  to  be  colored 
with  a  varnish  having  a  flesh  tinge. 

The  central  and  later  representatives  of  the  progress  of  the  art  of 
painting  in  this  age  were  Polygnotus  and  Aglaopho,  and  the  charac- 
teristics of  the  advance  then  made  may  be  learned  by  comparing  the 
allusions  made  to  these  two  artists  by  Pliny,  Quinctilian  and  Cicero. 
Quinctilian,  as  already  observed,  mentions  Polygnotus,  as  one  of  the 
earliest  painters  admired  as  a  master;  practising  the  "rudia  primor- 
dia"  or  rude  first  steps  of  his  art;  while  "simplex  color,"  or  unmixed 
color  was  the  method  still  prevailing.  Cicero,  alluding  to  great 
masters  excelling  in  methods  so  different  that  no  one  could  wish  them 
to  have  been  of  the  same  age,  cites  three  names,  Zeuxis,  Aglaopho 
and  Apelles ;  the  first  a  leader  in  the  Fifth  and  the  latter  in  the 
Sixth  age  of  Greek  painting,  while  the  second  is  a  representative  of 
the  latter  part  of  the  Third  age.  Pliny  gives  his  estimate  of  this 
era  in  closing  a  criticism  upon  the  picture  of  the  Battle  of  the  Athe- 
nians against  the  Persians  at  Marathon,  painted  on  the  Poicile ;  re- 
marking that  the  accuracy  in  the  likenesses  of  the  generals  illustrated 
how  far  "  the  use  of  color  had  improved,"  and  to  what  an  extent "  the 
art  was  perfected."  In  fact  at  this  period  painting  had  attained  such 
a  merit  as  to  prompt  Pericles  and  Phidias  to  court  its  co-operation 
as  a  "Sister  Art"  with  Sculpture  and  Architecture,  which  then  had 
attained  their  climax  of  majesty  if  not  of  grace. 

The  first  artists  belonging  properly  to  this  age  are  Micon  and  two 
or  three  predecessors  of  Polygnotus.  Pliny  couples  Micon  and  Po- 
lygnotus; first  in  speaking  of  the  colors  yellow  and  blue,  and  again 
of  a  black  pigment  invented  by  them ;  improved  material  for  coloring 
being  an  attainment  of  the  era.  Micon  painted  on  the  Poicile,  a  battle- 
scene  of  Theseus  and  the  Athenians  against  the  Amazons ;  then  three 
others  in  the  newly  erected  temple  of  Theseus,  one  of  the  Athenians 
and  Amazons,  another  of  the  Centaurs  and  Lapithse;  and  all  on 
ancient  legendary  themes.  At  a  later  day  he  assisted  Polygnotus  in 
painting  the  temple  of  the  Dioscori  at  Athens ;  his  theme  being  the 
legend  of  the  expedition  of  Castor  and  Pollux  to  Colchis.  Still 
later,  in  company  with  Pansenus,  the  cousin  of  Phidias,  he  attempted 
a  theme  of  recent  history,  the  battle  of  Marathon,  in  the  Poicile ;  in 
which  having  the  independence  to  paint  the  Persians  of  larger  stature 


1 


POLYGNOTUS   AND   GREEK   FRESCO   PAINTING.  553 

than  the  Greeks,  he  was  fined  by  the  fickle  democracy  of  Athens. 
Micon  excelled  in  figures  of  horses ;  on  which  in  his  best  pictures  he 
bestowed  great  labor. 

Of  the  history  and  style  of  Polygnotus  as  an  artist,  the  notices  of 
Plutarch  in  his  life  of  Cimon,  of  Pliny  and  Aristotle,  as  well  as  allu- 
sions by  other  writers,  furnish  extended  information.  Born  in  the 
island  of  Thasos,  he  was  found  practising  his  art  there  by  Cimon  the 
Athenian  General ;  who  bringing  home  the  body  of  Theseus,  the  old 
exiled  Athenian  hero,  to  be  deposited  in  the  temple  newly  erected  to 
his  memory,  took  the  painter  along  with  him  to  adorn  that  and  the 
other  new  structures  lately  erected  at  Athens.  When  Cimon  fell 
into  disgrace  Polygnotus  was  employed  by  Pericles;  yet  love  for 
Elpinice,  the  sister  of  Cimon,  led  him  to  make  her  the  model  of  his 
famed  Laodice  on  the  Poicile  of  Athens.  Of  his  improved  style, 
Pliny  records,  "He  first  painted  women  with  transparent  dress,  and 
ornamented  their  heads  with  particolored  turbans;  and  he  added 
very  much  to  the  art  of  painting  since  he  introduced  the  partial 
opening  of  the  mouth  so  as  to  show  the  teeth."  Aristotle  ranks  Po- 
lygnotus among  ethical  painters  or  those  seeking  a  moral  end  in  their 
works ;  and  thus  alludes  to  the  intellectual  cast  of  his  ideals ;  "  Polyg- 
notus painted  objects  superior  to  nature,  Pauso  inferior,  and  Diony- 
sius  like  to  nature."  The  works  ascribed  to  Polygnotus  are  all  wall 
paintings,  in  the  temple  at  Delphi;  in  the  Propylsea  and  Poicile  at 
Athens,  some  of  which  were  cut  out  and  carried  to  Rome;  in  the 
temple  of  Castor  and  Pollux,  at  Athens ;  in  the  temple  of  Minerva 
Area  at  Platsea;  and  on  public  walls  at  Thespise. 

The  third  great  artist  of  this  school  was  Pansenus,  the  cousin  of 
Phidias.  Phidias  himself  as  Pliny  assures  us  began  his  career  as  a 
painter,  but  left  it  for  sculpture,  then  farther  advanced  in  Greece. 
Pliny  mentions  an  improved  vehicle  in  fresco  or  wall  painting  used 
by  him.  "  He  washed  the  plastered  wall  with  milk  and  saffron ;  as 
is  at  this  day  perceived^  when  saliva  is  rubbed  with  the  finger  on  the 
wall,  and  it  gives  out  the  odor  and  flavor  of  saffron."  The  principal 
works  of  Pansenus  were  in  the  temple  of  Jupiter  Olympus  and  in  the 
Poicile  at  Athens.  The  highest  ancient  eulogiums  are  bestowed  on 
this  artist;  ^schines  the  orator  making  a  beautiful  allusion  to  his 
battle  of  Marathon;  Pliny  arguing  the  advancement  of  painting 
from  the  excellence  of  his  portraits;  and  Strabo  the  Roman  geo- 
grapher thus  alluding  to  the  evidence  that  in  the  days  of  Phidias 
sculpture  and  painting  were  wedded  arts.  "Pansenus  the  painter 
worked  much  with  Phidias,  being  his  brother  and  fellow-laborer  in 
47  3  U 


554  ART   CRITICISM. 

the  finishing  of  his  carved  work,  by  decorating  it  with  colors,  and 
especially  by  painting  drapery."  It  is  related  of  Pansenus  that  in  a 
contest  with  an  artist  named  Timagoras  at  the  Pythian  games  the 
first  prize  was  awarded  to  Timagoras,  who  celebrated  his  own  victory 
by  a  poem  in  his  own  honor;  an  incident  illustrating  the  frequent 
fortune  of  superior  artists,  to  be  superseded  for  a  time  in  popular 
esteem,  by  inferior  men;  and  also  indicating  how  plastic  art,  trusting 
not  alone  to  her  own  voice  invokes  the  aid  of  the  Muse  of  Poesy  to 
trumpet  her  fame.  Phidias  had  a  brother  named  Plistsenetus,  trained 
as  a  painter,  but  of  moderate  ability ;  who  had  the  good  sense  to  ad- 
here to  a  profession  which  would  not  bring  him  into  comparison 
with  his  comprehensive  brother. 

Among  men  of  less  genius  in  this  age,  Aglaopho,  the  second,  fur- 
nishes another  instance  of  the  influence  of  family  in  bringing  out 
artists.  As  we  have  seen,  the  father  and  teacher  of  Polygnotus, 
Aglaopho  first,  also  his  brother  Aristopho,  were  leaders  in  the  pre- 
vious age.  Aglaopho,  the  second,  apparently  a  son  of  Aristopho, 
and  of  course  nephew  of  Polygnotus,  won  that  encomium  of  Cicero 
that  no  lover  of  art  would  wish  to  have  him  other  than  he  was. 
Athensenus  the  sophist  records  this  history  of  two  of  the  paintings  of 
Aglaopho,  apparently  with  a  spice  of  irony.  "Coming  from  Olym- 
pias  to  Athens,  Alcibiades  presented  as  votive  offerings  two  pictures, 
the  painting  of  Aglaopho ;  one  of  which  represented  himself  crowned 
by  Olympias  and  Pythias;  in  the  other  was  seen  Nemea  seated,  and 
upon  her  knees  Alcibiades  himself,  more  beautiful  in  features  than 
any  woman." 

Sect.  4.  The  First  received  Schools  of   Grecian   Painting,  under 
Apollodorus  and  Eupompus,  in  the  Age  of  Greek  Philosophy. 

The  Athenian  people  having  passed  through  the  period  when  art 
reached  its  climax,  and  having  filled  their  city  to  re]3letion  with  the 
choicest  works  in  sculpture  and  architecture,  were  prepared  after  a 
few  years  had  made  the  masterpieces  of  art  common,  to  follow  any 
one  that  should  lead  their  minds  in  a  new  track.  At  the  time  when 
Phidias  and  Pericles  were  thirty  years  old,  B.  C.  470,  Socrates  was 
born.  During  his  youth  and  early  manhood  the  great  works  of 
Athens  were  in  process  of  completion.  His  father  was  a  sculptor, 
as  most  men  of  genius  would  be  at  such  a  day ;  and  Socrates  learned 
and  for  years  practised  his  father's  art.  But  art  alone  could  not 
exalt  the  Athenian  people.  Philosophy,  which  less  than  a  century 
before  had  been  ennobled  by  Thales  in  the  Greek  colonies  of  Asia, 


SCHOOLS  IN   PHILOSOPHY   AND   PAINTING.  555 

and  by  Pythagoras  in  the  Greek  colonies  of  Italy,  began  to  awaken 
an  interest  in  the  mother  country  at  Athens.  When  Socrates  was 
forty  years  old,  B.  C.  430,  Plato  was  born ;  and  ere  he  had  matured 
into  manhood  the  interest  of  the  city  of  Athens  was  its  philosophic 
teachers.  It  was  natural  that  Athenian  philosophy  should  influence 
the  arts ;  for  Socrates  the  great  leader  was  an  artist ;  and  the  philo- 
sophy of  Plato,  fitted  to  the  genius  of  the  Greek  people,  was  both  in 
form  and  substance  allied  to  the  spiritual  creations  of  art  rather 
than  to  the  material  deductions  of  science.  The  tendency  of  that 
philosophy  has  already  been  noted  ;^  the  first  step  towards  the  revival 
of  classic  art  among  the  Florentines  having  been  the  establishment 
by  the  Medici  of  a  club  to  read  Plato's  dialogues  and  discuss  his 
philosophy. 

Discussions  in  philosophy  naturally  originated  rival  schools; 
Socrates  who  went  everywhere  discoursing  of  wisdom  and  virtue  was 
succeeded  by  the  earnest  debaters  of  the  Stoic  school,  frequenters  of 
the  Stoa  or  porticoes  of  the  Agora;  by  the  quiet  dreamers  of  the 
Academy,  who  resorted  to  the  cool  groves  of  Plato's  garden ;  and  by 
the  Nature-loving  Peripatetics  who  with  Aristotle  sought  the  study 
of  things  as  well  as  of  men.  It  was  natural  that  artists  should  begin 
to  divide  into  schools,  as  did  the  thinking  men  of  their  time;  that 
some  should  seek  to  excel  in  the  ideal,  others  in  the  natural ;  and 
that  many  should  aspire  to  be  teachers  of  the  principles  ruling  art. 

The  artist  who  as  a  teacher  ushered  in  this  age  is  thus  mentioned 
by  Pliny.  "  Evenor  was  the  father  and  especially  the  preceptor  of  the 
painter  Parrhasius,  of  which  latter  artist  we  shall  speak  in  his  own 
age."  We  know  him,  however,  not  by  any  of  his  own  works,  or  any 
preserved  criticism  of  them ;  but  only  as  he  lived  in  his  pupils. 

As  the  grand  light  of  this  age  Pliny  introduces  Apollodorus,  allud- 
ing casually  to  the  artists  of  the  previous  age,  placing  Evenor 
among  the  number  as  necessarily  but  incidentally  mentioned  in  an 
"exposition  hastening  to  the  lights  of  art;"  and  adding,  "among 
whom  first  shone  resplendent  Apollodorus  the  Athenian  in  the 
93d  Olympiad."  His  great  achievement,  marking  the  progress  of 
art,  was  this;  "He  first  introduced  the  method  of  expressing  splendor 
in  sky,"  or  chiaroscuro.  The  improved  method  by  which  he  attained 
this  end  is  thus  alluded  to  by  Plutarch,  "Apollodorus  the  painter, 
the  first  of  men  to  discover  the  mixture  of  pigments  and  gradation 
of  shade."    The  lexicographer  Hesychius  mentions  Apollodorus  as 


•  Book  I.,  Chap.  vii.  Sect.  4. 


556  ART   CRITICISM. 

excelling  in  "skiagraphy  in  opposition  to  scenography ;"  skiagraphy 
or  "shadow-painting"  being  the  "contrasted  aspect  of  color,"  in  the 
aspects  of  sky  and  earth,  whose  shades  vary  with  the  changing  light ; 
while  "scenography,"  or  scenic  painting  has  no  sky,  and  no  alterna- 
tion of  light  and  shade.  Though  Apollodorus  was  the  first  to  suc- 
ceed in  chiaroscuro,  or  skiagraphy,  an  artist  named  Taurias,  referred 
to  by  Athenagoras  the  Christian  apologist,  is  said  to  have  first  dis- 
covered the  art  of  skiagraphy  when  attempting  to  paint  a  horse  on 
the  disc  of  the  sun ;  the  vividness  of  the  outline  of  an  object  held 
between  the  eye  and  the  sun,  blending  gradually  though  rapidly  into 
and  yet  in  contrast  with  the  darkness  of  the  shaded  centre,  seeming  to 
have  led  the  artist  of  that  early  day  to  the  special  triumph  in  por- 
traiture in  modern  times  achieved  by  introducing  a  strong  light 
from  the  rear  of  the  central  object,  causing  it  to  stand  out  with  marked 
vividness.  Fuseli  has  some  admirable  suggestions  as  to  Apollodo- 
rus and  his  methods.  Commenting  on  Plutarch's  statement  he  says : 
"He  originated  local  color  and  tone;  not  light  and  shade  in  them- 
selves considered;  but  as  regulated  by  the  medium  which  tinges 
both.  .  .  .  This  was  the  element  in  the  ancient  armoge;  that  imper- 
ceptible transition  which  without  opacity,  confusion  or  hardness, 
unites  local  color,  demi-tint,  shade  and  reflexes."  Two  works  only 
of  this  great  painter  are  specially  mentioned ;  indicating  that  he  like 
Lionardo  da  Vinci  in  later  times,  was  a  philosophic  artist,  never 
satisfied  with  his  work  till  it  was  perfected  to  his  own  ideal,  and  of 
course  executing  few  paintings.  Pliny  mentions  of  him,  "His  is  the 
priest  adoring  and  Ajax  scathed  by  lightning,  which  at  this  day  is 
seen  at  Pergamus ;"  and  he  adds,  "  not  before  him  is  a  painting  of 
any  artist  shown  which  can  rivet  the  eyes."  Another  picture  of 
Apollodorus  is  mentioned  by  the  Scholiast  on  the  Plutus  of  Aristo- 
phanes, whose  subject  was  "the  sons  and  daughters  of  Hercules 
and  Alcmene  interceding  with  the  Athenians  when  in  dread  of 
Eurystheus." 

The  other  leading  spirit  in  this  age  was  Eupompus  the  great  master 
in  teaching^  and  the  analyzer  and  classifier  of  the  schools  of  his  day. 
In  his  history  of  painting  Pliny  makes  the  following  statement  as  to 
him,  "Eupompus  taught  Pamphilus  the  preceptor  of  Apelles;"  these 
three  artists  being  leaders  in  three  successive  ages.  Pliny  adds  to 
this:  "So  great  was  the  authority  of  this  artist  that  he  divided  paint- 
ing into  three  schools ;  whereas  before  him  there  were  two  only,  called 
the  Grecian  and  the  Asiatic.  On  his  account,  he  being  a  native  of 
Sicyon,  the  Grecian  was  by  popular  assent  divided,  so  that  three 


GREEK   ORATORY   AS   INFLUENCING   PAINTING.  557 

were  established ;  the  Ionic,  the  Sicyonic  and  the  Attic."  The  Ionic 
was  of  course  the  same  as  the  old  Asiatic;  the  philosophic  spirit  of 
the  age  of  Eupompus,  having  led  to  specific  instead  of  general  or 
national  names  by  which  to  designate  different  styles  in  art.  It  was 
this  Eupompus  who  taught  Lysippus  the  sculptor,  "that  nature  her- 
self was  to  be  imitated ;  not  any  artist."  So  perfectly  absorbed  was 
Eupompus,  apparently  in  his  work  as  a  teacher  of  others  that  only 
one  work  of  his  is  referred  to  by  any  ancient  author;  Pliny  merely 
mentioning  as  his  w^ork,  "A  victor  bearing  a  palm  in  a  gymnastic 
contest." 

Sect.  5.  The  Perfecting  of  Grecian  Painting  under  Zeuxis  and  Par- 

RHASIUS,  in  the  AGE  OF  GRECIAN  OrATORY. 

Whatever  be  the  decision  of  the  question  whether  aristocratic  or 
popular  goverments  are  most  favorable  to  the  permanent  progress  of 
art  this  fact  is  manifest  in  the  history  of  nations ;  that  the  age  of 
either  the  rise  or  the  decline  of  republican  governments  calls  forth 
the  spirit  of  sublimest  oratory ;  and  this  in  itself  gives  stimulus  and 
elevation  to  the  genius  devoted  to  art.  The  era  of  the  decline  of  the 
Grecian  republics  was  the  day  of  her  ^schines  and  Demosthenes; 
as  the  era  of  the  decline  of  the  Eoraan  republic  was  the  day  of  her 
Cicero.  In  Greece,  especially  at  Athens,  after  the  popular  thirst  for 
philosophic  discussion  became  sated  the  interest  and  taste  of  this  im- 
pulsive people,  constantly  involving  themselves  in  political  difficulty 
yet  living  in  a  world  of  highly  spiritual  thought,  turned  where  their 
necessity  called,  and  became  absorbed  in  the  cultivation  of  oratory 
or  higher  histrionic  art.  The  demands  of  the  times  called  for  practical 
power  in  oratory ;  and  hence  with  men  of  aspiring  genius  it  became 
an  absorbing  pursuit.  Though  in  former  ages  Greece  had  such  ora- 
tors as  Themistocles  and  Pericles,  now,  when  by  diplomacy  and  by 
force  Philip  of  Macedon  was  seeking  to  bring  all  Greece  under  his 
sway,  Athens  alone  had  such  an  array  of  stirring  orators,  that  the 
stern  Philip  could  select  ten  whose  power  with  the  people  was  deemed 
"hostile  to  his  supremacy." 

This  demand  for  practical  oratory  reacted  on  the  old  spirit,  ever 
alive  in  the  Greek,  of  love  for  the  histrionic  art  proper.  The  orators 
of  that  day  and  land  as  of  other  countries,  resorted  to  rhetoricians  and 
actors  of  the  drama,  for  training  in  elocution ;  and  as  able  professors 
in  the  histrionic  art  were  in  great  demand,  they  were  of  course  stimu- 
lated to  increased  personal  culture.  The  age  of  writing  the  drama  is 
often  not  the  age  of  superior  acting;  and  ^schylus,  Sophocles  and 

47* 


558  ART   CRITICISM. 

Euripides  never  saw  their  own  tragedies  worthily  enacted,  as  Sliak- 
speare  lived  long  before  Garrick.  As  the  great  English  dramatist  is 
more  appreciated  two  centuries  after  he  wrote,  so,  two  centuries  after 
their  dramas  immortalized  Greece,  the  orator  Lycurgus  secured  a  de- 
cree of  the  Athenian  people  that  authentic  copies  of  the  tragedies  of 
^schylus,  Sophocles  and  Euripides  should  be  deposited  in  the  public 
archives/  As  the  influence  of  the  dramatic  age  was  felt  on  the  paint- 
ers of  that  era  so  the  double  stimulus  of  the  age  of  oratory  and  of 
the  histrionic  art  might  be  expected  to  lead  to  an  improvement  in  two 
respects  in  painting;  first  to  give  added  culture  to  artists,  and  second 
to  suggest  new  themes  for  the  pencil  and  the  brush.  The  inspiring 
appeal  of  Demosthenes  to  the  works  of  art  wrought  in  the  times  of 
Pericles,  recording  the  deeds  of  the  heroes  of  Marathon,  roused  artists 
as  well  as  warriors ;  and  the  portrait  of  the  orator  Lycurgus  in  the 
glow  of  action  by  Ismenius  was  a  new  theme,  as  inspiring  to  artists  as 
was  Hercules  to  Dsedalus.  The  varied  nationalities  of  the  eminent 
painters  of  this  age,  representing  as  they  did  countries  far  to  the 
north,  east  and  west  of  Greece  proper,  is  an  indication  of  the  wide  ex- 
tent to  which  genius  in  art  was  awakened  in  this  culminating  period. 
The  first  representative  name  among  the  painters  of  this  age,  which 
corresponds  to  that  of  Philip  of  Macedon,  is  Pamphilus,  the  scientific 
teacher  of  painting  in  his  day.  Art  never  approaches  perfection  till 
thorough  science  is  applied  to  its  details ;  genius  fails  unless  it  finds 
in  scientific  study  a  foundation  on  which  surely  and  securely  to  rear 
its  monuments.  The  age  was  that  of  Athens  when  the  theoretical 
philosophy  of  Plato  was  meeting  the  practical  logic  of  Aristotle  of 
Macedon.  Pamphilus  himself  was  a  Macedonian,  and  engaged  in 
teaching  art  while  Aristotle  was  a  youth ;  and  Pliny  states  that  he 
was  "first  in  the  art  of  painting  to  be  learned  in  all  that  liberal  art, 
especially  in  the  science  of  numbers  and  of  geometric  measurements ; 
without  which  he  declared  that  art  could  not  be  perfected."  He 
himself  was  taught  by  Eupompus;  and  in  his  own  works  as  also  in 
his  pupils  gave  the  highest  dignity  to  the  profession  of  the  artist. 
The  most  eminent  painters  that  ever  arose  in  Greece  w^ere  his  pupils; 
and  the  price  of  tuition  which  he  demanded  and  received  has  per- 
haps never  had  a  parallel  in  any  school  of  any  kind.  Pliny  says 
that,  "he  taught  no  one  for  less  than  a  talent,"  a  sum  over  $1000; 
"nor  for  a  term  less  than  ten  years;  which  price,"  adds  Pliny, 
"  Apelles  and  Melanthius  gave."     Convinced  that  only  a  people  edu- 


'  Plutarch  vi.  Orat.  x. 


ZEUXIS   THE   PAINTER  OF  STILL   LIFE.  569 

cated  in  art  can  be  expected  to  give  it  an  appreciative  support,  Pam- 
phil'is  secured  the  introduction  of  the  study  of  painting  in  its  ele- 
mentary principles,  into  common  school  education;  as  Eumolpus 
of  Sicyon,  nearly  two  centuries  earlier,  had  succeeded  in  introducing 
the  study  of  drawing  and  moulding.  Pliny  states  that  "by  his  influ- 
ence the  plan  was  effected,  first  at  Sicyon  then  in  all  Greece,  that  boys 
of  free  birth  should  be  taught  before  all  things  complete  drawing, 
including  painting  on  box-wood ;"  a  wood  selected,  as  the  scholiasts 
say,  on  account  of  its  combined  lightness  and  closeness  of  texture, 
which  allows  the  color  laid  upon  to  soak  but  little  into  its  veins,  and 
prevents  them  from  spreading  in  their  lines.  Pliny  adds :  "  Pamphilus 
caused  that  the  art  should  be  received  into  the  first  rank  of  liberal 
arts." 

The  second  great  master  of  this  age  was  Zeuxis.  The  spread  of 
the  spirit  of  art  is  indicated  by  the  fact  that  he  was  from  the  town 
of  Heraclea  in  Magna  Grsecia,  the  Grecian  province  in  Italy.  Plis 
connection  as  a  link  to  the  former  age  is  indicated  by  Pliny's  men- 
tion, "  After  Apollodorus  Zeuxis  entered  the  doors  of  art  now  open." 
The  high  appreciation  he  received  even  from  rivals  is  indicated  by 
Pliny's  notice,  "Upon  him  Apollodorus  made  the  verses,  which  he 
wrote  over  one  of  his  pictures,  'That  art  wrested  from  his  own  do- 
minion, Zeuxis  had  appropriated  to  himself.'  "  His  celebrated  works 
whose  fame  led  to  such  pleasant  episodes  in  the  epic  history  of  an- 
cient painters  indicate  that  he  excelled  in  still  life;  such  as  fruit, 
domestic  scenes  and  quiet  expression.  Pliny  relates  the  following 
incidents;  "Parrhasius  is  said  to  have  engaged  in  a  contest  with 
Zeuxis ;  and  when  the  latter  had  exhibited  grapes  painted  with  so 
great  success  that  the  birds,  alighted  upon  the  picture,  the  former 
exhibited  a  curtain,  painted  with  such  truth,  that  Zeuxis,  inflated  with 
the  verdict  rendered  by  the  birds,  persisted  that  the  curtain  should 
be  at  length  removed  and  the  picture  shown;  when,  learning  his 
error,  he  yielded  the  palm  with  disingenuous  modesty,  since  he  had 
deceived  the  birds,  but  Parrhasius  the  artist  himself"  Zeuxis  is  said 
afterwards  to  have  painted  a  boy  bearing  grapes ;  upon  which  when 
a  bird  alighted,  with  his  peculiar  disingenuousness  he  advanced 
excited  up  to  his  work,  and  said,  "The  grapes  I  painted  better  than 
the  boy;  for  if  I  had  done  justice  to  this  part  of  the  work  the  bird 
ought  to  have  been  afraid."  The  third  incident  mentioned  by  Pliny, 
coupled  with  the  counter  criticism  of  Quinctilian,  reveals  a  new  ele- 
ment of  excellence  in  Zeuxis  and  his  method  of  attaining  it.  "Al- 
though," says  Pliny,  "he  gave  undue  size  to  heads  and  joints,  in 


560  ART  CRITICISM. 

other  respects  so  great  was  his  care,  that,  when  about  to  make  a 
picture  for  the  people  of  Agrigentum,  which  they  designed  to  devote 
to  the  temple  of  Juno  at  Lacinia,  he  inspected  the  unmarried  girls 
of  their  wide  region,  and  selected  five,  that  whatsoever  was  most 
admirable  in  each  he  might  represent  in  the  picture."  This  hinted 
defect,  in  the  estimation  of  Pliny,  is  spoken  of  as  an  excellence  by 
Quinctilian;  who  says;  "Zeuxis  gave  more  fullness  to  the  members 
of  the  body;  preferring  it  broader  and  more  close-set;  and,  as  it  is 
thought,  he  followed  Homer  in  this,  to  whom  the  most  robust  form, 
even  in  females  was  favorite."  Artists  and  art-critics  everywhere 
would  differ,  as  did  the  ancients,  in  this  peculiar  field  of  individual 
preference.  The  extravagant  habits  of  living,  attributed  to  Zeuxis 
by  Pliny,  is  an  indication  of  the  excessive  prices,  which,  at  this  age 
of  the  perfection  of  painting,  the  works  of  a  master  would  command. 
Pliny  relates,  "  He  acquired  so  great  wealth  that  in  ostentatious  dis- 
play of  it  at  the  Olympic  games  he  paraded  his  own  name  in  gold 
letters  on  the  squares  of  his  mantle.  Afterwards  he  determined  to 
donate  his  works,  because,  as  he  said,  they  could  not  be  exchanged  for 
any  price  sufiiciently  worthy;  as  his  Alcmeua  to  the  people  of  Agri- 
gentum, his  Pan  to  Archelaus."  Two  eflforts  of  his  at  excellence  are 
hinted  in  Pliny's  brief  expressions,  "He  made  a  Penelope  in  whom 
he  seems  to  have  portrayed  the  moral  virtues;  also  an  athlete." 
"He  painted  also  monochromata  in  white."  The  first  of  these  state- 
ments indicates  that  ideals  of  two  characters  most  opposite  were 
attempted  by  his  genius.  The  latter,  the  attempt  to  give  the  promi-. 
nent  light  of  his  picture  in  pure  white,  is  a  rare  eflfect  studied  by  able 
modern  artists.  His  remark  to  Agatharcus,  a  brother  artist,  cited 
below,  is  an  indication  of  the  perhaps  excessive  importance  which  he 
attached  to  labor  bestowed  on  the  finish  of  paintings. 

The  next  great  master  of  this  age  is  Parrhasius;  whose  power  in 
tragic  expression  has  made  his  productions  the  theme  of  impassioned 
eulogy  in  his  own  and  other  ages.  Pliny,  who  personally  studied 
and  admired  specimens  of  his  work  preserved  in  his  day  at  Rome, 
says  of  him;  "Parrhasius  established  many  principles  in  art."  "He 
first  gave  symmetry  in  painting,  liveliness  of  expression,  elegance  to 
the  hair,  grace  to  the  mouth ;  by  the  confession  of  artists  having  won 
the  palm  in  terminating  lines.  This  is  the  highest  perfection  in 
painting.  For,  to  paint  bodies  and  the  central  parts  of  objects  is 
indeed  a  great  work;  but  one  in  which  many  have  attained  emi- 
nence. To  execute  the  extremities  of  figures,  and  to  round  in  the 
terminal  line,  is  rarely  discovered  in  the  success  of  art.     For  the 


PARRHASIUS,   THE  PAINTER   OF   PASSION.  561 

extremity  itself  ought  to  enfold  itself;  and  so  to  terminate  that  it 
shall  project  other  parts  behind  itself,  and  also  show  what  is  con- 
cealed. This  successful  attainment  Antigonus  and  Xenocrates,  who 
wrote  upon  Paintings,  concede  to  him;  frankly  commending  also, 
not  simply  admitting,  many  other  excellencies  of  his."  This  rare 
attainment  of  so  causing  the  outline  of  a  figure  to  fade  into  the 
shade  behind  that  it  seems  not  to  terminate  at  all,  but  to  be  rounding 
back  still  into  deeper  shade  behind,  and  thus  to  be  not  a  flat  outline 
but  a  solid  projecting  body,  necessarily  precedes  the  higher  attain- 
ment of  Apelles  in  the  apparent  projection  before  the  canvas  of  a 
limb  foreshortened.  Pliny  adds,  indicating  how  excellences  are  often 
carried  to  excess ;  "  Nevertheless  he  seemed  to  fall  below  himself  in 
bringing  out  the  central  parts  of  his  figures." 

Parrhasius  became,  as  Euphranor  in  sculpture,  a  maste?  model 
and  authority  in  painting.  Pliny  states,  "Specimens  of  his  drawings 
are  extant  on  boards  and  parchments  from  which  artists  are  said  to 
derive  advantage."  Quinctilian  mentions,  "Parrhasius  was  so  com- 
prehensive in  every. respect  that  he  may  be  called  the  founder  of 
laws ;  because  the  images  of  gods  and  of  heroes  as  they  are  handed 
down  from  him,  other  artists,  as  if  by  necessity,  follow."  Besides 
this  mastery  in  detail,  Parrhasius  excelled  in  combination ;  and  was 
especially  a  leader  in  the  impassioned  style.  "He  painted,"  Pliny 
relates,  "an  assembly  of  the  Athenians,  with  a  wonderfully  skilful 
device ;  for  he  was  bound  to  show  varied  expressions,  the  angry  man, 
the  unjust,  the  inconstant,  as  well  as  the  yielding,  the  humane,  the 
sympathizing,  the  high-minded,  the  conceited,  the  cringing,  the  over- 
bearing, the  shrinking,  and  all  these  expressions  equally  vivid." 
"  He  painted  also  two  boys,  in  which  the  security  and  simplicity  of 
that  age  is  beheld."  "Two  of  his  paintings  most  noted  are,  an 
armed  man  in  the  contest  so  exhausted  with  running  that  he  seems 
to  sweat,  and  another  laying  off  his  armor  who  seems  to  pant." 

The  faults  of  character  shown  by  Parrhasius,  common  to  men  of 
his  genius,  are  fully  stated  by  Pliny,  "He  was  an  artist  fruitful  in 
genius;  but  one  than  whom  no  one  used  his  eminence  in  art  with 
more  arrogance.  For  he  appropriated  to  himself  titles ;  styling  him- 
self 'Delicate  liver,'  declaring  himself  'Prince  in  Art,'  and  that 
'  Art  was  consummated  by  himself  Above  all,  he  boasted  that  he 
originated  from  the  stock  of  Apollo;  and  that  the  Hercules  at 
Lindus,  as  painted  by  him,  was  as  he  had  often  seen  him  in  his  sleep." 
That  he  had  a  keen  wit  under  cover  of  this  arrogance  is  seen  in  this 
added  statement  of  Pliny.     "  In  accordance  with  this  spirit,  when  he 

3  V 


662  ART  CRITICISM. 

had  been  by  a  large  vote  outdone  by  Timanthes  of  Samos  in  his 
'  Ajax  and  the  Judgment  of  the  Armed  Men/  he  said  that  in  the  name 
of  Ajax  he  submitted  reluctantly  to  the  idea  that  the  hero  should 
a  second  time  be  humiliated  by  an  unworthy  man."  Like  too  many 
men  of  genius  Parrhasius  gave  way  to  degrading  appetites  and  un- 
manly passions ;  and  his  example  was  pernicious.  Pliny  states  "  He 
painted  also  libidinous  scenes  on  small  tablets,  recreating  himself  by 
lewd  sportive  pieces  of  this  class."  Four  centuries  afterwards  these 
licentious  works  were  exerting  their  corrupting  influence.  Pliny 
adds,  "He  painted  also  Archigalla;  which  painting  Tiberius  the 
Emperor  so  fell  in  love  with,  as  Decius  Eculeo  states,  that  he  bought 
it  for  sixty  sestertia,  and  kept  it  in  his  bed  chamber."  Archigalla 
was  a  high-priestess  of  Cybele ;  and  the  price  paid  was  over  $2,000. 
Suetomus,  the  Roman  historian  mentions,  "Tiberius  Csesar  when  a 
picture  of  Parrhasius,  in  which  Atalauta  is  lustfully  embraced  by 
Meleagro,  was  sent  to  him  with  the  statement  that  if  he  were  not 
pleased  with  the  subject  the  vender  could  receive  ten  sestertia  for  it, 
he  not  only  chose  to  keep  it,  but  had  it  hung  up  in  his  bed-chamber." 
Diseased  sensual  appetite  begets,  as  the  Christian  Apostle  writing  to 
the  Romans  showed,  inhuman  passion  in  the  soul.  Marcus  Annseus 
Seneca,  father  of  the  moralist,  in  his  judicial  Controversies,  cites  this 
instance  of  the  voice  of  humanity  drowned  by  fiend-like  craving  for 
fame;  "Parrhasius  the  Athenian  painter,  when  Philip  sold  the  cap- 
tured Olynthians,  bought  one  old  man  among  them,  brought  him  to 
Athens,  tortured  him  on  the  rack,  and  from  him  as  a  model  painted 
Prometheus.  The  old  Olynthian  died  under  the  torture;  the  artist 
deposited  the  picture  in  the  temple  of  Minerva;  and  he  is  accused 
of  having  thus  defamed  religion." 

The  third  great  master  of  this  age  is  Euphranor ;  as  unlike  to  his 
brother  and  rival  artists  of  the  same  age  in  his  peculiar  and  charac- 
teristic excellence  as  he  was  in  the  land  of  his  nativity.  He  was  a 
native  of  the  Isthmus,  a  Greek  of  the  Greeks,  nursed  on  the  neck 
of  land  between  Corinth  and  Athens.  His  rare  excellence  was  his 
richness  of  color ;  and  especially  the  softness  and  naturalness  of  his 
flesh-colors.  The  leader  of  his  age  in  symmetry  of  form  as  a  sculp- 
tor, he  added  the  rarest  taste  and  skill  in  the  admixture  of  pigments ;  ; 
writing  a  book  on  "  Symmetry "  which  became  a  standard  authority 
among  sculptors,  and  adding  one  on  "Colors"  equally  authoritative 
with  painters.  Referring  to  his  skill  in  encaustic,  which  was  the 
richest  coloring,  Pliny  says,  "After  Pausias  far  before  all  others  Eu- 
phranor the  Isthmian  was  eminent;"  Pausias  belonging  to  the  age 


EUPHRANOR  THE  SCHOLAR  AND  TIMANTHES  SUG.  PAINTER.    563 

subsequent  to  that  of  Euphranor.  His  power  both  as  sculptor  and 
painter  grew  out  of  the  union  of  these  two  qualities;  he  was  an  artist 
born  and  a  great  worker.  Pliny  says,  "He  was  quick  to  learn,  and 
laborious  above  all  rivals  in  each  art."  Pliny,  Plutarch  and  others 
give  criticisms  on  several  of  his  paintings.  Of  his  Theseus,  both 
relate,  "  He  deemed  it  superior  to  that  of  Parrhasius ;  and  he  said 
that  of  Parrhasius  was  rose-color,  but  his  own  was  real  flesh."  Of 
his  "Cavalry  Battle  in  Mantanea"  Plutarch  remarks:  "The  be- 
holder is  able  as  if  present  to  see  in  the  representation  the  very 
description  of  the  battle  and  the  struggle,  full  of  force  and  passion 
and  spirit."  In  his  Twelve  Deities  Euphranor  labored  in  conception, 
historians  hint,  in  reaching  an  idea  of  Jove  akin  to  that  of  Lionardo 
in  giving  form  to  his  Jesus  in  the  Last  Supper.  Valerius  Maximus 
says  of  it :  "  When  Euphranor  would  paint  the  Twelve  Deities  he  set 
forth  Neptune  in  the  most  transcendent  colors  of  majesty  possible; 
having  still  to  represent  Jove  yet  more  august.  But  every  power  of 
thought  being  exhausted  upon  the  superior  work  his  after  efforts  were 
not  able  to  rise  to  the  point  which  he  sought  to  attain."  Eustathius 
relates  of  the  same :  "  The  historic  fact  is  preserved  that  Euphranor 
painting  at  Athens  the  Twelve  gods,  and  being  in  doubt  after  what 
archetype  he  should  picture  Jove  passed  by  a  school,  and  hearing 
these  words,  *  Then  ambrosial  locks,'  etc.,  he  said  that  now  he  had  the 
archetype,  and  going  away  he  painted  it."  Since  the  same  incident 
is  related  of  Phidias,  it  seems  to  be  a  striking  exhibition  of  the  resort 
of  artists  to  poets  to  aid  their  conceptions.  Lucian  mentions  the 
portrait  of  Juno  in  the  same  picture  as  specially  marked  in  the  color- 
ing of  her  hair.  All  these  allusions  indicate  that  Euphranor  was 
master  in  the  art  of  coloring  in  his  day. 

Several  other  artists  of  this  era  had  characteristic  excellences 
which  in  any  ordinary  age  would  have  given  them  the  post  of  leaders 
in  art.  A  single  picture  of  Timanthes,  an  artist  of  Sicyon,  seems  to 
have  called  forth  rare  eulogy  in  his  own  and  later  ages.  Cicero, 
Valerius  Maximus,  Quinctilian  and  Pliny  all  describe  it  in  much  the 
same  words.  Cicero  quotes  it  in  his  De  Oratore  as  an  illustration, 
and  Quinctilian  alludes  to  it  as  confirming  a  rhetorical  principle. 
The  scene  is  that  pictured  in  Euripides,  when  Agamemnon,  who  had 
ofiended  Diana,  is  told  by  the  soothsayers  *that  he  must  sacrifice  his 
daughter  Iphigenia  to  the  goddess,  otherwise  favorable  winds  would 
not  be  given;'  and  when  Calchas  the  priest  and  Ulysses  the  stern 
veteran  are  carrying  out  the  requirement  to  the  grief  of  the  uncle 
and  the  anguish  of  the  father.    Eustathius  thinks  that  the  artist  was 


564  ART  CEITICISM. 

directed  to  the  mode  of  representing  Agamemnon's  grief  by  the 
picture  Homer  gives  of  the  scene  of  sorrow  at  Priam's  Court  in 
Troy,  when  news  of  the  death  of  Hector  came;  the  sons  of  the  aged 
monarch  bathed  in  tears  at  their  brother's  sad  fall,  and  the  hoary 
king  with  his  face  wrapped  in  his  mantle  hiding  his  anguish.  Quinc- 
tilian's  words  are,  "  In  elaborating  an  oration  there  are  things  which 
either  ought  not  to  be  presented  plainly,  or  cannot  on  account  of  their 
dignity  be  expressed.  Thus  Timanthes,  when  in  his  Immolation  of 
Iphigenia  he  had  painted  Chalcas  sad,  Ulysses  more  sad,  and  had 
added  to  Menelaus  the  highest  expression  which  art  could  effect,  the 
range  of  human  affections  being  exhausted,  not  finding  in  what 
worthy  manner  he  could  express  the  countenance  of  the  father,  he 
veiled  his  head  and  left  each  beholder  to  form  his  own  conception 
of  it."  All  accounts  agree  that  Timanthes  was  unrivalled  as  a  sug- 
gestive artist ;  Pliny  stating,  "  In  the  works  of  this  artist  alone  there 
is  always  understood  more  than  is  painted ;  and,  while  his  art  is  of 
the  highest  order,  his  genius  is  always  beyond  his  art."  As  a  specimen 
of  this  quality,  in  addition  to  his  Iphigenia,  Pliny  cites  his  "Sleeping 
Cyclops,  a  very  small  picture ;  in  which,  seeking  thus  to  express  the 
size  of  the  Cyclops  he  painted  Satyrs  measuring  his  thumb  with  a 
canestalk."  Aspiring  to  make  one  work  that  should  not  be  allowed  to 
die,  "  he  painted  also  the  Heroes,  as  the  ideal  of  a  most  perfect  work ; 
in  art  itself  embodying  the  powers  of  the  art  of  painting;  which 
work  is  now  in  the  temple  of  Peace  at  Eome." 

Yet  another  eminent  painter  of  this  age,  representing  another  state 
of  Greece,  was  Nicomachus  of  Thebes ;  whose  characteristic  was  the 
ease  and  rapidity  with  which  he  finished  his  works.  Pliny,  after 
stating  that  Nicomachus  must  be  enumerated  among  the  able  pain- 
ters of  his  day,  and  having  mentioned  several  of  his  finished  works, 
gives  the  following  instance  of  the  celerity  of  his  work:  "No  one  was 
more  rapid  in  this  art.  For  it  is  said  that  when  he  had  contracted 
with  Aristratus  the  ruler  of  the  Sicyonians  that  a  monument  which 
he  was  making  for  the  poet  Telestes  should  be  painted  upon  a  day 
fixed,  and  he  had  come  not  much  before  the  time,  the  monarch  being 
incensed  and  demanding  the  forfeit-money,  he  finished  it  in  a  few 
days  with  wonderful  celerity  and  skill."  Vitruvius  who  wrote  some 
years  before  Pliny,  seems  to  have  formed  a  less  favorable  estimate 
of  Nicomachus  as  an  artist ;  mentioning  him  among  the  list  of  those 
"to  whom  neither  industry  nor  enthusiasm  in  art  nor  genius  were 
wanting;  but  either  want  of  business  tact  or  the  inadequacy  of  their 
fortune  or  an  excess  in  ambition  to  contend  for  superiority  in  con- 


INFERIOR   PAINTING   AND   TINTING  OF   STATUARY.        565 

flicting  fields  prevented  from  excelling."  Stobseus  has  recorded  a 
caustic  response  of  Nicomaclius  which  showed  he  was  not  lacking  in 
the  spirit  of  a  true  artist,  "  It  is  said  that  Nicomachus  replied  to  an 
ignorant  man  who  said  that  the  Helen  of  Zeuxis  did  not  appear  to 
him  beautiful,  'Take  my  eyes  and  she  would  appear  a  goddess  to 
you.'  "  Pliny  mentions  him  as  having  used  Eretrian  ochre  in  shad- 
ing. 

Among  minor  artists  of  this  age  several  deserve  notice.  Agatharcus, 
a  man  of  craven  spirit  and  abused  by  Alcibiades,  had  a  low  estimate 
of  labor.  Plutarch  states,  "Agatharcus  the  painter  laying  great 
stress  on  his  rapid  and  ready  execution  of  figures,  Zeuxis  hearing 
him,  said,  'I  spend  much  time  in  my  work.'  "  Another  artist  of  more 
merit,  was  Androcydes;  who  excelled  in  animals,  as  horses,  and  suc- 
ceeded in  representing  a  Sea  Deity  and  fish  half  hid  in  the  water. 
Plutarch  mentions  that  Androcydes,  having  painted  a  Cavalry  Fight 
in  which  Epaminondas  distinguished  himself  fighting  with  the  The- 
bans  before  Cadmsea,  a  certain  Menecleidas  prevailed  on  him  to  in- 
troduce instead  of  that  of  Epaminondas  the  name  of  Choron  who 
at  a  later  day  routed  the  Spartans  at  Platsea;  so  that  afterwards 
the  painting  was  called  "  The  Cavalry  Fight  near  Platsea ;"  a  circum- 
stance indicating  that  the  historical  paintings  of  the  Greeks  intro- 
duced very  little  landscape,  otherwise  such  a  transfer  of  scene  would 
have  been  impossible.  Another  artist  of  ability  was  Cydias  "whose 
picture  of  The  Argonauts  Hortensius  the  orator  bought  for  144  ses- 
tertia  (more  than  $5000)  and  built  a  gallery  for  it  in  his  Tusculan 
villa."  Theophrastus'  mention  of  him  is :  "  There  is  also  a  vermilion 
from  burned  ochre,  but  not  so  good,  the  discovery  of  Cydias ;  for  he 
got  the  idea  of  it,  it  is  said,  when  at  the  burning  of  an  inn  he  saw 
the  yellow  earth  half  burned  and  reddened."  In  the  same  age  Nicias 
decorated  the  statues  of  Praxiteles;  of  whom  Pliny  says,  "This  is 
the  Nicias  concerning  whom  Praxiteles  spoke,  when,  being  asked 
which  of  his  own  works  in  marble  he  most  approved,  he  replied, 
'Those  to  which  Nicias  has  given  his  touch;'  so  much  did  he  attrib- 
ute to  his  shade-tint."  Here  also  is  to  be  mentioned  PhilochareSy 
supposed  to  be  the  artist-brother  of  the  orator  ^Eschines  to  whom  De- 
mosthenes refers ;  one  of  whose  pictures  Pliny  mentions  as  placed  by 
the  Roman  emperor  Augustus  some  three  hundred  years  later  in  the 
Senate  House  built  by  him  in  the  Forum ;  which  picture  Pliny  says 
was  admired  chiefly  on  account  of  the  likeness  of  a  young  son,  repre- 
sented in  it,  to  his  father  now  an  old  man."     Demosthenes  alludes 

48 


566  ART   CRITICISM. 

derisively  to  this  brother  of  -^schines  as  "a  decorator  of  alabaster- 
boxes  and  kettle-drums." 

This  age  may  be  closed  with  the  mention  of  several  teachers  of  the 
art  of  painting  whose  chief  merit  seems  to  have  been  that  they  were 
instructors  of  artists  that  became  eminent  in  the  next  age.  Among 
these  are  Euxenides,  mentioned  by  Pliny  as  the  instructor  of  Aristides ; 
Brietes  the  father  and  first  teacher  of  Pausias ;  and  Otesidemus  the 
teacher  of  Autiphilus,  who  also  executed  two  celebrated  paintings, 
mentioned  by  Pliny,  The  Capture  of  CEchalia,  and  Laodamia. 

Sect,  6.  The  Culminating  Era  of  Grecian  Painting,  under  its 
Greatest  Masters  Apelles  and  Protogenes,  in  the  age  of  the 
Political  Unity  of  Greece  under  Alexander  the  Great. 

As  the  age  of  danger  to  the  Athenian  Eepublic  called  forth  ora- 
tors, so  the  era  of  the  complete  subjection  of  all  the  States  of  Greece 
under  one  head,  the  son  of  that  Philip  against  whom  the  orators  of 
Athens  thundered,  called  out  quiet  but  deep  thinkers,  among  whom 
Aristotle  was  chief,  on  the  science  of  human  government.  Two 
causes,  that  were  aside  from  the  natural  advance  art  makes  when  a 
new  generation  may  begin  where  the  old  left  off,  were  direct  aids  to 
this  advance.  The  power  of  the  northern  States  of  Greece,  extended 
southward,  brought  the  fresh  and  vigorous  genius  of  Macedon  into 
competition  with  the  cultured  refinement  of  Athens,  Sicyon  and 
Corinth ;  the  previous  age  that  of  Philip  had  called  out  most  eminent 
painters  from  almost  every  branch  of  the  Greek  family;  and  it  is 
not  strange  that  when  not  only  the  civil  head  was  an  energetic  Mace- 
donian but  also  the  great  practical  teachers  both  in  science  and  art, 
Aristotle  and  Pamphilus,  were  of  the  same  nation,  that  the  vigor  of 
the  northern  mind,  refined  by  southern  culture,  should  bring  forth 
the  greatest  possible  masters  in  art.  Yet  again  the  comprehensive 
ambition  of  the  young  Alexander,  not  only  to  be  first  of  all  the 
Grecian  race  as  a  military  leader,  but  also  as  a  fosterer  of  science 
and  art,  brought  all  the  immense  resources  of  his  accumulated  treas- 
ures gathered  in  his  Asiatic  campaigns  to  serve  as  aids  to  the  advance 
of  the  quiet  artist  at  home.  This  ambition  had  evidently  been  in- 
spired in  the  young  hero  not  simply  by  his  teacher,  Aristotle  the 
great  writer  on  Philosophy,  Natural  History,  Logic,  Ehetoric,  Poetry, 
Ethics  and  Politics;  but  also  by  the  aspiration  to  show  himself 
worthy  to  have  such  a  city  as  Athens  in  all  its  glory  brought  under 
his  sway. 

A  galaxy  of  illustrious  men  mentioned  together  by  Pliny  as  con- 


FEATURES  OF  GRECIAN  PAINTING  IN  THE  CLIMACTIC  AGE.    567 

iiected  with  Alexander  the  Great,  masters  in  four  departments  of  art, 
set  forth  the  glory  of  culminating  Grecian  genius.  There  was  Dinoc- 
rates,  the  Macedonian  architect,  the  builder  of  the  magnificent  tem- 
ple of  Diana  at  Ephesus  and  the  planner  of  the  monarch's  new 
city  of  Alexandria;  Lysippus,  the  leader  in  two  or  three  of  the 
most  diversified  branches  of  sculpture;  Pyrgoteles,  the  most  ex- 
quisite engraver  on  precious  stones  of  that  or  any  age;  and  finally 
Apelles,  the  painter  so  unrivaled  for  ages  that  painting  was  called 
"The  Apellean  Art;"  while  the  centre  of  this  galaxy  was  not  only 
the  greatest  of  military  heroes  and  monarch  of  the  grandest  of 
empires,  but  also  an  appreciative  arbiter  of  the  destinies  of  an  age 
grander  in  its  climactic  science,  philosophy,  literature  and  art  than 
the  world  had  ever  seen.  Pliny  thus  mentions  this  group :  "  Dinocra- 
tes  laid  out  Alexandria  when  Alexander  was  founding  it  in  Egypt; 
and  this  same  Emperor  issued  an  edict  that  no  other  than  Apelles 
should  paint  himself;  none  but  Pyrgoteles  engrave  his  likeness, 
and  none  but  Lysippus  cast  his  form  in  bronze;  which  arts  these 
men  have  made  illustrious  by  very  many  specimens."  Plutarch, 
Valerius  Maximus,  Horace  and  Apuleius  all  echo  the  praise  of  this 
age ;  the  latter  giving  the  artistic  statement,  "  Alexander  issued  an 
edict  to  the  whole  world,  then  his  own,  that  no  one  with  temerity 
should  copy  tke  image  of  the  King  in  bronze,  color,  or  relief;  but 
that  often  Lysippus,  and  he  alone,  should  cast  it  in  bronze,  Apelles, 
and  he  alone,  should  delineate  it  in  colors,  and  Pyrgoteles,  and  he 
alone,  should  carve  it  in  relief."  It  was  not  surprising  that  this 
should  be  the  era  of  culminating  perfection  in  the  art  of  arts. 

The  special  features  of  the  perfection  given  to  painting  in  this  era 
are  varied  in  detail,  and  comprehensive  when  combined.  The  science 
of  the  art,  its  theoretical  principles,  were  advanced  to  completeness, 
in  the  application  of  rigid  mathematical  formulas  to  dimensions;  in 
the  study  of  nature  even  in  those  minute  details  known  only  to  the 
common  people  in  their  several  fields  of  observation;  and  in  the 
analysis  and  synthesis  of  pigments  and  vehicles,  through  which  the 
colorist  must  accomplish  the  effects  which  he  has  observed  or  conceived. 
This  scientific  study  resulted  in  the  most  perfect  delineation  of  forms, 
already  attained  in  sculpture;  painting  now  exhibiting  true  propor- 
tion or  the  just  intermeasurement  of  parts,  symmetry  or  their  har- 
monious conjunction,  perspective  or  the  due  diminution  in  size  of 
nearer  and  more  distant  figures,  and  foreshortening  or  the  just  taper 
of  retreating  portions  of  figures  due  to  increasing  distance.  In  the 
higher  effects  due  to  color,  there  was  a  similar  perfection ;  in  the  gra- 


I 


668  ART   CRITICISM. 

dation  of  light  and  shade,  by  which  prominent  figures,  as  in  portraits, 
are  made  to  stand  out  in  relief  from  their  back-ground ;  in  the  alter- 
nation, as  well  as  gradation  of  lights  and  shades,  by  which  portions 
of  the  bodies  either  of  animals  or  men  are  made  to  project  their  entire 
figures  before  the  canvas;  and  in  the  atmospheric  tinge  produced  by 
distance,  including  aerial  perspective  and  chiaroscuro,  which  makes 
landscape  and  clouds  on  the  painted  wall  true  to  their  aspects  in  na- 
ture. In  vehicles  giving  richness  of  hues  permanence  and  polish  in 
pigments,  there  was  a  kindred  advance;  the  mellow  flesh  tints  that 
belong  to  the  grace  of  chasteness  in  woman,  and  the  luxurious  tints 
of  elegance  that  deck  the  captivating  contour  of  the  courtesan,  be- 
ing attained  by  wax  pigments  and  encaustic  manipulation;  while 
through  improved  materials  and  methods  in  tempera,  the  broad  and 
open  expanse  of  frescoed  walls  was  made  instinct  with  reality  and 
life.  Most  of  all  design  in  painting,  its  special  field,  seems  in  this 
age  to  have  reached  a  worthy  maturity;  for  though  landscape  paint- 
ing, as  it  is  known  in  modern  days,  was  not  practiced  by  the  Greek 
masters,  yet  in  this  era  the  grouping  of  historical  subjects  and  the 
composition  of  mythological  scenes  was  made  a  chief  study;  while 
the  power  of  expression,  indicating  by  the  features  the  passions  of 
men  and  women,  and  the  yet  higher  power  of  ideal  portrait  painting, 
the  making  of  the  correct  likeness  of  a  living  person  yet  giving  to  it 
any  semblance  of  majesty  or  enthusiasm  desired  by  the  artist,  was 
the  acme  of  art  attained  by  the  colorists  of  this  age.  As  an  earnest 
of  this  latter  climactic  attainment,  painting  began  to  dispute  with 
sculpture  the  palm  of  superiority  in  the  "Beautiful  Style ;"  rivaling 
its  models  in  form,  and  compelling  the  sculptor,  as  we  have  seen,  t 
attempt  the  doubtful  expedient  of  resort  to  tinted  statuary  lest  h 
should  be  outdone  by  the  painter's  more  comprehensive  art.  Th 
preferred  models  of  the  painter,  as  of  the  sculptor,  now  became  youtH 
and  woman ;  youth,  because  its  contour  and  hue  are  the  every  when 
recognized  perfection  of  beauty,  to  perpetuate  which  the  skill  of 
science  and  the  dreams  of  poets  have  been  invoked  in  efforts  success^ 
ful  or  vain ;  woman,  because,  as  we  have  observed,  in  her  the  inimita-« 
ble  art  of  creative  skill  has  embodied  and  perpetuated  this  age  of 
climactic  loveliness.* 

The  great  master  of  this  era,  as  of  all  the  history  of  Greciai 
painting,  was  Apelles;  deservedly  so  called  because  great  in  every^ 
sense  as  an  artist,  thoroughly  scientific  in  principle,  laborious  and; 


Book  i.,  ch.  vii.  sect.  1. 


APELLES;   HIS   CHABACTER   AND   METHODS.  569 

ready  to  learn  from  every  possible  source,  and  eminent  in  almost 
every  department  of  his  art.  A  native  of  the  island  of  Coos,  on  the 
coast  of  Asia  Minor  south  of  Ephesus,  he  seems  to  have  gone  first  to 
that  city,  then  to  Sicyon  in  Greece,  as  a  student  of  art;  while  much 
of  his  mature  life  was  spent  in  Macedon  in  the  employ  of  Alexander 
the  Great.  His  first  instructor  was  Ephorus  the  Ephesian;  then 
Pamphilus  of  Macedon  the  great  teacher  of  the  former  age.  Melan- 
thius,  a  fellow-pupil,  and  Arcesilaus  are  also  mentioned  as  his  instruc- 
tors ;  Apelles,  like  every  man  complete  in  his  profession  being  ready 
to  learn  from  any  and  every  one  who  could  teach  him  anything  in 
his  art. 

Two  classes  of  causes  conspired  to  the  development  and  superiority 
of  Apelles ;  his  faithful  application  of  his  native  powers  to  the  attain- 
ment of  perfection,  without  which  genius  is  a  disadvantage  because 
it  encourages  inattention ;  and  the  new  and  independent  eflTorts  which 
his  unassuming  condescension  to  all  who  could  teach  him  enabled 
him  to  accumulate  and  combine.  He  united  studiousness  in  rules 
with  industry  in  practice;  disingenuousness  towards  rivals  and  intel- 
ligent deference  to  popular  judgment  with  firm  resistance  of  servility 
to  wrong  opinion  even  when  coming  from  a  king.  As  specimens  of 
the  diligence  of  Apelles,  Pliny  states,  "He  singly  transmitted  to  his 
successors  more  improvements  in  painting  than  all  other  artists  com- 
bined ;  he  also  brought  together  in  published  volumes  what  might 
serve  for  instruction  in  its  theory."  "  He  had  the  invariable  custom 
of  never  spending  a  day  so  occupied  that  he  could  not  practice  his 
art  by  drawing  a  line ;  which  habit  of  his  passed  into  a  proverb ;" 
the  proverb  referred  to  by  Pliny  being  "Nulla  dies  sine  linea." 
Commending,  yet  criticising  the  excess  of  labor  in  Protogenes'  method, 
"he  said  that  all  his  own  works  were  equal  or  superior  to  those  of 
Protogenes,  only  in  this;  that  he  knew  when  to  take  his  hand  from 
his  picture ;  illustrating  the  memorable  maxim  that  too  great  diligence 
often  injures."  The  disinterestedness  and  generosity  of  Apelles  to  his 
rivals  is  illustrated  by  the  following  incidents :  "  He  yielded  the  palm 
to  Melanthius  in  grouping  and  to  Asclepiodorus  in  proportion ;  admir- 
ing the  latter  in  symmetry.  He  first  established  a  reputation  for  Pro- 
togenes at  Rhodes ;"  by  the  following  artifice  awakening  the  people  of 
Rhodes  to  an  appreciation  of  his  rare  merit :  "  Protogenes  was  humble 
in  his  pretensions ;  especially  so  in  his  domestic  affairs.  Apelles  asking 
*at  how  much  he  valued  his  works  now  finished,'  and  he  naming  a 
very  paltry  sum,  Apelles  said  he  should  have  demanded  fifty  talents;" 
or  about  $45,000.     Spreading  then  the  report  that  he  himself  had 

48  *  3  W 


ew 
ore  1 
ob-J 
lanl 
ofJ 


670  ART   CRITICISM. 

I 

bought  them  and  would  sell  them  for  his  own  benefit,  the  circumstance  ^ 
excited  the  Rhodians  to  find  out  the  artist;  nor  would  Apelles  yield 
until  they  went  beyond  the  price  named."  His  mingled  condescension 
and  firmness  in  inviting  and  yielding  to  criticism  is  thus  illustrated, 
"He  exposed  his  works  when  finished  in  his  shop  window  to  the  view 
of  passers  by,  preferring  the  criticism  of  the  common  people  as  more 
accurate  than  his  own.  It  is  related  that  being  censured  by  a  cob- 
bler because  in  some  sandals  he  had  made  one  stitch  more  inside  than 
outside,  when  the  same  man  on  the  next  day,  boastful  on  account 
the  correction  the  artist  had  made  on  his  former  suggestion,  cavilh 
about  the  ankle,  Apelles  indignant  stuck  up  this  notice, '  Let  not  the' 
cobbler  criticize  above  the  sandal ;' which  also  passed  into  a  proverb." 
This  proverb,  not  preserved  in  the  Greek,  is  in  the  Latin  of  Pliny, 
"Ne  sutor  supra  crepidam  judicaret."  "He  was  characterized  also 
by  a  courteous  affability;  on  account  of  which  his  society  was  very.j 
attractive  to  Alexander  the  Great,  who  often  came  into  his  shop^ 
But,  when  Alexander  gave  opinions  as  to  many  things  of  w^hich  he 
was  ignorant,  Apelles  courteously  advised  him  to  silence ;  saying,  thj 
the  boys  who  ground  his  paints  were  laughing  at  him.  So  great,  oi 
right  was  his  authority  towards  a  king,  who  besides  was  irascible  ii 
temper;  although  Alexander  gave  proof  of  his  esteem  for  him  in 
most  marked  instance.  For  when  he  had  ordered  that  one  of  hi 
concubines,  a  special  favorite  of  his  own,  Campaspe  by  name,  shouh 
be  painted  naked  by  Apelles  on  account  of  his  admiration  of  hei 
form,  when  it  became  apparent  that  Apelles  had  fallen  in  love  witl 
her  he  gave  her  to  him  as  a  present;  great  in  magnanimity,  greatei 
still  in  command  of  himself,  and  not  less  noble  in  this  act  than  ii 
any  victory." 

The  special  methods  of  Apelles  and  his  peculiar  characteristics  as  ai 
artist,  resulting  not  more  from  his  native  genius  than  from  his  studioi 
devotion  and  fraternizing  magnanimity  are  interwoven  into  the  web  oi 
Pliny's  extended  narrative.  "  His  inventions  were  of  great  profit 
others  devoted  to  art."  One  of  these,  the  bringing  out  and  softening 
of  his  colors  with  a  minutely  thin  coating  of  black  pigment,  no  onej 
succeeded  in  imitating.  His  especial  attainment  in  art  was  grace, 
"  The  Greeks  call  his  Venus  Charis,  or  Grace."  Apelles  was  remark-j 
able  for  accuracy  in  likenesses ;  and  for  skill  in  securing  the  bestj 
views  and  expressions  in  portrait.  When  at  Alexandria  Ptolemy 
juggler,  bribed  by  Apelles'  rivals,  pretended  to  Apelles  that  he  W8 
invited  to  dine  with  the  king.  Going  to  the  palace  at  the  dinnerl 
hour  and  learning  the  deceit,  in  response  to  Ptolemy,  indignantly] 


571 

asking  as  to  the  offender,  Apelles  took  a  coal  from  the  brazier  and 
drew  the  deceiver's  portrait  so  accurately  that  the  king  recognised 
him.  Again,  being  called  to  paint  King  Antigonus,  who  had  lost 
an  eye,  "  he  made  the  view,"  says  Pliny,  "  oblique ;  so  that  what  was 
wanting  in  his  face  seemed  rather  the  necessary  lack  in  the  picture." 
He  painted  Hercules  with  his  back  towards  the  beholders ;  in  which 
"  this  most  difficult  result  was  obtained ;  he  showed  his  face  more 
truly  than  if  it  were  a  front  view."  One  of  his  horses  was  entered 
for  a  trial-contest ;  and  when  he  saw  the  judges  at  fault,  "he  showed 
the  pictures  of  each  contestant  to  horses ;  when  they  neighed  only  at 
the  horse  of  Apelles."  The  triumph  of  Grecian  painting  realized  in 
him  was  the  attainment  of  a  natural  sky  under  varied  aspects.  "  He 
painted,"  writes  Pliny,  "what  cannot  be  painted,  sheet-lightning, 
chain-lightning  and  heat-lightning ;  which  the  Greeks  call  Bronte, 
Astrape  and  Ceraunob'olia."  The  inimitable  culminating  perfection 
of  Greek  painting  is  indicated  in  two  Venuses  by  him;  the  first  of 
which  having  been  injured  at  Rome  under  Augustus  no  one  was 
found  who  could  repair  it ;  so  that,  as  Pliny  remarks,  "  the  injury 
itself  conspired  to  the  glory  of  the  artist."  Another  Venus  com- 
menced by  Apelles,  designed  to  surpass  all  others,  was  left  at  the 
death  of  the  artist,  with  only  the  head  and  half  the  breast  finished ; 
when  no  one  in  after  ages  appeared  who  dared  to  attempt  its  comple- 
tion ;  an  incident  twice  alluded  to  by  Cicero,  in  his  De  Officiis  and 
his  Epistles,  and  made  the  turn  of  a  sweetly  sad  sentiment. 

Apelles  as  he  gained  fame  showed  faults  of  character,  which  had 
rather  the  charm  of  virtue;  they  were  frailties  so  generous  and 
genial.  As  he  became  conscious  of  his  power  his  prices  grew  exorbi- 
tant ;  but  when  he  used  this  power  to  aid  a  modest  brother-artist, 
like  Protogenes,  "  e'en  his  failings  leaned  to  virtue's  side."  The  sum 
of  fifty  talents,  or  $45,000,  claimed  from  the  Rhodians  for  their 
humble  artist's  paintings,  with  the  threat  that  they  should  be  carried 
away  if  not  paid  for,  is  startling  to  modern  ears,  if  it  was  not  to 
Greeks.  The  actually  fabulous  price  of  twenty  talents,  at  which,  as 
Pliny  mentions,  one  of  Apelles'  pictures  was  sold  in  later  days  when 
there  was  no  artist  to  repeat  them,  leads  Pliny  to  state  that  even 
during  his  life,  "  as  the  enormous  price  of  a  picture  he  received  gold 
pieces  by  measure  instead  of  by  number." 

Some  spicy  sayings  of  Apelles  preserved  by  Clement  the  Chris- 
tian philosopher  and  Stobseus  the  antiquary,  reveal  in  him  a  playful 
and  genial  wit  which  seems  to  be  an  essential  element  of  true  genius. 
Being  asked  by  a  brainless  critic,  "  Why  he  painted  the  goddess 


572  ART   CRITICISM. 

Fortune  sitting,"  he  replied,  "Because  I  did  not  paint  her  standing." 
Having  examined  a  pretentious  copy  of  Helen  called  the  Golden- 
hued  by  one  of  his  pupils,  he  said,  "  Lad,  not  being  able  to  make 
her  fair,  you  have  made  her  rich."  To  a  "  wretched  dauber,"  who, 
showing  him  a  portrait,  said,  ''  I  painted  this  in  no  time,"  he  replied, 
"  Indeed,  if  you  did  not  say  so,  I  should  know  it  was  painted  in  a 
very  short  time.  I  wonder  indeed  that  in  the  same  time  you  did  not 
paint  more  like  it." 

Next  to  Apelles  in  this  age  of  great  artists  is  without  doubt  to  be 
ranked  Protogenes.  The  two  peculiar  excellencies  in  the  works  of 
Protogenes  seem  to  have  been  the  exquisite  delicateness  of  his  lines 
and  the  body  he  gave  to  his  color,  both  of  which  made  his  labor 
slow  and  the  number  of  his  finished  works  few,  while  however  all 
that  he  did  execute  were  the  rarest  and  most  lasting  gems  of  art. 

Born  in  Caria,  north  of  Rhodes,  he  grew  up  in  obscurity  as  a  ship- 
painter  ;  an  incident  of  his  early  life  which  he  immortalized  on  the 
Propylsea  of  the  Parthenon  at  Athens  by  working  "miniature  raking- 
ehips"  into  the  border  of  his  frescoes.  He  was  brought  out  by  Apel- 
les in  the  manner  thus  related  by  Pliny.  "  What  occurred  between 
Protogenes  and  him  is  well  known.  The  latter  lived  at  Rhodes ; 
whither,  when  Apelles  had  made  a  voyage,  desirous  of  becoming 
acquainted  with  his  works,  known  to  him  only  by  report,  he  imme- 
diately sought  out  his  shop.  He  was  absent ;  but  an  old  woman  was 
taking  care  of  the  tablet  of  a  picture  of  large  size  fitted  to  the  easel. 
She  replied  to  him  that  Protogenes  was  out ;  and  asked  by  whom 
she  should  say  he  was  sought.  '  By  this  man,'  said  Apelles ;  and 
seizing  a  brush  he  drew  a  line  in  color  of  the  greatest  fineness  across 
the  tablet.  When  Protogenes  returned  the  old  woman  showed  him 
what  had  occurred.  It  is  said  that  the  artist,  when  he  had  further 
contemplated  the  skill  it  manifested,  exclaimed,  '  that  Apelles  had 
come ;  that  so  finished  a  work  belonged  to  no  other ;'  and  that  he 
himself  drew  another  finer  line  of  another  color  with  a  brush;  and 
gave  orders  to  his  servant  woman,  that  if  he  returned,  she  should 
show  it  to  him,  and  should  add  that '  this  was  the  man  whom  he 
sought.'  And  thus  it  resulted.  For  Apelles  returned ;  but,  redden- 
ing with  pride  that  he  was  surpassed,  he  drew  between  the  lines  one 
of  a  third  color,  leaving  no  further  room  for  skill.  But  Protogenes 
confessing  that  he  was  conquered,  hastened  down  to  the  harbor  seek- 
ing him  as  a  guest.  It  was  thought  worthy  that  this  tablet  should 
be  handed  down,  as  it  was,  to  posterity ;  a  wonder  indeed  to  all,  but 
especially  to  artists.     I  hear  that  it  was  burnt  in  the  palace  of  Caesar, 


PROTOGENES;    HIS   MODESTY   AND    HIS   STYLE   OF   ART.     573 

having  been  formerly  exhibited  in  so  large  a  space  and  containing 
nothing  else  than  the  three  lines,  escaping  observation,  as  a  void 
amid  the  illustrious  works  of  many ;  attractive  indeed  in  itself, 
and  more  noble  than  any  work."  This  statement  of  the  trouble 
taken  by  Apelles  to  seek  out  an  almost  unknown  artist,  coupled  with 
his  disingenuous  criticisms  upon  his  works,  and  his  generous  device 
while  visiting  him  to  make  him  appreciated  among  his  native  Rho- 
dians,  as  well  as  the  probable  influence  Apelles  had  in  securing  his 
labor  on  the  porticoes  of  the  Acropolis  of  Athens,  forms  one  of  the 
most  delightful  episodes  in  the  history  of  art ;  and  is  a  specimen  of 
that  genuine  friendship  which  links  together  men  of  true  genius. 

Protogenes  loved  ideal  studies,  and  could  not,  like  Apelles,  descend 
to  lower  themes  of  actual  life.  Pliny  says,  "His  designs  in  art 
were  of  the  highest  order,  and  therefore  his  fertility  as  an  artist  was 
the  less."  In  the  long*  list  of  his  preserved  works  there  is  but  one 
real  personage  mentioned;  a  portrait  of  "the  mother  of  Aristotle 
the  philosopher."  Aristotle  urged  him  to  attempt  a  work  half-real, 
half-ideal;  "the  deeds  of  Alexander  the  Great;  and  that  on  account 
of  the  immortal  interest  of  the  events."  Pliny  adds,  "  The  impulses 
of  his  spirit  and  a  peculiar  passion  for  art  impelled  him  the  more  to 
these  works.  Very  late  in  life  he  had  painted  Alexander."  That 
this  was  to  be  in  the  style  of  bronze  reliefs  of  Trajan's  conquests  on 
the  column  bearing  his  name,  and  of  the  modern  campaigns  of  Na- 
poleon on  the  column  at  Paris,  is  evident ;  because  Pliny,  who  was 
living  in  the  day  when  the  former  was  executed,  immediately  adds 
to  this  statement  as  to  Protogenes,  "he  executed  also  reliefs  in 
bronze,"  apparently  referring  to  the  design  just  mentioned.  It  was 
certainly  a  grand  idea  which  the  great  mind  of  Aristotle  had  thus 
conceived ;  and  no  higher  testimony  to  the  exalted  genius  of  this 
modest  but  enthusiastic  artist  could  be  given,  than  that  in  such  an 
age,  such  a  mind  should  have  regarded  him,  even  before  Apelles, 
equal  to  such  an  ideal  representation  of  the  real  deeds  of  the  greatest 
conqueror  the  world  has  seen. 

Pliny,  with  his  usual  sagacity,  selects  the  history  of  a  single  work 
of  Protogenes  to  set  forth  as  in  a  complete  picture  the  habits,  character, 
genius  and  laboriousness  of  the  artist ;  as  well  as  the  estimation  in 
which  the  world  held  his  works.  From  this  incident  it  would  seem, 
that,  having  finished  his  work  at  Athens,  he  had  returned  with  matured 
fame  to  devote  himself  in  his  old  studio  at  Rhodes  to  the  creation  of 
ideal  works  such  as  the  comprehensive  Aristotle  had  conceived,  and  his 
own  genius  was  able  both  to  design  and  execute.     "  Of  his  pictures," 


674  ART   CRITICISM. 

says  Pliny,  "his  lalysus  holds  the  palm;  which  is  at  Rome  suspended 
as  a  votive  offering  in  the  temple  of  Peace.  When  he  was  painting  it 
he  is  said  to  have  lived  on  boiled  pulse,  since  this  diet  would  sustain  at 
once  hunger  and  thirst,  lest  he  should  dim  his  perceptions  by  too  great 
delicacy  in  food.  In  this  picture  he  laid  on  four  thicknesses  of  color 
as  a  protection  against  injury  and  age ;  so  that  the  lower  coat  might 
succeed  when  the  upper  gave  way.  There  is  a  dog  in  it  wonderfully 
executed ;  which,  accident,  as  much  as  the  artist  painted.  He  was 
coming  to  the  conclusion  that  he  could  not  represent  the  foam  of  the 
dog  panting ;  when  in  every  other  part,  what  is  very  difficult  of 
attainment,  he  had  satisfied  himself.  But  in  this,  art  itself  displeased 
him ;  that  foam  could  not  be  diminished,  when  it  appeared  too  abun- 
dant and  hence  to  depart  farther  from  the  truth ;  and  it  seemed  to 
be  painted,  not  to  be  born  from  the  mouth,  despite  his  torturing 
anxiety  of  mind  as  he  sought  to  make  whart  was  in  the  picture  real 
not  apparently  natural.  Often  he  had  wiped  off  the  paint  and 
had  changed  his  brush ;  by  no  method  gaining  his  own  approval. 
At  last  being  enraged  at  art,  why  he  well  knew,  he  struck  his  sponge 
on  the  hated  place  in  the  picture ;  from  it  he  replaced  the  colon 
taken  off  as  he  had  desired ;  and  fortune  created  nature  in  the  pi( 
ture."  "  On  account  of  this  lalysus,  lest  he  should  burn  the  picture^ 
Demetrius  the  king,  when  he  could  take  Rhodes  from  that  part  alone^ 
did  not  set  it  on  fire ;  and  he  lost  the  opportunity  of  victory  for  the 
sake  of  saving  a  picture.  Protogenes  was  then  at  his  suburban  villa 
within  the  lines  of  Demetrius.  Nor  did  he,  uninterrupted  by  the 
battles,  intermit  his  work  at  all ;  until,  summoned  by  the  king,  he  w£ 
asked  what  gave  him  confidence  to  pursue  his  work  outside  of  th€ 
walls :  when  he  replied,  that  he  knew  that  Demetrius  warred  against 
the  Rhodians,  not  against  the  arts.  The  king  disposed  his  outpost 
for  his  protection ;  rejoicing  to  preserve  that  hand  on  account  oi 
whose  work  he  had  already  spared  the  city;  and  lest  the  artist 
should  be  too  often  called  away  from  his  work,  he  himself,  thougl 
an  enemy,  came  freely  to  him ;  while  his  ambition  for  victory  wi 
sacrificed,  amid  arms  and  the  battering  of  the  walls,  that  he  might 
guard  the  artist."  As  this  siege  of  Rhodes  occurred  twenty  years 
after  the  death  of  Alexander,  Protogenes  must  have  been  quite  aged; 
and  as  Demetrius  was  from  his  persistent  and  bloody  battles  against 
the  successors  of  Alexander  styled  the  "  Destroyer  of  Cities,"  hia 
attention  to  the  artist  and  his  work  is  the  more  striking  a  testimonial 
to  the  superior  power  of  art  over  arms.  Only  about  ten  finished 
works  of  Protogenes  are  mentioned  by  ancient  admirers  of  art ;  and 


MASTEKS   IN   ENCAUSTIC   OR   ENAMELLED   PAINTING.      675 

this  fact  together  with  the  allusions  of  Quinctilian,  Petronius  and 
others  confirm  Pliny's  statement  as  to  the  excessive  care  which  he 
bestowed  on  his  works. 

Next  after  the  two  great  masters  of  this  age  must  be  named  Aris- 
tides,  the  younger  brother  of  Nicomachus,  whose  pupil  he  became. 
Living  somewhat  before  Apelles  he  was  in  point  of  time  a  link 
between  the  two  ages,  yet  in  point  of  style  to  be  classed  with  the 
latter.  His  chief  power  was  in  expression ;  in  which  he  excelled 
Apelles.  He  seems  to  have  been  the  first  to  use  encaustic  pigments, 
and  the  attendant  enamelling  method,  in  finer  easel  paintings.  Pliny 
records,  "  The  equal  of  Apelles  was  Aristides  the  Theban ;  for  he 
first  painted  passion,  and  expressed  those  emotions  of  men  which  the 
Greek  call  ethe;  a  word  equivalent  to  violent  afiections.  He  was 
somewhat  coarser  than  Apelles  in  his  colors."  All  the  works  of 
Aristides  mentioned  seem  to  partake  of  this  same  character.  "His 
is  the  picture  in  which  when  a  city  was  taken  a  child  is  creeping  to 
the  breast  of  its  mother  dying  of  a  wound,  while  the  mother  is  under- 
stood to  perceive  it  and  to  fear  that  it  may  lap  blood,  her  milk  being 
dried  up ;  which  tablet  Alexander  the  Great  transferred  into  his 
own  country  to  Pella."  "  He  painted  also  chariot  horses  running ;  a 
man  supplicating,  almost  as  with  a  voice ;  hunters  with  their  booty ; 
the  painter  Leontio  dying  on  account  of  love  for  a  brother;  the  like- 
ness of  an  old  man  with  a  lyre  teaching  a  boy ;  and  a  sick  man, 
beyond  measure  extolled."  Aristides  also  was  associated  with  Pau- 
sanias  and  Nicophanes  as  one  of  the  pornographoi  or  painters  of 
courtesans ;  to  whosp  brazen  expression  his  enamel  painting  seemed  to 
have  been  adapted. 

The  next  master  in  this  age  was  Pausias  a  fellow-pupil  of  Apelles 
under  Pamphilus ;  who  perfected  the  art  of  enamel  painting  intro- 
duced by  Aristides,  was  eminent  in  small  pieces,  attained  rare  sym- 
metry in  the  foreshortening  of  animal  forms,  and  reached  peculiar 
perfection  in  transparence.  He  attempted  fresco,  restoring  some 
paintings  of  Polygnotus ;  but  as  Pliny  thinks,  he  was  much  surpassed 
by  that  earlier  artist,  since  he  did  not  contend  in  his  own  art. 
"  He  painted  also  small  subjects ;  especially  boys ;  and,  as  his  rivals 
said  that  he  chose  it  because  that  kind  of  painting  was  leisurely  done, 
determined  to  establish  a  reputation  for  rapid  execution,  he  finished 
a  tablet  on  which  a  boy  was  painted  in  a  single  day ;  which  was 
thence  named  hemeresios,  a  day's  work."  His  power  of  contrasting 
and  grouping  was  thus  acquired.  "  In  his  youth  he  was  in  love  with 
Glycera,  his  country-woman,  a  designer  of  garlands ;  by  imitating 


676 


ART   CRITICISM. 


whose  work  in  friendly  rivalry,  he  advanced  that  art  to  the  employ 
of  a  most  numerous  variety  of  flowers."  His  power  in  foreshorten^ 
ing  was  seen  in  a  group  styled  "  The  Immolation  of  Oxen ;"  whicli 
hung,  Pliny  says,  "  in  the  porticoes  of  Pompeii.  He  indeed  first 
invented  this  style  of  painting,  which  afterwards  many  imitated  but 
no  one  equalled ;  when  as  the  chief  thing  he  wished  to  show  th( 
length  of  the  ox,  he  painted  him  with  his  head,  not  his  side  towards 
the  beholder,  fully  representing  his  size  in  both  dimensions."  Hia 
method  in  light  and  shade  is  thus  described.  "  While  all  painters 
made  of  a  glistening  white  the  parts  which  they  wish  to  appear 
prominent,  and  finished  with  black,  he  made  the  whole  ox  of  a  dark 
color,  and  gave  body  to  the  shade  from  itself;  thus  with  great  art 
representing  all  portions  projecting  forwards  in  due  proportion  and  in 
a  bent  form  as  if  solid."  This  description  intimates  that  he  intrc 
duced  the  light  from  behind  the  object ;  a  method  already  refern 
to  as  practised  at  an  early  age  in  Grecian  painting.  Pausanias  men- 
tions a  painting  of  Pausias,  in  which  is  represented  wine  "  flowing 
from  a  transparent  goblet ;  and  in  the  picture  you  can  see  the  gobh 
of  transparent  material  and  the  face  of  a  woman  through  it."  Th< 
successful  representation  of  colored  transparencies  is  one  of  the  las 
triumphs  of  art  in  coloring.  Pliny  closes  his  notice  of  Pausias  witJ 
the  mention,  "  He  spent  his  life  at  Sicyon ;  and  for  a  long  time  that 
was  the  native  land  of  painting." 

Another  eminent  artist  of  this  age  was  Nicias ;  who  excelled  ir 
shading  and  projecting  figures  from  the  back-ground;  but  especiall] 
in  design,  both  in  the  choice  of  themes  and  in.  the  composition  of 
groups.  Pliny's  notice  presents  these  two  features,  "He  paintc 
women  with  the  greatest  elaborateness,  guarded  the  light  and  shades 
and  took  especial  care  that  the  picture  should  stand  out  from  th< 
tablet."  He  excelled  in  "animal  pieces;  and  to  dogs  he  gave  th< 
happiest  expression."  One  of  his  pictures  was  visited  by  Pausanias 
whose  description  embodies  the  artist's  excellences :  "  There  is  in  it  i 
throne  of  ivory  and  a  woman  young  and  of  beautiful  aspect  upoi 
the  throne ;  and  near  her  stands  a  w^aiting-maid  holding  a  sun-shade 
A  young  man  also,  not  yet  bearded,  is  present,  clothed  in  a  tunic,  witl 
a  purple  cloak  over  his  tunic ;  while  a  servant  near  him  is  holdin| 
some  javelins,  and  leading  dogs  such  as  hunters  use."  The  teaching 
of  Nicias  as  to  composition  has  already  been  quoted.^ 

Among  other  noted  painters  of  this  fruitful  age  few  only  can  be  even 


Book  ii.,  chap.  v.  sect. 


CAUSES   OF   DECLINE    IN   GRECIAN   PAINTING.  577 

named.  Asclepiodorus  who  excelled  Apelles  in  symmetry,  and  Melan- 
thius  in  composition,  have  already  been  alluded  to.  Echio  was  his 
equal  in  grandeur  and  Nicophanes  in  grace.  Plutarch  mentions  that 
a  century  after  this  age  Aratus  bought  for  the  Museum  of  Ptolemy 
Philadelphus,  the  paintings  of  Pamphilus  and  Melanthius.  Echio  was 
both  a  sculptor  and  painter;  eminent  in  the  former  art  at  the  time 
when  it  had  begun  to  decline.  As  a  painter  Pliny  styles  him  master 
in  works  classed  as  "  noble ;"  Cicero  illustrating  the  perfection  of  dig- 
nity attained  by  the  true  orator  quotes  the  four  painters  "  Echio,  Ni- 
comachus,  Protogenes  and  Apelles  "  as  examples ;  placing  Echio  first 
in  the  excellence  of  dignity.  Nicophanes  is  characterized  as  "ele- 
gant and  polished  so  that  few  could  compare  with  him  in  grace." 
Together  with  Aristides.  and  Pausanias,  artists  of  the  same  age,  he 
received  in  later  times  the  designation  of  porno  grapJios,  from  his  skill 
in  giving  grace  in  form  and  luxurious  richness  in  coloring.  Of 
Athenio,  a  youthful  painter  of  great  genius,  Pliny  says,  "  Had  he  not 
died  in  his  youth  no  one  would  have  borne  comparison  with  him ;" 
and  he  characterizes  him  as  "graver  than  Nicias  in  color,  and  more 
pleasing  by  this  graveness."  Omphalic  is  the  last  that  can  be  added ; 
a  slave  of  Nicias,  tenderly  loved  and  manumitted  by  him ;  who  so 
improved  under  the  tuition  of  his  master,  that  his  productions  were 
deemed  worthy  to  decorate  the  temple  of  Messene. 

It  is  worthy  of  special  note  that  this  was  the  age  of  writers  on  art. 
Apelles  must  of  course  in  the  volumes  gathered  by  him  have  been 
the  great  leader  in  this  department.  Melanthius  wrote  a  treatise  on 
painting ;  of  which  Pliny  made  extended  use  in  his  history,  and  a 
fragment  of  which  has  been  preserved.  Asclepiodorus  is  also  sup- 
posed to  have  been  the  author  of  a  similar  treatise;  while  Pliny 
mentions  that  Perseus  wrote  a  work  on  art  which  he  dedicated  to 
Apelles. 

Sect.  7.  The  Declining  Period  of  Grecian  Painting  in  the  Decline 
OF  Greek  Political  Supremacy  and  of  Greek  Culture. 

There  is  a  power  in  genius  and  natural  refinement  of  spirit  to 
make  itself  felt,  even  upon  an  uncultured  people  and  on  rulers  that 
do  not  appreciate  art ;  and  this  fact  was  illustrated  in  the  spread  of 
the  spirit  of  Athenian  culture,  of  Sicyonic  skill  and  of  Corinthian 
grace  westward  into  Italy,  southward  into  Laconia,  eastward  into 
Asia  Minor,  and  finally  northward  into  Macedonia,  during  the  early, 
maturer  and  culminating  progress  of  Grecian  Painting.  When, 
however,  the  cultured  people  have  been  a  powerful  nation  possessing 
49  3  X 


67S  ART   CRITICISM. 

forcible  political  supremacy,  there  has  existed  naturally  a  counteract- 
ing tendency  which  even  leads  to  the  decay  of  art.  The  Greek  peo- 
ple had  under  Alexander  become  the  ruling  nation  of  the  earth. 
While  they  held  that  sway  their  culture  gave  its  tinge  to  art  in 
northern  Africa  and  western  Asia.  As  soon  as  that  power  declined,  1 
the  prejudice,  living  through  generations,  against  a  powerful  and  * 
sometimes  oppressive  master  now  reduced  and  impotent,  ripened  into 
a  distaste  even  for  the  culture  which  had  formed  their  peculiar  great- 
ness. The  history  of  the  world,  replete  with  illustrations  of  this 
tendency,  has  presented  none  perhaps  more  striking  than  that  of  the 
decline  of  the  political  supremacy  of  the  Greeks  under  the  selfish 
and  contending  successors  of  Alexander.  Some  of  them,  as  the 
Ptolemies  of  Egypt,  preserved  for  generations  the  love  of  culture  be- 
longing to  the  true  Greek;  but  lost  more  and  more  the  power  to 
make  the  people  whom  they  ruled  yield  willing  allegiance  to  the 
sway  of  that  culture.  The  history  of  Grecian  Painting,  beginning 
with  the  death  of  Alexander  and  the  division  of  his  empire  among 
the  numerous  aspirants  to  succession,  presents  a  checkered  but  stead- 
ily declining  phase;  like  the  fading  glories  of  a  sunset  sky,  streaked 
for  a  moment  with  scattered  lines  of  rarest  beauty ;  while,  however, 
the  gray  is  fast  consuming  the  gold,  and  the  gloom  is  every  moment 
deepening. 

The  state  of  philosophic  opinion,  especially  the  predominant  school 
of  the  times,  had  much  to  do  on  the  one  hand  with  depressing,  and 
on  the  other  hand  with  keeping  alive  the  spirit  of  art  in  the  depart-- 
ment  of  painting.  The  philosophy  of  Epicurus,  in  its  gross  sensual- 
ism and  avowed  antagonism,  not  only  to  the  idealism  of  Plato,  but 
to  the  practical  science  and  ethics  taught  by  Aristotle,  was  directly 
arrayed  against  the  spirit  of  true  art.  Epicurus,  who  was  born  B.  C» 
342,  was  a  youth  of  eighteen  years  at  the  age  of  Alexander ;  he  lived 
to  be  seventy-two  years  of  age,  dying  B.  C.  270 ;  and  the  influence 
of  his  philosophy  gave  shape  and  tone  to  a  large  class  of  minds  in 
the  age  of  Alexander's  successors.  A  check  upon  this  adversary  to 
the  old  Greek  culture  was  given  by  the  Eclectic  schools ;  whose  in- 
fluence kept  alive  and  fresh  the  spirit  of  Plato  for  centuries.  Promi- 
nent among  these  were  the  schools  of  Athens,  at  which  Cicero 
educated  his  son  Marcus ;  of  Pergamos  in  Mysia  famous  for  its  im- 
mense library  of  200,000  volumes  and  as  giving  to  parchment  the 
name  "Charta  Pergamena;"  Tarsus  in  Cilicia  where  Paul,  after- 
wards the  great  apostle  of  the  Christian  faith  to  the  Greeks,  was 
educated  in  his  youth ;  and  Alexandria  in  Egypt,  the  centre  ^vhere 


ALTERNATING   REVIVAL   IN   DECLINE   OF   ART.  579 

Greek  genius  in  every  department  clustered,  and  found  for  centuries 
after  Alexander's  time,  and  even  after  Christ's  day,  a  congenial  home. 
Yet  another  cause  contributing  to  keep  alive  the  Greek  spirit  of  art 
was  the  appreciation  it  met  from  their  early  Roman  conquerors  under 
the  Roman  Republic,  and  from  the  Emperors  in  succeeding  ages ; 
who  not  only  transported  to  Rome  works  of  ancient  art,  but  invited 
Grecian  artists  as  their  teachers. 

The  characteristic  features  indicating  the  spirit  of  decline  in  this 
age  are  mainly  seen  in  these  two  extremes;  the  tendency  to  the 
patronage  of  works  of  unbridled  and  irrational  fancy  called  by  the 
Greeks  2^J^<^ntasy;  and  the  devotion  of  the  noble  art  of  coloring  to 
mean  objects,  especially  to  the  purpose  of  mere  decoration.  In  trac- 
ing the  history  of  this  period,  the  first  stage  of  decline  is  seen  to 
begin  with  the  abuse  of  the  imagination ;  then  the  revival  of  a  purer 
taste  succeeds  under  the  fostering  influence  of  the  Ptolemies;  yet 
later  a  second  impulse  is  given  to  painting  by  Roman  fondness  for  deco- 
ration, an  era  commencing  at  the  time  of  the  Roman  conquest  of  Mace- 
don.  In  filling  up  this  outline,  aided  by  the  apparent  hint  suggested 
in  the  order  of  Pliny's  record,  many  artists  should  probably  be  intro- 
duced, whose  nation  and  age  are  not  determined  by  historic  records ; 
and  also  a  list  of  females  who  attained  eminence  in  painting,  the  art 
which  alone  seems  to  invite  woman's  genius.  The  former  list  natu- 
rally falls  into  this  period,  since  in  the  ages  of  the  great  masters 
names  subordinate  are  usually  clustered  with  those  better  known, 
and  are  thus  fixed  in  their  place  by  association ;  while  those  that  are 
mentioned  as  isolated,  yet  of  inferior  merit,  seem  to  have  flourished 
in  the  age  when  there  were  no  masters  with  whom  they  could  be 
compared,  that  is  in  the  age  of  the  decline  of  art.  Here  probably, 
too,  should  be  placed,  as  Pliny  has  placed  them,  the  names  of  females 
devoted  to  painting ;  since  though  some  of  these  lived  in  the  better 
days  of  art,  most  of  them  seem  to  have  lived  during  its  decline ; 
while,  moreover,  it  is  in  ages  when  art  has  too  little  dignity  as  a 
manly  employ,  that  it  still  remains  and  thus  becomes  especially  the 
field  for  womanly  culture. 

In  passing  from  the  age  of  climactic  excellence,  to  that  of  decline, 
a  few  names  seem  to  be  links  to  the  past.  Among  these  are  Phi- 
loxenus  a  pupil  of  Nicomachus,  Ctesilochus  a  pupil  of  Apelles,  and 
Praxiteles  a  namesake  of  the  great  sculptor.  Of  Philoxenus  Pliny 
records,  "  He  painted  '  Lasciviousness,'  in  which  three  Satyrs  were 
revelling.  This  artist,  following  the  rapid  method  of  his  instruc- 
tor, added  some  even  briefer  and  superficial  methods."     Both  the 


580  ART   CRITICISM. 

degenerate  themes  and  the  superficial  methods  of  this  artist  mark  a 
decline  in  the  art.  Yet  more  degenerate  is  the  disciple  of  Apelles ; 
of  whom  Pliny  says,  "  Ctesilochus  a  pupil  of  Apelles  is  noted  for  his 
wanton  style  of  painting;  illustrated  in  his  Jove  pictured  in  a  night- 
cap, and  groaning  like  a  woman,  while  the  goddesses  are  acting  as 
midwives  to  him." 

While  the  artists  just  mentioned  mark  the  transition  to  the  age 
of  decline,  among  those  living  in  it  are  Theon,  Diogenes,  Artemon  and 
Clesides.  Of  Theon  Pliny  mentions  two  works,  and  ^lian  a  third ; 
all  indicating  the  same  characteristic  in  the  spirit  of  the  artist ;  the 
Rage  of  Orestes  murdering  his  adulterous  mother ;  Thamyris,  the 
self-confident  Thracian  musician  who  challenged  the  muses  them- 
selves to  vie  with  him  upon  the  harp ;  and  an  armed  soldier  hurrying 
to  aid  another  attacked  in  battle.  Both  Quinctilian  and  ^lian  quote 
Theon  as  one  eminent  for  what  the  Greeks  called  phantasies ;  that  is 
overdrawn  and  fanciful  representation  of  passion  conceived  for  mere 
eflfect.  Quinctilian  indicates  the  age  of  Theon  as  that  just  after 
Apelles  and  Alexander.  Of  Clesides  we  are  told  by  Pliny,  "  Cle- 
sides was  noted  for  his  injurious  act  towards  Queen  Stratonice.  For 
when  no  honor  had  been  denied  to  him  by  her,  he  painted  her  wan^ 
toning  with  a  fisherman,  of  whom  it  was  the  report  that  the  queen- 
was  fond.  This  picture  he  publicly  exposed  in  the  port  of  Ephesus, 
•while  he  took  himself  oflT  by  ship.  The  queen  forbid  that  the  picture 
be  removed ;  although  the  likeness  of  both  was  wonderfully  striking." 
The  works  of  all  this  degenerate  period  belong  to  the  class  of  over- 
wrought passion  or  of  sensual  appetite,  both  the  legitimate  offspring 
of  the  prevalent  philosophy. 

A  new  era  seems  to  have  dawned  when  Ptolemy  Philadelphus  wa$ 
enrichiug  the  Museum  of  Alexandria  with  collections  of  literature 
and  art,  and  the  poet  Aratus,  a  man  of  broad  and  refined  general 
culture,  was  acting  as  his  agent  in  gathering  up  in  Greece  the  workg 
of  the  best  masters.  The  names  of  Nealces,  Erigonus,  Pasias,  Leon-^ 
tiscus,  and  the  second  Timanthes  adorn  this  era.  Nealces  is  men* 
tioned  by  Plutarch  as  a  special  and  beloved  friend  of  Aratus,  wha 
with  difficulty  overcame  the  modest  reluctance  of  the  artist  to  under- 
take the  task  of  restoring  injured  pictures  of  the  old  masters  bough j 
by  him  for  Ptolemy's  Museum.  Pliny  mentions,  speaking  of  Protc 
genes,  fortunate  with  his  sponge,  "  Similar  success  is  said  to  have  fol- 
lowed Nealces  in  the  foam  of  a  horse ;  his  sponge  being  struck  on  th( 
canvas,  when  he  would  paint  a  groom  holding  back  a  horse."  Hiaj 
rare  invention  is  celebrated  in  his  picture  of  "  A  Naval  Battle  of 


NEW  SPRING   OF   ART   UNDER  THE   PTOLEMIES.  581 

the  Egyptians  and  Persians  on  the  Nile,  whose  water  is  like  to  a 
sea,"  in  which,  "  he  showed  by  a  device  what  he  could  not  by  art. 
For  he  painted  a  little  donkey  drinking  on  the  shore  and  a  crocodile 
lying  in  wait  for  it."  The  end  sought  seems  to  have  been,  not  only 
to  mark  the  land  pictured  by  tracing  the  animals  peculiar  to  it, 
but  also  to  give  the  idea  of  the  distance  in  the  back-ground,  over  the 
broad  river,  by  the  comparative  size  of  the  donkey  on  the  shore. 
Another  instance  of  the  powers  of  early  employ  is  given  in  the 
artist  thus  mentioned  by  Pliny.  "  Erigonus  a  grinder  of  colors  for 
Nealces  the  painter,  himself  made  such  proficiency  that  he  left 
also  a  celebrated  pupil."  Leontiscus  and  Timanthes,  were  both  noted 
for  paintings  commemorating  the  victories  of  Aratus ;  noted  as  the 
successful  general  of  Ptolemy,  as  well  as  a  philosophic  poet,  and  the 
special  patron  of  art.  The  fact  that  the  entire  circle  of  artists  dis- 
tinguished in  this  age  seem  to  cluster  around  one  great  patron, 
Ptolemy  with  his  art  collector,  is  a  striking  confirmation  of  the 
general  principles  manifest  in  this  and  other  ages  that  the  develop- 
ment of  genius  in  art  depends  much  on  the  patronage  it  receives. 

Nearly  a  century  of  decline  seems  to  have  succeeded  to  the  age 
of  Aratus  and  of  Ptolemy  Philadelphus ;  when  a  momentary  re- 
kindling of  the  art-spirit,  the  sudden  flicker  and  flare  that  is  pre- 
cursor of  a  lamp's  final  going  out,  is  seen  at  the  era  of  the  Roman 
conquest  about  B.  C.  168.  The  noble  leader  of  the  Roman  army  in 
that  conquest  was  Paulus  jEmilius ;  who,  while  he  enriched  his 
country  with  the  treasures  of  art,  which,  having  accomplished  all  they 
could  to  redeem  the  land  of  their  authors,  were  now  to  be  teachers 
of  another  great  nation,  appropriated  to  himself  nothing  but  the 
library  of  the  usurper  Perseus  whom  he  overthrew ;  but  was  ambitious 
that  the  spirit  of  Grecian  art,  still  exerting  its  power  in  the  works  of 
deceased  and  of  living  artists,  should  become  the  public  treasure  and 
renovator  of  the  Roman  people.  The  two  lights  of  this  age  were 
Heraclides  and  Metrodorus ;  the  latter  of  whom  Pliny  styles,  "  a 
painter  and  a  philosopher  also ;  a  man  of  such  great  authority  in 
each  science,  that  when  Lucius  Paulus,  having  conquered  Perseus, 
desired  from  the  Athenians  to  send  to  him  a  most  approved  philoso- 
pher to  educate  boys,  and  also  a  painter  to  furnish  decorations  for 
his  triumph,  the  Athenians  chose  Metrodorus ;  the  same  man  being  most 
eminent  in  each  of  the  desired  qualifications  which  Paulus  had  indi- 
cated." The  decline  of  painting  in  fresco  under  Augustus  is  indicated 
by  this  exclamation  of  Vitruvius,  "  Let  us  see  to  it  that  the  scenic 
style  of  Apaturius  do  not  make  us  Alabandeans  and  Abderites.  .  . 

49  * 


582  ART   CRITICISM. 

O  that  the  immortal  gods  would  cause  that  Licinius  should  return  to 
life;  and  correct  this  foolish  system,  and  these  erroneous  principles  of 
frescoing."  From  the  character  of  the  people  of  Alabanda,  as  de- 
scribed by  Strabo,  and  hinted  by  Cicero  and  Juvenal,  and  of  Abdera, 
we  may  conceive  the  style  of  Apaturius  to  have  been  a  mixture  of 
the  stupid  and  the  libidinous.  The  student  of  the  frescoed  walls  of 
Pompeii,  now  unburied,  finds  abundant  illustration  of  this  criticism 
of  Vitruvius. 

The  last  in  the  line  of  the  Greek  painters,  before  the  succession  is 
lost  in  another  age,  is  Teinomachus,  who  was  a  Byzantine  employed 
by  Julius  Caesar  at  Kome;  whose  Ajax  and  Medea  was  his  most  noted 
work.     Pliny,  however,  crowds  into  the  close  of  his  brief  history  the 
names  of  several  artists,  some  of  whom  may  have  lived  in  early 
ages,  but  whom  he  saw  fit  to  group  as  representatives  of  the  last  or 
declining  stages ;  his  remark  about  them  being,  "  Up  to  this  point 
the  chief  leaders  in  each  kind  of  the  art  having  been  presented,  those 
next  to  the  first  will  not  be  passed  over  in  silence."     He  closes  his 
history  with  the  mention,  "  Women  also  painted ;"  and  adds  these 
names.     "  Timarete  the  daughter  of  Micon  painted  Diana  on  a  tabletj 
which  is  a  specimen  of  most  ancient  painting  at  Ephesus ;  Irene, 
daughter  and  pupil  of  the    painter  Cratiuus   painted  the  damsel 
who  is  an  Eleusinian  priestess;   Calypso  painted  Theodorus  as  an 
old  man  and  a  juggler ;  Aleisthene  a  dancer ;  Aristarete,  a  daugh- 
ter and  pupil  of  Nearchus,  painted   ^sculapius."      Of  these  wej 
observe  that  nearly  all  are  daughters  of  painters,  who  from  theii 
fathers  caught  their  devotion  to  art;    their  themes  are  generally 
ideal,  and  moreover  belonging  to  religious  idealism ;  and  they  attainec 
a  grade  of  eminence  which  led  Pliny  to  place  them  among  paintei 
of  the  third  or  lower  rank.     To  these  five  mentioned  by  Pliny  must 
be  added  Helena  alluded  to  by  Photius,  and  Alexandrina  by  ai 
annotator  on  Clement  of  Alexandria.    Helena,  a  daughter  of  TimonJ 
an  Egyptian,  or  a  Greek  born  in  Egypt  when  a  Grecian  kingdom,j 
prompted  by  the  spirit  of  Egyptian  as  well  as  Grecian  art,  paintec 
a  picture  of  the  Issican  War,  which  occurred  in  her  day ;  whichj 
painting  w^as  placed  by  Vespasian  in  the  Temple  of  Peace.     Alex- 
andrina was  the  daughter  and  pupil  of  Nealces  the  Grecian  paint 
just  alluded  to ;  and  in  this  declining  age  she  excelled  as  an  artist.1 
Pliny  adds  the  name,  and  extols  the  works  of  a  Roman  femalej 
painter ;  a  notice  of  whom  belongs  to  the  subsequent  history. 


THE   ROMANS   SPECIALLY   COLLECTORS   OF   PAINTING.      583 


CHAPTEK    VI. 

ROMAN  AND  MEDIEVAL  PAINTING ;  CHARACTERIZED  BY  ARTIFICIAL 
COLOR  AS  AN  ADJUNCT  AND  ORNAMENT  OF  ARCHITECTURAL 
FORMS. 

As  we  have  seen,  the  Romans  as  a  people  were  devoted  to  architec- 
ture as  the  first  of  arts ;  to  which  the  others  were  made  subordinate. 
Pliny  introduces  his  history  of  painting,  by  three  or  four  paragraphs 
relating  to  Roman  appreciation  and  employ  of  this  art;  while  the 
body  of  his  work  relates  to  Grecian  painting.  Those  allusions  indi- 
cate that  painting  among  the  Romans  was  truly  a  mere  adjunct 
of  architecture.  Walls  and  ceilings  were  adorned,  with  fresco  on 
plaster,  and  with  encaustic  enamelling  on  wood ;  and  to  so  great 
an  extent  was  the  decoration  of  buildings  carried  that  Pliny  says, 
"  we  begin  even  to  paint  stone."  Another  peculiar  employ  from  the 
earliest  ages  of  native  skill  in  this  art  among  the  Roman  people  was 
the  execution  on  the  door-posts  of  private  houses  of  the  portraits  of 
deceased  ancestors;  the  painted  images  taking  the  place  of  the  stat- 
uary of  marble  and  bronze  preferred  by  Grecian  taste.  The  idea  of 
architectural  decoration  was  the  leading  principle  in  even  this  por- 
trait painting  of  the  early  Roman  times;  executed  as  they  were,  not 
on  canvas  to  be  hung  on  the  walls  within;  but  painted  on  the  wood, 
or  stucco  work  of  the  door-way  at  the  entry. 

From  the  earliest  period  of  the  history  of  Rome  Grecian  painters 
were  employed,  as  we  have  seen,  especially  as  wall  painters.  It  con- 
stituted a  new  era  when  by  the  conquest  of  Greece  the  treasures  of 
cabinet  paintings  of  the  great  Grecian  masters  began  to  be  appropri- 
ated in  the  Roman  capital.  Pliny's  memoir  is  studded  with  the 
frequent  mention  that  such  a  painting,  executed  by  Zeuxis  or  Parrha- 
sius,  by  Apelles  or  Protogenes,  or  even  earlier  authors,  were  in  this 
or  that  temple  at  Rome;  some  of  them  being  named  as  burned  in  the 
destruction  of  the  edifices  in  which  they  were  deposited.  At  the 
period  when  these  accumulations  had  reached  their  maximum,  we 
read  of  efforts  made  to  gather  them  into  general  collections,  where 
as  common  property  they  might  be  of  service  to  the  republic. 

While  there  were  Greek  artists  who  supplied  to  a  great  extent  the 
Roman  demand  for  painting, the  collection  of  the  works  of  genius  of 
earlier  ages  in  Greece  awoke  in  a  few  Roman  minds  an  ambition  to 
rival  these  works  of  the  Greek  masters.     Some  of  these  Cicero  found 


584  ART  CRITICISM. 

occasion  to  commend;  but  in  general  their  genius  produced  only 
works  of  an  inferior  cast.  While  Pliny,  however,  was  writing,  a  new 
spirit  was  coming  over  thousands  of  the  Roman  people;  a  quiet 
leaven  beginning  its  influence  in  the  insignificant  Christian  gather- 
ings which  Trajan  directed  this  literary  favorite  of  his,  raised  to  the 
office  of  provincial  governor,  to  watch  as  novelties,  and  to  report  to 
him  their  character;  a  convincing  wisdom  which  in  less  than  a  cen- 
tury won  the  acceptance  of  Greek  intellect,  and  a  subduing  power 
which  in  three  centuries  compelled  the  allegiance  of  Roman  Em- 
perors. When  Christianity  thus  gained  the  seat  of  power,  as  Roman 
civil  dominion  had  been  pervasive  and  all  controlling,  so  the  succeed- 
ing ecclesiastical  sway,  having  its  two  centres  at  Rome  and  Constan- 
tinople, assumed  a  kindred  control ;  to  which  science  and  literature, 
art  and  philosophy  were  obliged  to  bow  and  conform  themselves. 
The  features  which  mark  eras  in  the  history  of  painting  among  the 
Romans  will  be  found  to  take  their  character  from  the  principles 
thus  successively  developed. 

Sect.  1.  Collection  of  Greek  Paintings  and  Employ  of  Greek  Paint- 
ers AT  KOME. 

We  have  found  Grecian  painters  engaged  at  Rome  in  the  decora- 
tion of  the  Capitol  of  this  people,  then  rude,  at  a  time  when  painting 
had  not  even  in  Greece  reached  an  excellence  which  justified  its 
recognition  as  a  sister  art  with  sculpture  and  architecture.  Scattered 
through  the  succeeding  history  of  the  rising  city  an  occasional  men- 
tion of  Greek  painters  is  met;  though  no  name  of  special  note 
occurs.  Even  during  the  period  of  Rome's  decline  Grecian  painters 
are  found  lingering  in  the  imperial  city  whose  influence  aided  in  ar- 
resting its  decline.  One  of  the  best  of  these  was  Eumselus ;  and  the 
last  to  receive  special  renown  was  Hilarius  who  flourished  about  A.  D. 
864.  Painting,  however,  was  not  an  art  cultivated  in  Rome  at  an  early 
period ;  the  chief  exception  being  the  filial  act  of  adorning  the  atrium 
with  ancestral  images ;  which,  as  Pliny  intimates,  were  rudely  exe- 
cuted and  by  native  artists. 

The  Romans,  however,  were  eminently  collectors  of  cabinet  or 
easel  paintings ;  a  disposition  showing  itself  especially  at  the  period 
of  the  conquest  of  Greece.  About  B.  C.  167  JEmilius  conquered 
Macedon,  the  north  of  Greece,  then  enriched  through  Alexander's 
influence  with  some  of  the  best  works  of  the  ablest  Greek  painters. 
These  moveable  works  of  Greek  art,  transmitted  to  Rome,  only 
whetted  the  appetite  for  a  more  extensive  plunder  about  B.  C.  147. 


NATIVE   ROMAN   PAINTERS;   AS   THE   FABII.  585 

Mummius,  the  Roman  general,  after  having  subdued  Achaia,  or 
southern  Greece,  opened  a  treasure-house  whence  inexhaustible  stores 
not  only  of  statues  but  also  of  paintings  were  borne  off.  The  numer- 
ous philosophic  criticisms  of  Cicero  upon  these  collections  of  art, 
interspersing  his  varied  writings,  indicate  the  extent  to  which  a  taste 
for  painting  had  become  cultured  among  the  intelligent  Romans. 

The  great  number  of  paintings,  brought  in  the  latter  days  of  the 
Republic,  and  during  the  reign  of  Augustus,  to  Rome,  seems  to  have 
suggested  the  idea  of  gathering  them  in  public  repositories  such  as 
Libraries  and  picture-galleries.  Alluding  to  this  era  Pliny  beauti- 
fully remarks  that  "  in  libraries  are  reverentially  preserved  either  in 
statues  of  gold,  silver  or  brass,  not  only  true  likenesses  of  the  men 
whose  immortal  spirits  are  still  speaking  in  the  same  places;  but 
even  those  which  are  not  in  existence  are  put  into  imaginary  form ; 
and  human  desire  produces  portraits  not  historically  preserved,  as 
happens  in  the  case  of  Homer."  He  mentions  Pollio,  a  consul  under 
Augustus,  as  the  first  to  establish  a  public  library  thus  enriched ; 
adding,  "  he  made  the  intellectual  endowments  of  men  a  public  trea- 
sure." It  is  related  also  of  the  noble  Agrippa,  who  as  his  intimate 
friend  advised  Augustus  to  re-establish  the  Republic  instead  of  consent- 
ing to  become  Emperor,  that  he  refused  to  accept  a  triumph  after  his 
great  victories  in  Gaul  and  Germany,  choosing  rather  to  devote  the 
rich  spoils  gathered  in  his  campaigns  to  the  enriching  of  the  city 
with  improvements  of  the  public  buildings  ;  among  which  the  mag- 
nificent portico  of  the  Pantheon,  still  so  admired  was  one.  In  a 
speech  uttered  soon  after  the  fall  of  the  Republic,  he  recommended 
to  his  countrymen  "  that  the  works  of  art  they  had  gathered  should 
be  devoted  to  public  use ;  and  that  to  this  end  they  should  be  placed 
in  public  repositories  for  the  improvement  of  those  who  devoted 
themselves  to  the  pursuit  of  art,  as  also  for  the  pleasure  and  admira- 
tion of  all."  Thus  devoted  to  collections  of  art,  the  Romans  were  sat- 
isfied that  the  Greeks,  who  furnished  them  with  paintings,  should  also 
provide  them  with  painters.  As  we  shall  see,  even  down  to  the  time 
when  the  religion  of  Christ  in  the  person  of  Constantine  had  gained 
civil  sway  in  the  empire,  Greek  artists  were  the  leaders  of  taste  in 
painting. 

Sect.  2.  Native  Koman  Painters  and  their  productions. 

It  is  natural  that  a  historian  should  seek  to  exalt  his  own  country, 
while  not  doing  injustice  to  a  foreign  people ;  a  fact  which  seems  to 
be  illustrated  in  the  effort  of  Pliny  to  give  a  prominent  place  in  his 

3  Y 


586  ART   CRITICISM. 

history  to  the  native  painters  of  Kome.  After  mentioning  that 
Cleophantes,  the  Corinthian  painter,  driven  by  civil  oppression  fled  to 
Rome  in  the  days  of  Tarquinius  Priscus,  he  adds,  "  painting  was 
already  an  art  advanced  in  Italy."  "  There  are  in  existence,  in  the 
sacred  structures  of  Ardea,"  one  of  the  oldest  cities  of  Italy,  "paint- 
ings that  are  more  ancient  than  the  City  of  Rome."  "  Among  the 
Romans  honor  at  an  early  period  attached  to  this  art."  The  early 
and  rude  creations  of  this  art,  seem  to  have  been  of  two  classes ; 
the  adorned  niches  and  borders  around  the  effigies  of  ancestry  placed 
in  the  entrance  of  private  houses  and  the  decoration  of  shields  with 
varied  devices.  In  other  nations  a  "  decline"  had  led  to  the  "  loss 
of  the  arts ;"  "  because  as  there  were  no  images  of  souls,  those  of 
bodies  were  neglected.  On  the  other  hand,  among  our  ancestors  in 
the  door-ways  might  be  seen  not  the  works  of  foreign  artists,  either 
in  bronze  or  marble ;  but  busts  moulded  in  wax  were  disposed  each 
in  its  niche ;"  pride  in  which  served  to  keep  up  the  family  spirit. 
"  Curved  borders,"  he  adds,  "  were  drawn  around  these  images  and 
painted  portraits  were  interspersed ;"  these  images  with  their  colored 
borders  keeping  alive  the  native  devotion  to  painting  for  generations. 

Another  favorite  subject  of  ancient  painting  among  the  Romans, 
the  more  so  because  both  their  shape  and  the  images  painted  on  them 
gave  the  idea  of  framed  cabinet  pictures,  were  decorated  shields. 
Such  shields  were  common  in  the  time  of  the  Trojan  "War ;  some 
having  images  embossed  or  carved  on  their  fronts,  whence  came  the 
Latin  name  derived  from  the  Greek  elypeus  from  glypheos.  It  be- 
came an  honor  to  have  the  features  of  the  bearer  of  the  shield 
pictured  on  his  buckler.  This  was  a  custom  of  the  Carthaginians 
descended  from  the  Trojans ;  some  of  whose  shields,  ca2:>tured  from 
the  army  of  Hasdrubal,  were  preserved  at  Rome.  These  decorations, 
which  naturally  suggested  the  oval  form  for  a  class  of  cabinet  paint- 
ings, were  another  department  of  the  art  of  coloring  by  which 
Roman  genius  was  called  out. 

At  a  very  early  period,  probably  during  the  era  of  the  renowned 
painters  of  Greece,  the  name  and  office  of  painter  was  made  honor- 
able by  the  devotion  to  its  practice  of  the  noble  family  of  the  Fabii ; 
illustrious  for  generations  under  the  title  "  Pictores"  or  Painters. 
Pliny  mentions  that  the  chief  of  this  illustrious  family,  in  the  year 
U.  C.  45D,  or  about  B.  C.  800,  decorated  with  paintings  the  temple 
of  Safety  at  Rome ;  and  he  adds  that  those  paintings  existed  to  his 
day ;  though  the  temple  was  burned  under  the  reign  of  Claudius. 
Several  names  of  Roman  painters  occur  in  Pliny's  history,  some  of 


ROMAN   TASTE   IN   EAELY  CHRISTIAN   PAINTING.  587 

which  are  interspersed  with  those  of  Grecian  artists.  After  the 
Fabian  family  had  ceased  to  furnish  able  artists  the  art  passed  into 
hands  less  worthy.  To  this  era  probably  belonged  Arellius,  men- 
tioned by  Pliny  as  a  corrupter  of  the  art.  The  mention  of  Pam- 
philus  as  a  Roman  painter  living  in  Cicero's  day  is  a  link  in  the  line 
of  descent;  the  artist,  however,  having  more  note  from  his  name 
apparently  than  for  any  great  merit. 

The  mention  of  a  mute,  in  the  next  age,  as  an  artist  is  important 
as  bearing  on  a  suggestion  of  modern  days  as  to  the  instruction  of 
deaf-mutes.  Pliny's  mention  is:  "Quintus  Pedius,  nephew  of  Quin- 
tus  Pedius  a  man  of  consular  rank  and  honored  with  a  triumph,  was 
favored  to  receive  the  patronage  of  Ciesar  Augustus  when  dictator. 
Since  he  was  by  birth  a  mute,  Messala  the  orator  thought  that  he 
should  be  taught  painting ;  and  this  the  Emperor  Augustus  approved. 
The  boy,  having  greatly  advanced  in  this  art,  died." 

Under  Nero  flourished  three  painters  of  native  birth;  Fabullus,  a 
decorator  of  houses ;  Dorotheus,  who  aspired  to  imitate  Apelles ;  and 
Prisons.  Under  Vespasian  Pinus  gained  note ;  and  probably  Mallius 
noted  for  his  scurrility,  as  well  as  ability  as  an  artist.  Pliny  espe- 
cially extols  Turpilius ;  whom  he  styles,  "  a  Roman  knight  of  our 
age,"  a  native  of  "  Venice,"  whose  "  beautiful  works  are  to  this  day 
extant  at  Verona.  He  painted  with  his  left  hand ;  which  is  related 
of  no  one  before  him."  While  thus  as  native  Romans  Pliny  natu- 
rally sought  to  bring  into  all  prominence  possible  the  artists  of  his 
own  country  he  lays  chief  stress  on  the  "  authority  "  in  this  art,  which 
had  centred  in  Rome  because  of  her  collections  of  "foreign  cabinet- 
paintings."  It  is  by  this  transition  that  he  passes  to  his  full  and 
most  valuable  history  of  Grecian  Painting. 

Sect.  3.  Eoman  Taste  in  Painting  characterizing  early  Christian 

Art. 

It  was  not  unnatural  that  the  spirit  of  domination  planted  by  the 
Creator  in  the  Roman  mind,  bestowed  for  a  higher  than  earthly  end, 
should  live  even  after  the  new  spirit  infused  by  Christianity  had 
taken  control  of  this  people,  prepared  to  exert  a  wide  influence  on 
their  own  day  and  to  leave  the  seeds  of  a  great  transformation  in 
nations  yet  to  grow  upon  thQ  decay  of  their  power.  The  leading 
and  controlling  heads  of  the  Roman  Christian  Church,  early  firmly 
established,  retained  and  transmitted  for  generations  the  spirit  of 
their  ancestry;  and  the  ecclesiastical  power  of  Rome  gave  to  taste  in 
art  the  same  direction  which  the  Roman  civil  power  had  inspired. 


688  ART  CRITICISM. 

There  are  two  sources  whence  a  knowledge  of  the  characteristics 
of  early  Christian  art  may  be  gathered ;  first  the  relics  of  painting 
in  this  age  preserved  at  Rome  and  elsewhere  in  Europe;  and  second, 
the  writings  of  Christian  fathers  who  allude  to  the  paintings  and 
artists  of  their  times.  A  careful  survey  of  these  two  sources  enables 
us  to  trace,  though  obscurely,  the  steps  in  the  progress  of  painting  in 
this  era  generally  regarded  as  barren  of  interest  to  the  student  of 
art. 

In  the  age  referred  to  the  spirit  of  true  art  lingered  in  the  descen- 
dants of  old  Greek  artists;  many  of  them  became  eminent  as  painters; 
and  the  critical  allusions  made  by  intelligent  Christian  writers  of  the 
time  to  these  men  of  their  own  day,  as  well  as  to  the  earlier  Greek 
painters,  enable  us  to  judge  how  art  in  its  secular  relations  was  re- 
garded by  men  of  thought  among  the  early  Christians.  Among 
Greek  painters  prominent  in  this  age  were  the  following,  Artemido- 
rus,  who  lived  about  A.  D.  100,  became  eminent  in  classic  themes; 
though  Martial,  the  Latin  poet  criticises  a  Venus  painted  by  him 
because  it  had  the  masculine  attributes  of  Minerva.  A  half  century 
later,  A.  D.  150,  flourished  Aristodemus  of  Caria,  who  wrote  a  trea- 
tise on  "Eminent  Painters,  the  cities  in  which  the  Art  of  Painting 
was  most  cultivated,  and  the  kings  who  had  patronized  the  art ;"  and 
also  Eumelus  celebrated  for  the  soft  grace  he  gave  to  his  works,  which 
was  specially  remarked  in  a  Helen  painted  by  him  for  the  Roman 
Forum.  A  century  after,  about  A.  D.  250,  Hermogenes  is  mentioned 
as  an  able  painter.  Finally  Hilarius  who  flourished  a  century  later, 
about  A.  D.  365,  attained  great  eminence  at  Athens  as  a  painter ;  but 
w^as,  when  young,  killed  in  an  attack  of  barbarians.  To  these 
painters  of  the  early  ages  Greek  critics  and  Christian  Fathers  make 
like  allusions;  showing  how  much  in  common  were  the  views  as  to 
art  of  learned  Christian  writers  and  Greek  scholars  of  the  same  day. 
Thus  Tertullian,  the  able  Christian  scholar  of  the  third  century,  in  a 
written  controversy  as  to  the  principles  of  the  Stoic  philosophy,  with 
Hermogenes  a  Greek  poet  and  artist,  is  not  only  most  courteous 
in  the  general  argument  but  also  highly  complimentary  to  the  ability 
of  the  artist.  It  is  manifest  that  paintings  on  secular  subjects  were 
not  held  either  in  abhorrence,  or  even  in  disesteem  by  the  Christians 
of  the  early  ages  after  the  apostles.  We  should  be  prepared  to  find 
the  same  substantially  true  of  the  estimate  in  which  early  paintings 
upon  Christian  themes  were  held. 

Able  writers  upon  early  Christian  painting  have  noted  different 
eras  marking  the  progress  of  its  development.     Kugler,  borrowing 


CLASSIFICATIONS   OF   EARLY   CHRISTIAN   PAINTINGS.      689 

his  designation  from  the  architecture  of  this  period  styles  the  paint- 
ing of  this  age  "  Romanesque :"  a  designation  more  appropriate,  as 
in  the  history  of  architecture,  to  a  later  stage  of  art  in  Chris'tian 
Rome;  since  both  the  architecture  and  painting  of  the  very  earliest 
ages  was  simple  in  style,  though  modeled  after  the  Roman ;  while  the 
Romanesque  proper  may  with  more  propriety  be  confined  to  the  era 
when  the  Byzantine,  becoming  a  rival,  gave  two  distinct  casts  to  these 
arts,  requiring  separate  designations  drawn  from  the  two  cities  where 
the  opposed  styles  prevailed.  Mrs.  Jameson,  followed  by  Lady  East- 
lake,  distinguishes  between  paintings  on  Christian  themes  designed 
to  present  supernatural  scenes,  and  adapted  to  inspire  religious  awe 
and  veneration,  and  those  founded  upon  natural  scenes  in  the  life  of 
Christ  and  his  apostles,  designed  to  instruct  the  mind  rather  than  to 
impress  the  sensibilities.  Jarves,  the  American  critic  on  art,  makes 
prominent  the  age  of  theological  as  distinguished  from  historical 
themes ;  the  age  of  the  former  being  the  era  when  symbols  and 
ideals  of  the  supernatural  were  demanded  of  the  artist  by  the  spirit 
of  the  Christian  world,  and  the  age  of  the  latter  when  the  models 
for  Scripture  themes  could  be  chosen  from  among  living  men. 

Perhaps  the  progress  of  taste,  especially  of  design,  in  the  history 
of  Art  in  Italy  may  be  most  profitably  reviewed  in  four  aspects ;  which 
to  a  certain  extent  correspond  to  as  many  stages  of  development ; 
while,  however,  it  should  be  remembered  that  works  of  each  of  the 
classes  mentioned  were  produced  in  each  age ;  the  leading  character- 
istic of  succeeding  ages  being  only  the  predominance  of  the  types  here 
mentioned  in  their  order.  The  first  age  was  symbolic ;  simple  at- 
tempts by  painted  signs  to  represent  ideas,  and  by  instruments  to 
depict  an  ofiice ;  to  which  simple  style  of  conception  and  execution 
Christian  artists  seem  for  three  or  four  centuries  to  have  devoted 
themselves.  The  second  may  be  called  the  mystical  age  or  style ;  the 
representation  not  of  instruments  but  of  beings  supernatural  either 
in  origin  or  in  endowment.  This  style  culminated  in  the  Byzantine 
Church,  and  became  its  fixed  type  to  this  day;  ruling  also  in  the 
Western  Church  with  occasional  intervals  during  eight  or  nine  cen- 
turies, till  the  revival  in  Italian  Painting.  The  third  may  be  styled 
the  ascetic;  the  representation  of  natural  personages  in  positions  and 
with  features  that  are  found  among  real  men,  but  men  in  an  unna- 
tural state  of  dejection.  Originating  in  Italy,  where  it  held  sway 
till  the  age  of  the  three  great  masters,  numbering  even  the  youthful 
Raphael  among  its  later  votaries,  it  found  its  congenial  and  per- 
manent home  among  the  Spanish  Painters.     The  final  stage  of  the 

50 


590 


ART   CRITICISM. 


progress  of  art  in  painting  Christian  themes  may  be  styled  the  his- 
torical, that  of  Scripture  history  proper;  in  which  the  cheerful, 
almost  romantic  incidents  in  the  lives  of  the  patriarchs  and  of  Jesus 
are  made  the  theme  of  a  purely  natural  representation ;  an  era  com- 
mencing with  the  great  masters  of  Italy,  not  finding,  however,  in 
that  land,  its  native  clime,  but  becoming  the  very  life  of  Christian 
art  in  Western  and  Central  Europe.  It  is  only  the  earlier  stages  of 
this  history  that  come  directly  within  the  field  of  Roman  Painting. 

Kugler  makes  the  earliest  period  of  Christian  painting  to  extend 
over  about  five  centuries :  ending  with  the  invasion  of  Rome  by  the 
Lombards  in  the  sixth  century.  He  classifies  the  subjects  and 
objects  of  the  rude  coloring  of  this  period  into  five  divisions  or 
groups ;  first,  emblems  proper,  such  as  the  cross,  the  anchor,  etc. ;  secon 
funeral  inscriptions  and  symbols ;  third,  paintings  of  Christ's  features 
or  form ;  fourth,  miniatures  of  eminent  Christian  men  such  as  apos- 
tles and  martyrs ;  fifth,  mosaics,  which  were  a  revival  of  Roman  taste 
for  tesselated  pavements,  a  taste  awakened  apparently  in  the  fourth 
century,  and  which  took  the  form  of  decorated  walls  instead  of 
pavements,  the  mosaics  of  Christian  times  being  imitation  of  wall, 
cabinet  and  miniature  painting.  The  divisions  indicated  are  made 
on  diverse  grounds ;  the  first  relating  to  objects  colored ;  the  second 
to  the  location  and  use  of  the  painting  designed ;  the  third  to  sub- 
jects represented ;  the  fourth  to  the  size  of  the  works  executed ;  and 
the  fifth  to  material  employed.  The  consideration  of  the  first  and 
last  of  these  groups  belongs  to  the  subject  of  Decorative  Art.  The 
second  third  and  fourth  are  the  painting  proper  of  this  age ;  which 
rude  as  it  may  seem,  had  the  characteristics  of  true  art,  having  its 
stages  of  rise,  of  culmination,  and  of  decline  when  after  the  Lombard 
invasion  art  seemed  for  two  or  three  centuries  to  find  no  votary  wor- 
thy of  its  high  mission. 

The  paintings  of  the  Catacombs  of  Rome,  w^hich  were  the  burial 
places  of  the  early^Christians,  and  as  such  decorated  wdth  devices 
and  subjects  appropriate,  are,  like  the  tombs  of  Egypt,  a  permanent 
gallery  for  the  preservation  and  exhibition  of  early  works  in  paint- 
ing. They  are  visited  by  every  passing  tourist  with  intense  interest ; 
they  have  been  the  study  of  artists  and  of  art-critics  for  ages  that 
their  style  and  sentiment  may  be  appreciated ;  while  also  men  of 
piety,  of  learning  and  of  true  culture  have  penned  volumes  of 
criticism  upon  them,  sometimes  influenced  by  questions  of  theo- 
logical opinion  which  have  no  direct  relation  to  art.  The  cata- 
combs, like  the  tombs  of  Egypt,  are  excavations  in   the  porous 


CHRISTIAN   PAINTINGS   IN  THE   CATACOMBS   OF   ROME.     591 

rock  on  which  Rome  stands.  Those  used  as  ancient  burial-places 
are  about  sixty  in  number,  extending  out  on  almost  every  road 
leading  from  the  city;  but  the  most  interesting  in  the  history  of 
Christian  painting  are  those  on  the  old  Appian  Way,  or  southern 
road.  In  one,  named  St.  Agnese,  is  a  chapel  on  whose  stuccoed  walls 
are  frescoes  of  Moses  removing  his  sandals  at  the  foot  of  Sinai  and 
again  striking  the  rock;  The  Good  Shepherd,  with  Daniel  among 
the  lions  on  one  side  and  the  three  Hebrews  in  the  fiery  furnace  on 
the  other  side.  In  another  gallery  are  paintings  of  the  Ascension  of 
Elijah,  of  Noah  sending  the  dove  from  the  ark,  a  woman  pleading 
probably  for  the  restoration  of  her  dead  child,  and  the  raising  of  Laz- 
arus ;  these  latter  seeming  to  relate  to  the  resurrection,  as  the  former 
to  represent  the  Christian's  trials  on  earth.  At  the  entrance  of  a 
tomb  opposite  is  a  picture  of  Christ  surrounded  by  six  of  his  apostles ; 
while  the  ceiling,  divided  into  compartments,  has  the  Good  Shepherd 
in  the  centre  and  surrounded  by  clusters  of  fruit  and  flowers,  in  outer 
compartments,  Adam  and  Eve  in  Eden,  Moses  striking  the  rock,  Jonah 
under  his  arbor,  and  a  female  with  uplifted  hand  apparently  exulting 
in  praise;  the  whole  seeming  to  set  forth  the  "rest  of  the  people  of 
God."  In  other  tombs  such  subjects  as  these  are  found;  Adam  with 
the  serpent,  Elijah  ascending  in  a  chariot  to  heaven  with  an  angel 
form  like  Mercury  at  his  horses'  heads,  and  a  figure  of  Orpheus  as 
a  symbol  of  the  power  of  God's  word  over  barbarous  tribes. 

Kugler  gives  the  following  description  of  a  head  of  Christ  to  illus- 
trate the  character  of  the  artistic  execution  of  these  paintings;  'the 
face  oval,  the  nose  straight,  the  eyebrows  arched,  the  forehead  high 
and  smooth,  the  hair  parted  on  the  forehead  and  hanging  in  long 
curls  on  the  shoulders,  the  beard  thin,  short  and  divided,  the  expres- 
sion mild  and  serious,  the  age  between  thirty  and  forty  years.'  To 
illustrate  the  simplicity  and  purity  of  conception  characterizing  these 
early  paintings,  Mrs.  Jameson  says,  "they  touched  the  traditions  of 
the  Old  Testament  with  a  delicacy  and  a  reverence  that  was  after- 
wards lost.  They  represented  the  Bible  narrative  by  conventional 
signs  and  symbols;  they  abstained  religiously  from  representing  the 
Divine  Being  at  all,  save  by  the  shadow  of  his  glory  or  the  finger  of 
his  power."  A  specimen  of  this  simplicity  is  seen  in  the  omission 
of  the  circles  of  light,  or  nimbi,  about  the  heads  of  even  apostles; 
which,  in  later  days,  any  saint,  of  however  doubtful  claim  to  excel- 
lence, was  permitted  to  wear.  The  character  of  the  themes  of  this 
early  day  indicate  the  true  comprehensiveness  and  culture  belonging 
to  the  spirit  of  Christianity ;  the  representation  of  historic  scenes  of 


692  ART  CRITICISM. 

the  Old  as  well  as  of  the  New  Testament  with  the  naturalness  be- 
longing to  true  life,  and  the  borrowing  even  from  classic  art  such 
models  for  ideals  as  Mercury  and  Orpheus.  The  style  of  execution, 
if  not  comparable  in  anatomical  proportions,  symmetry  and  life  to 
the  advanced  art  of  modern  times,  is  certainly  superior  to  the  art  of 
most  nations  and  people  at  so  early  a  stage  of  their  development. 

In  addition  to  these  witnesses  to  the  eye  of  the  character  of  early 
Christian  art,  the  numerous  statements  of  early  Christian  writers  as 
to  the  esteem  in  which  painting  as  an  art  was  held  by  the  intelligent 
of  their  number  is  worthy  of  special  regard.  The  testimonies  of  men 
who  wrote  in  defence  of  Christianity  during  the  first  three  or  four 
centuries  after  the  Christian  era  is  in  this  respect  of  great  value.  At 
an  early  period  a  tradition  prevailed,  not  likely  to  have  originated 
except  in  a  fact,  that  Luke  was  a  painter.  The  physicians  of  that 
day  were  often  artists,  both  professions  leading  to  the  study  of  chem- 
ical admixtures ;  and  there  is  nothing  to  oppose,  but  much  to  confirm 
the  idea  that  Luke,  a  Greek  native  of  Antioch  founded  by  one  of 
the  successors  of  Alexander,  had  imbibed  a  taste  for  Grecian  art. 
At  a  very  early  period  pictures  of  Christ  were  found  in  the  hands  of 
lovers  of  art,  as  well  as  of  Christian  believers;  as  Iren8eus,who  lived 
as  near  to  Christ's  apostles  as  we  do  to  Washington,  attests.  At  first 
these  representations,  corresponding  with  the  sad  history  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church,  embodied  the  image  of  the  "Man  of  Sorrows;"  as 
Origen,  Clement  of  Alexandria  and  Tertullian  in  the  next  genera- 
tion intimate.  When,  however,  under  Constantino,  Christians  were 
the  happy  instead  of  the  unfortunate  of  earth,  then  artists  made 
Jesus  the  reflex  of  their  own  changed  aspect,  painting  him  as  "  the 
one  altogether  lovely;"  as  Jerome  and  Eusebius  state.  A  generation 
later  so  intelligent  and  devout  a  man  as  Augustine,  alluding  to  the 
pictures  of  Christ  then  multiplied  as  "varied  in  expression  and  com- 
posed after  innumerable  conceptions,"  argues  that  all  these  are  legiti- 
mate and  true,  since  they  give  the  ideal  best  suited  to  aid  the  mind 
of  each  student  of  his  character.  In  the  early  days  of  the  church  no 
thought  is  hinted  that  pictures  of  Christ,  in  ideal  representations, 
were  anything  else  than  contributions  of  art  to  general  culture,  and 
an  aid  to  the  study  of  Christian  truth. 

When  to  be  a  Christian  was  to  pay  respect  to  the  religious  profes- 
sion of  the  sovereign  and  of  men  by  thousands  who  had  been  trained 
to  believe  in  and  to  worship  images  as  true  representatives  of  beings 
having  superhuman  power,  it  was  natural  that  the  multitudes  who 
nominally  avowed  themselves  as  Christians  should  regard  the  paint- 


ASTATIC   CAST   OF   PAINTING   IN   THE    EASTERN   CHURCH.    593 

ings,  then  frequent  in  churches,  with  a  different  eye  from  that  with 
which  men  beheld  them  who  had  embraced  the  spiritual  faith  from 
intellectual  conviction  of  its  truth.  The  fact  that  the  churches  at 
this  era  were  filled  with  paintings  liable  thus  to  abuse  is  the  strongest 
possible  testimony  as  to  the  purity,  as  well  as  to  the  extent  of  the  cul- 
ture of  this  art  among  Christians  prior  to  the  age  when  danger  of 
the  perversion  of  the  art  was  possible. 

Sect.  4th.  The  Byzantine  style  of  Painting;  rigid  in  outline  and 
excessive  in  coloring  ;  permanently  established  in  the  eastern 
Church. 

When  Constantine  as  head  of  the  Roman  Empire  embraced  a 
religious  faith  whose  authoritative  records  came  from  the  East  and 
were  given  to  the  world  through  an  Asiatic  people,  and  when  this 
monarch  through  preference  transferred  the  Seat  of  Empire  to  a 
spot  bordering  on  the  early  seat  of  Asiatic  civilization,  it  was  natural 
that  even  a  truly  European  people  should  take  on  some  characteris- 
tics of  the  new  land  of  their  adoption.  Yet  more,  the  Roman 
boasted  of  his  origin  from  that  portion  of  the  Japhetic  stock  which 
had  its  original  home  in  Asia ;  ^neas  their  great  ancestor  having 
been  a  Trojan  exile.  Even  at  Rome  itself  in  its  earliest  history 
Asiatic  ideas  were  at  the  foundation  of  the  native  taste  in  art ;  modi- 
fied and  refined  by  the  Grecian  spirit  in  neighboring  Etruria.  With 
Constantine  began,  at  his  Eastern  capital  in  the  fourth  century  of 
the  Christian  era,  a  style  of  painting,  Asiatic  in  caste  though  Chris- 
tian in  sentiment,  called  Byzantine ;  whose  characteristics,  relating 
to  both  form  and  color  live  in  the  paintings  which  cover  the  walls  of 
Eastern  or  Greek  churches  at  this  day. 

In  form  the  Byzantine  designed  only  single  figures,  and  hence  had 
no  perspective ;  it  did  not  attempt  portrait;  and  it  had  no  back-ground 
or  shadow  giving  projection  to  the  figure.  In  the  postures  of  the 
head  there  was  a  rigid  stiffness ;  not  a  feature  is  animated  with  any 
expression;  the  cheeks  are  lank  and  corpse-like;  the  bodies  are 
meager  and  lifeless ;  and  the  dress  seems  stiff*  as  with  starch  and  has 
no  flowing  grace.  With  but  occasional  exceptions  nothing  of  the 
spirit  of  ancient  Grecian  art  is  met ;  and  then  only  in  allegorical 
figures  where  the  effect  is  marred.  Pictures  of  sacred  persons  are 
copied  mechanically  from  age  to  age,  and  show  scarcely  a  ray 
of  true  genius.  As  specimens  of  this  Kugler  specially  notes  the 
pictures  of  Mary  and  of  Jesus.  Christ  on  the  cross  is  represented 
as  sinking,  his  head  hanging  down,  his  knees  relaxed,  and  his  body 

50  •»  3  Z 


594  ART   CRITICISM. 

swayed  to  one  side ;  while  the  Italian  painters  always  in  picturing 
the  scene  of  the  crucifixion  represented  Jesus  in  the  full  vigor  of 
life,  bearing  himself  upright  and  seeming  to  be  victor  over  sufifering. 

In  color  the  Byzantine  painter  was  yet  more  truly  Asiatic.  Like 
the  Egyptian  they  used  the  pure  colors  without  gradation  of  shade  or  hue. 
The  flesh  color  in  the  best  paintings  now  met  in  Greek  Churches  is 
cherry  red ;  a  hue  belonging  only  to  the  lips,  with  no  variation  for  fore- 
head, cheek,  neck  or  hand.  The  dress  is  of  the  glaring  yellow  or  blue, 
pink  or  purple  of  which  the  Asiatic  is  so  fond.  Though  loaded  with 
a  thickness  of  color  which  itself  stands  out  from  the  ground,  and 
having  a  finish  of  polish  which  gives  a  dazzling  gloss  to  the  surface, 
there  is  no  transparency  in  the  depth  of  color ;  and  the  gloss  is  only 
that  of  burnished  metal  not  the  irradiation  of  color  reflexes.  Every 
observer  of  the  Byzantine  painting  is  struck  with  the  amount  of 
gold  hues  wrought  into  the  work ;  the  entire  back-ground  sometimes 
making  the  face  of  the  principal  figure  seem  to  be  laid  upon  a  gilded 
surface.  Kugler,  in  referring  to  this,  remarks  that  the  Byzantines 
doubtless  used  in  former  times  wax  to  a  great  extent  in  their  vehi- 
cles ;  while  the  early  Italians  used  a  lighter  and  more  fluid  vehicle. 
He  mentions  also  a  prevailing  tint  of  greenish  yellow ;  which  he 
attributes  to  some  metal  in  the  vehicle  which  gives  a  streakiness  to 
their  "  orpiment"  or  gold-pigment.  The  whole  aspect  of  the  Byzan- 
tine coloring  is  that  of  gaudiness  and  excess  of  ornamentation,  and 
the  lack  of  those  studied  and  graded  hues  which  give  expression  to 
features.  Yet  there  were  stages  in  its  progress  when  the  Byzantine 
attained  to  great  merit ;  and  some  of  its  artists  had  power  to  speak  to 
the  soul  like  the  old  masters  themselves.  Thus  in  the  age  of  Constan- 
tine  Anastasius  dwells  with  enthusiasm  on  a  picture  of  St.  Euphemia 
preserved  at  Amasia ;  while  in  the  same  age  Gregory  of  Nyssa  is 
said  to  have  been  moved  to  tears  by  a  painting  of  the  sacrifice  of 
Isaac.  In  the  tenth  century,  when  the  style  of  the  Byzantine  Church 
had  for  centuries  been  perfecting,  an  ecclesiastic  named  Nicon  is  said 
to  have  decorated  a  church  near  Sparta  with  pictures,  "  equal  to  the 
most  perfect  works  of  Zeuxis  and  Polygnotus."  These  incidents 
indicate  a  genuine  taste  prevailing  even  in  the  age  usually  regarded 
the  darkest  in  history. 

The  result  of  the  controversy  between  the  Western  and  Eastern 
Church  as  to  the  legitimacy  of  the  adoration  paid  to  images  in  the 
churches  had  a  powerful  tendency  to  increase  the  esteem  which 
painting  as  an  art  had  already  obtained.  From  the  natural  tendency 
of  human  nature  to  extremes,  spiritual  Christians,  who  had  found 


IMAGES   EXCHANGED   FOR   PAINTING   IN   THE   EAST.       595 

profit  from  the  culture  of  art  in  the  simple  ages  when  only  truly  en- 
lightened minds,  that  would  not  abuse  them,  came  into  their  fold, 
were  led  to  oppose  works  of  art  in  churches,  when,  in  the  age  of  Con- 
stantine,  the  populace,  who  could  not  discriminate  between  their  old 
and  the  new  faith,  came  flocking  to  give  in  their  adhesion  to  the 
Christian  creed  because  it  was  now  the  State  religion,  and  bowed  in 
reverence  to  the  sculptured  and  painted  images  of  Christ  and  of  emi- 
nent Christians  as  they  had  been  accustomed  to  do  homage  to  their 
former  deities.  Just  before  the  time  of  Constantine,  at  a  council  of  the 
Church  held  at  Illiberis  in  the  extreme  south  of  France,  a  town  then 
decayed  but  rebuilt  by  Constantine  in  honor  of  his  mother,  a  decree 
was  adopted  to  the  effect,  "that  pictures  ought  not  to  be  in  the 
Church,  lest  what  is  painted  on  the  walls  should  be  superstitiously 
reverenced  and  worshipped."  A  reaction  naturally  followed,  since 
the  abuse  of  art  was  no  valid  objection  to  its  use;  and  there  was, 
again,  a  tendency  to  the  opposite  extreme,  the  Western  Church  being 
led  to  an  excess  in  the  employ  of  images  and  the  Eastern  of  paint- 
ings. Two  and  a  half  centuries  later,  about  A.  D.  590,  Gregory  the 
Great,  wrote,  "Paintings  ought  to  be  retained  in  the  churches  in 
order  that  those  ignorant  of  letters  may,  as  it  were,  read  by  looking 
on  the  walls  what  they  are  not  able  to  read  in  the  manuscripts." 
When  a  century  yet  later,  A.  D.  692,  the  Council  of  Constantinople 
under  Justinian  was  held,  and  a  canon  was  adopted  censuring  the 
representation  in  "  carved  images  "  of  "  Christ  the  Lamb  of  God  after 
a  human  model,"  an  act  which  gave  such  offence  to  the  Roman 
Church  as  to  bring  to  a  crisis  the  separation  long  pending,  it  was 
sculpture,  not  painting,  against  which  the  Greek  Church  arrayed 
itself.  The  conventual  artists  still  kept  alive  the  Byzantine  style  un- 
changed for  ages,  while  everything  else  seemed  to  be  changed.  In 
fact,  it  w^as  under  the  same  Justinian  who  secured  the  passage  of  the 
canon  against  sculpture,  that  the  art  of  painting,  as  an  accessory  to 
his  grand  church  edifices,  rose  to  its  highest  stage  of  perfection. 
Maintaining  its  sway  in  the  East  in  connection  with  the  Byzantine 
style  of  church  architecture,  it  passed  with  it  to  Venice  in  Italy  when 
St.  Mark's  was  erected ;  and,  became  in  fact  a  fundamental  character- 
istic of  the  subsequent  Venetian  School,  whose  rich  coloring,  mani- 
festly learned  from  Byzantine  artists,  ever  remained  the  distinguishing 
feature  of  that  branch  of  Italian  painting. 

The  innumerable  pictures  now  filling  the  churches  of  Greece,  of 
Russia  and  of  Western  Asia,  where  the  faith  and  order  of  the  Greek 
or  Oriental  Church  prevails,  naturally  leads  to  an  inquiry  after  the 


596  ART   CKITICISM. 

centre  and  fount  whence  emanates  this  flood  of  stereotyped  paintings, 
orthodox  in  form  and  color;  a  stream  that  is  never  dry,  and  has 
flowed  on  uninterrupted  for  ages.  In  the  time  of  Constantine  con- 
vents filled  with  men  devoted  to  a  life  of  study  and  private  labor  for 
the  church  had  won  to  their  enclosures  many  men  of  superior  minds. 
When  now  Greek  ecclesiastics  mingling  in  society  sought  refined 
culture  and  courtly  recreation  in  the  practice  of  art,  in  the  convents 
the  painting  of  images  of  Christ  and  of  saints  became  a  favorite 
pursuit.  Even  Chrysostom,  or  the  golden-mouthed,  the  Demosthenes 
of  the  Grecian  pulpit,  living  about  fifty  years  after  Constantine,  was, 
as  we  have  noticed,  an  artist  as  well  as  a  preacher ;  and  as  he  him- 
self wrote  was  specially  "devoted  to  encaustic  painting."  The  men 
secluded  from  the  world  in  convents  had  the  same  taste;  with  no  ac- 
tive duties  to  interfere  with  their  entire  devotion  to  it. 

At  a  very  early  day  leading  devotees  of  the  Greek  Church  selected 
as  a  fit  and  safe  location  for  extensive  schools  and  monastic  institu- 
tions of  their  faith  the  promontory  of  Mt.  Athos ;  whose  position,  ofi* 
the  track  of  passing  fleets  and  armies,  and  the  height  of  whose  sum- 
mit, which  casts  a  shadow  in  the  morning  eighty-seven  miles  inland, 
conspired  to  make  it  inaccessible  and  undisturbed ;  while  its  sublime 
form,  that  had  awed  rude  generations  and  inspired  ages  of  culture, 
gave  it  an  air  of  reverence.  This  mountain  with  a  narrow  strip  of 
land  bordering  the  sea  around  its  foot,  was  covered  with  monasteries 
and  with  little  villages  inhabited  by  servants  and  retainers  of  the 
convents.  The  most  extensive  libraries,  rich  with  the  works  of  the 
classic  as  well  as  of  ecclesiastical  Greek  authors,  were  here  gathered ; 
repositories  whence  modern  ages  have  been  favored  to  draw.  Here 
grew  up  the  chief  home  of  Byzantine  Art,  the  great  work-shop  of 
painters  for  the  Greek  Church ;  from  whose  accumulated  stores  not 
only  Greece,  but  Russia  and  other  lands  of  the  Greek  faith  have 
been  supplied  with  pictures  of  Christ  and  of  saints  for  their  churches. 
From  this  oflftce  to  which  it  had  become  consecrated,  as  well  as  from 
its  awe-inspiring  form,  the  mountain  took  the  name  among  the  Greeks 
of  ''Agion  Oros,"  in  the  Italian,  "Monte  Santo,"  or  Holy  Mount. 
Prior  to  the  Greek  Revolution  in  1828,  there  were  no  less  than  twenty- 
two  convents  occupied  by  over  four  thousand  monks ;  a  large  portion 
of  whom  were  devoted  to  the  art  so  much  in  demand  in  the  Greek 
Church.  The  Revolution,  which  left  Mt.  Athos  in  the  Turkish  por- 
tion of  Greece,  as  anciently  it  was  in  Macedon,  has  somewhat  re- 
stricted the  freedom,  but  has  not  interrupted  the  busy  toil  of  these 
devoted  ecclesiastic  artists. 


INFLUENCE  OF   IMAGES  ON  PAINTING   AT   HOME.         597 

Sect.  5.  The  Eomanesque,  or  rude   native  style  of  Painting  long 
Predominant  in  Northern  Italy. 

As  we  have  observed,  Kugler  gives  the  general  title  Eomanesque 
to  the  painting  prevalent  in  the  Christian  churches  of  Italy  from  the 
earliest  period  of  the  introduction  of  Christianity.  The  art  of  the 
first  four  or  five  centuries  after  the  Christian  era,  Kugler  has  shown, 
was  but  the  continuation  of  the  Roman  style  as  practiced  mainly  by 
Greek  artists  in  Italy;  a  style  of  art  which  continued  down  to  the 
invasion  of  the  Longobards,  when  it  was  thoroughly  broken  up 
and  lost  in  decay  as  were  other  features  of  Roman  civilization.  The 
greater  quiet  of  the  Eastern  Capitol,  its  proximity  to  the  spirit  of  art 
in  old  Greece,  and  its  liberal  court  patronage,  made  Byzantine  paint- 
ing to  become  the  ruling  style  in  the  decay  of  the  Roman.  When, 
however,  the  two  branches  of  the  church  became  fully  separated,  a 
determined  departure  from  the  Eastern  style  of  art  in  every  depart- 
ment became  awakened  at  Rome. 

The  controversy  as  to  images,  though  it  related  only  to  their  use 
as  objects  through  which  adoration  was  paid  to  the  beings  whom  they 
represented,  had  the  effect  to  secure  their  destruction  in  the  Greek 
Churches.  The  effect  was  to  turn  popular  odium  against  statuary  in 
general,  and  to  restrict  artists  from  taking  as  their  models  in  draw- 
ing for  their  paintings  the  matchless  forms  executed  by  their  Grecian 
ancestry.  The  adherence  to  the  use  of  images  in  the  Roman  Church 
had  the  contrary  effect  among  painters  in  that  Church.  The  By- 
zantine artists,  compelled  to  seek  their  main  eflTects  through  color, 
hid  as  far  as  possible  under  drapery  the  forms  of  their  pictured 
saints,  making  their  dress  cover  their  necks  and  breasts,  and  even 
their  feet  and  hands.  The  Roman  painters,  though  they  did  not 
directly  make  the  antique  statue  a  model,  yet  did  indirectly  catch  its 
character  and  transfer  its  proportions  to  their  drawings.  In  form, 
therefore,  the  Romanesque  style  was  statuesque;  the  figure  having 
far  more  of  symmetry  and  of  the  energy  of  action  than  was  seen  in 
the  Byzantine.  In  coloring,  for  the  same  reason,  there  was  a  sub- 
dued and  even  lack-lustre  tone ;  the  cloudy  gray  of  a  time-worn 
marble  statue,  rather  than  the  gaudy  sky-blue,  crimson  and  purple 
of  an  Oriental  grandee. 

The  special  seats  where  this  style  was  studied  were  Rome  and 
Parma  ;  and  it  prevailed  in  the  Umbrian  Valleys  and  in  Lombardy. 
It  had  its  stages  of  improvement  and  degeneracy ;  which  to  a  great 
extent  were  the  result  of  the  spirit  of  freedom  of  thought  or  of  eccle- 
siastical dogmatism  prevailing  in  different  ages  and  nations.     Thus 


698  AKT   CRITICISM. 

in  the  XJmbrian  dependencies  of  Rome  painting  became  more  rigid  and 
mechanical  in  outline,  and  more  lifeless  in  color ;  while  amid  tlie 
independent  thought  of  Lombardy  a  rude  copying  of  nature  in  draw- 
ing was  attempted.  Under  Charlemagne,  an  ardent  opposer  of  the 
use  of  images  for  purposes  of  devotion,  though  a  favorer  of  their  multi- 
plication as  educators  of  the  people,  the  Romanesque  style  of  painting 
reached  its  highest  stage  of  development.  Specimens  of  the  paint- 
ing of  this  improved  style  are  preserved  at  Rome,  Paris  and  Munich ; 
and,  such  students  of  this  style  of  art  as  Kugler,  commend  in  them 
not  only  the  executions  of  form  manifestly  modeled  after  the  an- 
tique, but  also  the  laying  on  of  the  colors,  evidently  the  touch  of 
superior  skill  and  culture. 

Two  branches  of  ornamental  coloring  belonging  properly  to 
Decorative  Art  practiced  during  this  period.  Mosaic  which  illus- 
trates the  higher  effects  of  painting,  and  manuscript  illumination 
which  belongs  to  the  lower  walks  of  art,  are  instructive  relics 
of  this  age.  The  fine  old  Mosaics  now  met  in  the  most  ancient 
Churches  of  Italy  are  supposed  to  have  been  executed  between 
the  fifth  and  ninth  centuries  after  Christ.  They  are  usually 
located  in  the  arches  of  the  choir  back  of  the  altar.  They  represent 
usually  Christ  of  colossal  size  in  the  centre,  with  saints,  seldom 
Mary,  on  either  hand.  Above  is  the  symbol  of  the  Father's  hand 
holding  a  crown,  and  underneath  the  Lamb  with  the  twelve  sur- 
rounding him.  Sometimes  the  Lamb  on  the  throne,  according  to 
the  Apocalyptic  vision,  is  the  central  figure ;  while  the  Jewish  em- 
blems of  the  seven  candlesticks  and  twenty-four  elders  stand  around. 
In  some  of  the  larger  Churches  kindred  representations  in  Mosaic 
are  seen  over  the  arch  leading  into  the  transept.  The  expression  of 
Christ  in  these  Mosaics  is  always  placid  and  gentle,  and  his  garments 
hang  in  plain  folds.  In  the  Church  of  Santa  Maria  Maggiore  at 
Rome  are  Mosaics  representing  Old  Testament  as  well  as  New  Testa- 
ment scenes ;  on  one  side  incidents  from  the  lives  of  Abraham,  Isaac 
and  Jacob,  and  on  the  other  side  of  Moses  and  Joshua ;  whose  exe- 
cution must  have  been  in  the  earlier  days  of  the  art,  since  they  are 
referred  to  in  the  controversy  of  the  eighth  century  as  ancient  au- 
thority for  pictures  in  churches.  The  excellence  of  outline  and 
coloring  in  these  Mosaics,  which  could  not  perish  with  time,  is  a  testi- 
mony to  the  merit  of  paintings  proper,  which  must  have  decayed. 

Prevailing  with  a  sway  more  or  less  decided  and  an  excellence 
more  or  less  meritorious  until  the  eleventh  Century,  the  Romanesque 
began  to  give  way  before  the  rise  and  rapid   progress  of  modern 


RISE   OF   MODERN   PAINTING   IN   ITALY.  599 

painting  in  Italy.  The  first  innovation  was  the  introduction  of  the 
Byzantine  style  of  coloring  into  Venice  and  other  commercial  cities 
which  had  a  trade  with  the  East.  The  next  trenching  on  its  domain  was 
a  return  to  the  method  of  drawing  from  nature  in  Padua,  Florence, 
Milan  and  other  cities  where  there  was  special  freedom  of  thought  in  sci- 
ence, philosophy  and  religion.  The  tracing  of  those  influences  which 
have  given  rise  to  the  various  schools  in  modern  art  is  perhaps  even 
more  fascinating  than  is  the  same  study  of  the  progress  in  literature ; 
the  links  of  whose  continuous  chain  of  causes,  running  back  into  the 
labyrinth  of  the  Middle  Ages,  may  be  yet  made  to  verify  Coleridge's 
suggestive  remark  as  to  this  period  of  the  world's  history;  "desig- 
nated," he  said,  "  the  Dark  Ages,  because  we  are  in  the  dark  about 
them." 


CHAPTER    VII. 

THE  RISE  OF  MODERN  PAINTING  IN  SOUTHERN  EUROPE,  IN- 
CLUDING ITALY  AND  SPAIN;  PRE-EMINENTLY  RELIGIOUS  IN  ITS 
THEMES,  CLASSIC  IN  FORMS,  AND  SPECIALLY  CHARACTERIZED 
BY   PERFECTION   OF   LIGHTS   IN   COLORING. 

In  modern  Christian  painting,  perhaps  more  than  in  any  other 
department  of  human  attainment  in  art,  science,  philosophy  or  reli- 
gion, there  is  an  embodiment  of  the  progress  of  human  thought 
under  the  influence  of  the  Divine  religion  of  Jesus.  The  principles 
of  truth  and  grace  stored  in  the  Old  Testament,  like  grains  of  wheat 
imbedded  in  the  preserving  bitumen  which  coats  Egyptian  mum- 
mies, lay  buried  without  germinating  for  ages ;  and  even  the  Hea- 
venly Wisdom  of  Jesus,  as  he  himself  intimated,  could  "  bring  forth 
no  fruit,  except  it  fell  into  the  ground  and  died;"  sleeping  how  long 
it  was  not  his  to  reveal.  At  first  the  purely  spiritual  ideas  of  Chris- 
tianity led  artists,  as  we  have  seen,  to  picture  only  in  symbols  the 
doctrines  of  their  faith ;  while  the  forms  of  Jesus  and  his  apostles 
and  the  great  leaders  in  his  Divine  Mission,  were  portrayed  with  an 
artless  simplicity  begotten  by  the  instinctive  impressions  formed  of 
their  character  from  the  reading  of  their  lives.  After  this  childhood 
period  of  simplicity,  followed  ages,  longer  than  human  sagacity 
might  have  anticipated,  of  the  transition  j^eriod  of  youth ;  swayed 


600  ART   CRITICISM. 

by  its  differing  and  often  conflicting  impulses,  in  successive  pros- 
perity and  adversity ;  now  sensuous  to  excess,  now  ascetic  to  a  fault, 
as  the  natural  extreme  of  oscillating  sentiment ;  yet  amid  all  these 
vacillations  growing  in  strength  of  thought,  refining  in  chastened 
taste,  and  rising  in  aspirations  after  manly  development.  That  ma- 
turity of  manhood  has  not  probably  been  yet  reached  by  the  Chris- 
tian Church  as  a  body. 

It  was  at  the  era  when  science  and  philosophy  in  every  depart- 
ment took  a  new  spring  in  different  nations  of  Southern  and  Western 
Europe,  both  among  the  adherents  to  the  predominant  Church  whose 
head  was  at  Kome,  and  in  the  minds  of  Keformers  of  every  variety 
of  opinion,  that  the  revival  of  art  and  religion  united,  manifesting 
itself  in  the  spirit  of  love  for  intellectual  improvement  which  had  been 
awakened  in  the  eighth  and  ninth  centuries  under  Alfred  of  Eng- 
land and  Charlemagne  of  France,  requiring  four  or  five  generations 
to  take  root,  began  to  show  fruit  in  the  fourteenth,  and  ripened  into 
maturity  in  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries.  In  England 
Roger  Bacon  in  science,  Chaucer  in  letters  and  Wickliffe  in  religious 
inquiry  opened  the  door  to  the  appearance  of  such  men  as  Lord 
Bacon  and  Newton,  Shakspeare  and  Milton,  and  the  lights  of  the 
Anglican  Church.  In  France  and  Germany  the  appearance  of  such 
men  as  Copernicus  and  Tycho  Brahe  in  Science,  of  Rabelais  in  let- 
ters, and  of  Thomas  Aquinas  in  theological  learning,  led  on  to  the 
rise  of  Descartes  and  Leibnitz,  of  Luther  and  Pascal.  In  Italy,  the 
land  pre-eminent  in  art,  Columbus  and  Galileo,  Lorenzo  and  Machi- 
avelli,  Dante  and  Petrarch,  Savanarola  and  Leo  X.  were  natural 
products  of  the  age  that  gave  bii-th  to  Giotto  and  Brunelleschi,  open- 
ing the  way  for  Lionardo,  Raphael  and  M.  Angelo. 

In  the  division  of  the  Schools  of  Painting  that  arose,  flourished 
and  declined  in  Modern  Italy  from  the  twelfth  to  the  eighteenth  cen- 
turies, regard  must  be  had  to  the  characteristics  of  different  peoples, 
and  the  effect  of  local  circumstances  on  their  native  artists ;  as  well 
as  to  the  awakened  and  growing  spirit  of  intellectual  progress  in 
each.  Native  inborn  temperament  distinguished  the  Tuscan  of  Gre- 
cian descent  from  the  Umbrian  of  Italian  lineage ;  commerce  with 
the  East  made  the  Venetian  most  unlike  to  the  agricultural  Sienese ; 
a;nd  the  republican  Florentine  and  the  hierarchial  Roman,  the  scho- 
lastic Paduan  and  the  romantic  Neapolitan  necessarily  belonged  to 
diflferent  schools  in  art.  The  meeting  of  all  these  temperaments  in 
the  cosmopolitan  and  comprehensive  leaders  in  art,  first  in  Giotto, 
afterwards  in  the  three  great  masters,  Lionardo,  Raphael  and  M. 


GENEKAL   CHARACTERISTICS   OF   ITALIAN   PAINTING.      601 

Angelo,  naturally  brought  in  new  eras,  throwing  a  new  phase  over 
all  the  schools  originating  with  the  former  and  modified  by  the  latter. 
As  Jarves  has  stated,  the  ordinary  division  has  recognized  five  lead- 
ing Italian  schools ;  the  Tuscan,  Roman,  Bolognese,  Venetian  and 
Lombard :  under  which  subdivisions  must  be  made ;  in  the  Tuscan, 
the  schools  of  Florence,  Siena  and  Pisa ;  in  the  Roman,  the  Roman 
proper  and  the  Neapolitan ;  in  the  Lombard  the  schools  of  Milan, 
of  Parma,  of  Mantua,  of  Cremona,  and  of  Verona,  to  which  some 
would  add  those  of  Genoa  and  Piedmont.  A  division,  however, 
having  regard  to  the  periods  of  historical  development,  as  also  to 
grouping  and  clustering  of  elements  of  style,  may  be  more  service- 
able to  the  ordinary  student. 

In  all  these  schools  and  their  subdivisions,  and  that  in  the  different 
stages  of  their  progress,  Italian  painters  have,  when  compared  with 
those  of  other  lands  and  ages,  had  three  leading  characteristics  as  to 
subjects,  forms  and  styles  of  coloring.  Their  themes  have  been  pre- 
eminently Christian ;  the  Italian  artist's  devotion  to  religious  repre- 
sentations far  surpassing  in  its  exclusiveness  that  of  the  hero-wor- 
shipping Greeks,  and  contrasting  specially  with  the  secular  spirit  of 
the  painters  of  Northern  and  Western  Europe.  The  forms  studied 
by  Italian  painters  have  been  pre-eminently  classical  in  their  model ; 
genuine  artists,  like  the  great  masters  of  early  and  later  times  already 
mentioned,  finding  their  models,  as  did  the  Greeks,  in  nature's  own 
select  specimens :  while  men  of  less  genius  or  of  less  independent 
sentiment  copied  the  standards  furnished  by  the  past,  which  chanced 
sometimes  to  be  the  master-pieces  of  pure  Grecian  taste,  but  some- 
times the  unworthy  conventional  types  hallowed  in  a  corrupt  ecclesias- 
tical usage.  In  coloring,  though  there  was  great  discrepancy  between 
the  rich  deep  twilight  hues  of  the  Venetian,  the  pale  hazy  morning 
shades  of  the  Umbrian,  and  the  clear  bright  noonday  radiance  of  the 
Florentine,  yet  all  showed  the  enchanting  sky  peculiar  to  the  climate 
of  Italy  whence  all  drew  their  inspiration ;  the  Italian  painters 
attaining  perfection  in  the  execution  of  lights  in  color. 

To  trace  these  attributes  of  modern  Italian  painting  as  they  began 
with  Cimabue  and  gained  universal  ascendency  under  Giotto,  as  they 
developed  to  perfection  of  expression  and  action  in  the  Tuscan,  of 
form  in  the  Paduan,  and  of  color  in  the  Venetian  Schools,  as  they 
were  combined  in  the  three  great  masters,  modifying  through  their 
influence  all  the  schools,  as  they  struggled  for  control  in  the  mystic 
Neapolitan  and  through  that  in  the  superstitious  Spanish  School,  as 
they  revived  and  aspired  to  a  new  and  combined  perfection  in  the 

51  4  A 


602  ART   CRITICISM. 

Eclectic  and  to  a  new  youth  in  the  Natural  Schools,  and  finally  as 
they  declined,  flickering  for  a  generation  as  they  were  expiring  till 
their  light  went  out  in  Italy,  this  chain  of  instructive  history  will 
be  the  subject  of  the  sections  of  this  chapter. 

Section  1st.  The  early  reaction  of  the  Love  of  Nature  and  of 
Genius  in  Art  against  Formalism  and  Dogmatism  in  Northern 
Italy. 

As  already  intimated,  the  style  of  painting  in  Italy,  then  having 
its  centre  so  far  as  art  and  sacred  learning  were  concerned  at  Rome, 
and  hence  called  Romanesque,  which  prevailed  from  the  fifth  to  the 
twelfth  centuries,  was  a  corruption  of  the  Roman  with  some  features 
of  the  Byzantine.  As  this  was  in  a  great  measure  dependent  for  its 
prominent  characteristics  on  the  style  of  church  architecture,  it  was 
natural  that  the  first  essential  modification  in  the  style  of  painting 
should  accompany  improvement  in  the  art  on  which  it  was  thus  depen- 
dent. Prior  to  this  epoch,  indeed,  the  simple  force  of  native  genius 
made  an  occasional  artist  rise  above  the  spirit  of  his  age.  Such  an 
instance  is  found  by  art  critics  in  Giovanni  or  John,  an  Italian 
painter  who  flourished  about  A.  D.  960 ;  contemporary  with  whom 
was  a  Roman  painter  named  Heraclius  who  wrote  a  treatise  on  his 
art  as  it  existed  in  his  day.  A  still  more  marked  example  is  cited 
in  Petrolino,  whose  frescoes  executed  about  A.  D.  1110  in  the  Church 
of  St.  Quatri  Coronati  at  Rome  are  still  admired  by  the  side  of 
works  of  a  much  later  age.  An  indirect  testimony  to  the  spirit  of 
art  in  that  age,  the  early  part  of  the  twelfth  century,  is  found  in  the 
allusions  of  the  celebrated  Monk  Bernhard,  whose  great  influence 
controlled  the  destiny  even  of  Popes.  This  reforming  ecclesiastic, 
writing  about  A.  D.  1125,  alludes  with  condemnation  to  the  paint- 
ings on  the  walls  of  Convents  representing  "  pagan  and  sensual  sub- 
jects." The  allusion  is,  of  course,  a  witness  of  the  devotion  paid  to 
this  art,  and  of  the  themes  to  which  prior  artists,  perhaps  too 
severely  censured  by  the  reformer,  turned  their  study  and  color; 
hiding,  however,  their  work  from  the  eye  of  public  and  especially 
of  ecclesiastical  censorship  within  the  walls  of  their  own  cloisters. 

The  arched  panel  pictures  of  the  Romanesque  Churches,  too,  at 
the  early  part  of  the  thirteenth  century,  began  to  display  an  im- 
proving taste.  Specimens  of  this  appeared  A.  D.  1200  to  1250  in 
Giunta  of  Pisa,  and  Berlinghieri  of  Lucca ;  whose  pictures  of  Christ, 
though  attenuated  and  stiflT,  have  less  of  emaciation  and  more  of 
grace  than  belonged  to  the  spirit  of  their  age.     A  yet  more  decided 


CIMABUE  AND  OTHERS  IN  IMPROVED  ITALIAN  ART.        603 

advance  is  traced  in  the  paintings  of  Guido  of  Siena  who  flourished 
about  1221,  of  Andrea  Tafi,  from  1213  to  1291,  of  Ugolino  of  Siena 
from  1280  to  1339,  and  of  Gaddo  Gaddi  from  1239  to  1312.  Guido 
and  Ugolino  showed  a  special  grace.  Tafi  learned  Mosaic  of  a  By- 
zantine artist ;  he  adorned  St.  Mark's  in  Venice ;  and  in  company 
with  Apollonius,  a  Byzantine,  he  executed  mosaics  of  a  rude  but 
forcible  style  in  the  cupola  of  the  baptistery  at  Florence.  The 
works  of  Gaddi  are  in  the  Cathedral  of  Florence. 

Tlie  greatest  artist,  next  to  arise  in  this  advancing  line  was  Duccio 
of  Siena ;  w^ho  flourished  from  1282  to  1339,  and  whose  only  works 
extant  are  in  the  Cathedral  of  his  native  city.  Perfectly  original, 
rising  above  the  models  around  him,  he  threw  individual  character 
into  his  subjects ;  a  fine  instance  of  which  is  his  representation  of 
the  mother  of  Jesus  fainting  at  the  foot  of  his  cross,  while  the  group 
around  are  divided  between  grief  for  the  suffering  Son  and  anxiety 
for  the  sinking  mother.  The  consideration  of  these  historic  links  in 
the  history  of  the  rise  of  modern  painting  is  most  important  as  indi- 
cating that  it  is  no  miraculous  sudden  start  which  developes  the 
highest  genius ;  it  is  rather  the  steady  nurturing  of  ages  under  favor- 
ing causes.  The  leading  characteristics  of  this  class  of  newly  arising 
artists  was,  that  they  drew  portraits  of  saints,  not  as  emaciated  and 
cadaverous  like  dead  men,  according  to  the  Latin  method ;  nor  as 
painted  pien  and  women,  like  puppets  decked  for  a  show,  after  the 
Byzantine  style ;  but  they  made  them  beings  of  flesh  and  blood, 
"  men  of  like  passions  with  us  all." 

The  noblest  leader  of  all  in  this  formative  era  was  Cimabue ;  like 
many  other  men  of  note,  more  illustrious  in  his  pupils  than  in  his 
own  works.  Cimabue  flourished  from  A.  D.  1240  to  1302.  Pre- 
ceded by  artists  who  had  already  showed  the  right  path,  and 
associated  with  others  just  alluded  to,  Cimabue  was  the  origin- 
ator of  the  Natural  School,  which  became  established  under 
his  pupil  Giotto.  Though  not  able  fully  to  break  away  from  the 
trammels  of  the  formal  Latin  outline  and  Byzantine  coloring,  which 
had  prevailed  for  generations,  and  still  more  unable  to  reach  without 
any  teacher,  or  model  the  higher  elements  of  symmetry,  perspective 
and  chiaroscuro,  he  yet  attained  a  truth  and  grandeur  of  expression 
which  some  critics  deem  worthy  of  comparison  with  the  power  of 
M.  Angelo.  Vasari,  the  Italian  historian  and  critic  of  his  brother 
artists,  says  of  Cimabue's  portrait  of  St.  Francis,  now  in  the  Church 
of  Santa  Croce  at  Florence,  "  He  drew  that  which  was  a  new  thing 
in  those  times,  (di  naturals  come  seppe  ilmeglio,)  from  nature  as  though 


604  ART   CRITICISM. 

he  knew  her  the  best  model."  This  drawing  from  nature  was  the 
all-imi3ortant  distinction  between  him  and  his  able  cotemporaries.  In 
the  fields,  as  well  as  the  crowded  streets,  he  sought  models  which  he 
studiously  copied ;  the  genius  of  Giotto  was  revealed  to  his  superior 
mind  by  a  simple  drawing  from  nature  made  by  the  shepherd  boy ; 
and  he  established  a  school  of  drawing  which  became  the  first  germ 
of  the  Schools  of  Design  and  Academies  of  Art  which  have  since 
made  Italy  and  Europe  so  illustrious  in  artists  of  the  first  skill. 

The  faults  of  Cimabue's  style  were  emaciation  in  the  frame  and 
stiffness  in  the  limbs  of  his  figures,  his  whole  thought  being  absorbed 
in  the  execution  of  the  features ;  which  faults  were  transmitted  to  his 
pupils.  Giotto  never  rose  above  them,  and  in  Dante,  another  pupil 
who  soon  found  his  genius  belonged  to  the  range  of  poetry  more  than 
to  painting,  they  were  most  marked,  as  is  seen  in  the  celebrated 
Beatrice,  which  though  not  his  workmanship  is  the  embodiment  of 
his  conception.  The  features  of  this  gem  of  art,  more  precious  for 
its  poetical  associations  than  even  for  its  artistic  merit,  are  radiant 
with  the  light  and  animation  of  the  upper  world ;  while  the  feet  and 
even  the  hands  were  manifestly  made  for  no  higher  sphere  than  that 
of  the  low  earth.  Both  as  an  artist  and  a  teacher,  Cimabue  is  the 
leading  spirit  with  whom  begins  the  history  of  Modern  Painting  in 
Italy. 

Sect.  2.  The  Natural  Style  Established  under  Giotto  ANi)  the  rise 
OF  Distinct  Schools  under  its  Influence. 

As  Cimabue  was  riding  one  day  into  the  country,  he  saw  a  shep- 
herd boy,  reclining  on  the  ground,  engaged  in  drawing  with  a  bit  of 
slate  on  a  smooth  stone,  while  his  flock  brow^sed  around.  Alighting 
and  looking  at  the  boy's  picture,  Cimabue  found  that  he  had  exe- 
cuted a  most  natural  and  admirable  likeness  of  a  sheep  standing 
nigh  him.  The  marks  of  superior  genius  in  the  boy,  now  only  twelve 
years  of  age,  were  so  manifest  that  the  artist  prevailed  on  his  father, 
but  an  humble  peasant,  to  allow  him  to  take  him  with  him  to  Flor- 
ence and  train  him  in  his  school  of  drawing  and  coloring.  Here  his 
proficiency  was  rapidly  developed ;  a  specimen  of  which  he  gave  one 
day  when  he  painted  a  fly  on  a  partially  finished  painting  of  his 
master,  so  lifelike  that  as  he  was  about  to  recommence  his  work,  no- 
ticing the  intruder,  he  brushed  his  hand  over  the  shrewd  boy's  work 
to  drive  the  supposed  insect  away. 

As  Giotto  grew  in  years  he  became  more  completely  independent 
in  his  method ;  and  was  soon  the  acknowledged  leader  in  the  natural 


GIOTTO   THE   FOUNDER   OF   THE   NATURAL   SCHOOL.      605 

style  of  painting.  The  age  was  prepared  for  such  a  leader;  the 
Dominicans,  the  conservators  of  art  as  the  Benedictines  were  of  liter- 
ature, being  eager  to  adopt  any  improvement  in  their  favorite  art ; 
while  the  political  disputes  of  the  Guelphs  and  Ghibellines  prompted 
the  authorities  at  Rome  to  seek  the  good- will  and  advancement  of  the 
people  of  Northern  Italy,  especially  in  art.  Giotto,  moreover,  pos- 
sessed those  attributes,  which  fitted  him,  like  Apelles,  to  be  a  popular 
leader.  Quick  of  apprehension  and  laboriously  industrious,  he  not 
only  studied  and  worked  laboriously  under  his  early  teacher  and  in 
his  native  Tuscany;  but  he  traveled  through  Italy,  going  south  to 
Naples,  again  north  to  Piedmont,  then  over  the  Alps  into  France ; 
seeking  out  everywhere  the  best  artists,  inquiring  into  their  methods 
and  explaining  his  own,  improving  upon  any  excellence  in  others 
and  seeking  to  improve  all  he  met.  Possessed  of  unrivalled  genius 
himself,  and  perfectly  unselfish  and  thoughtless  of  anything  but  the 
advancement  of  his  art,  he  imparted  his  knowledge  and  experience 
to  any  gifted  fellow-artist  and  sought  to  advance  the  merit  and  fame 
of  every  worthy  rival.  Above  all,  in  Giotto,  as  in  a  large  class  of 
great  leaders,  an  equable  temper,  joined  with  a  naturally  lively 
humor,  did  much  to  give  him  popularity.  As  a  specimen  it  is  related 
of  him,  that  one  evening  on  his  way  to  a  dress  party,  in  rich  gala  cos- 
tume, a  pig  ran  between  his  feet  and  threw  him  prone  in  the  mud ; 
when  immediately  rising  in  genial  good  nature  he  thus  apostro- 
phized the  offender:  "You  are  quite  right  brute.  I,  who  have  gained 
so  much  by  your  bristles,  have  never  given  you  even  a  dish  of  soup." 
This  equanimity  carried  Giotto  through  the  fearful  political  conflicts 
of  the  Guelphs  and  Ghibellines,  which  had  their  seat  at  Florence, 
preserving  the  good  will  of  both  parties  as  a  man  loving  his  country, 
but  sincerely  judging  that  he  could  best  serve  it  by  entire  devotion 
to  his  profession. 

The  style  of  Giotto  had  its  faults  as  well  as  its  excellencies.  His 
excellencies  were,  perfect  conformity  to  nature  in  the  attitude,  expres- 
sion and  actions  of  his  subjects;  and  fertile  invention  in  the  dramatic 
energy  imparted  to  his  figures,  and  in  their  effective  grouping.  A 
specimen  of  his  admirable  success  in  attitudes  is  seen  in  his  fresco  of 
St.  Francis  causing  a  fountain  to  gush  forth  in  a  desert;  admirably 
striking  in  the  man  bending  on  his  hands  to  drink.  His  portrait  of 
Dante,  his  fellow-pupil  in  art  and  his  counterpart  in  dramatic  power 
in  poetry,  is  a  master-piece  of  natural  enthusiasm  infused  into  a 
painted  likeness.  His  Last  Supper  of  Christ,  in  the  Academy  of 
Florence,  is  regarded  a  model  of  skill  in  the  circular  grouping  of  the 
51  * 


606  ART   CRITICISM. 

twelve  about  Jesus.  In  his  allegorical  paintings,  in  the  Carapo 
Santo  of  Pisa  and  elsewhere,  Giotto  showed  himself  a  Dante  in 
awing  dramatic  power;  and  Dante's  sincere  and  strong  attach- 
ment to  Giotto,  immortalized  in  his  lines  contrasting  him  with  Cim- 
abue  his  teacher,  are  a  testimony  to  their  congeniality  of  tastes. 
Giotto's  peculiar  excellence,  as  remarked,  was  his  drawing  from 
nature.  It  has  been  suggested,  that  it  was  fortunate  for  the  purity 
of  art  at  its  revival  in  Italy,  that  the  reliques  of  ancient  art  were  ex- 
humed only  fast  enough  to  become  hints,  rather  than  models  to  the 
great  founders  of  modern  styles.  A  century  before  Giotto's  day 
Nicolo  the  Pisan,  from  beholding  a  single  Greek  sarcophagus 
brought  home  by  some  adventurers  and  placed  at  the  door-way  of 
the  Cathedral  of  Pisa,  had  the  idea  suggested  which  made  him  the 
leader  in  a  return  to  the  natural  style  in  the  art  of  sculpture ;  and 
Giotto  had  little  more  of  exhumed  relics  of  ancient  art  to  serve  him 
as  a  guide  and  prompter.  The  principles  of  nature  herself  in  her 
works,  and  in  her  methods  of  working,  became  Giotto's  great  study. 
Like  other  leading  artists,  as  Nicolo,  Orcagna,  Ghiberti,  Masaccio, 
Angelico,  Leonardo,  Raphael  and  M.  Aiigelo,  Giotto  was  a  compre- 
hensive genius,  embracing  in  the  range  of  his  study  and  even  of  his 
practice  drawing,  sculpture,  architecture,  painting,  music  and  poetry. 
An  interesting  instance  of  his  power  in  different  arts  and  of  his  rep- 
utation in  them  all  was  given  when  Pope  Benedict  IX.  sent  to  him 
to  furnish  a  plan  for  a  new  church ;  seeking  evidently  a  specimen 
of  his  capacity  which  should  determine  his  employ  at  Pome  as  archi- 
tect of  the  Papal  Court.  Giotto,  pausing  a  moment  in  his  work,  took 
a  pencil,  and  with  a  sweep  of  his  hand  drew  a  circle  which  seemed 
perfect  in  every  part.  Handing  this  to  the  messengers,  he  told  them 
to  bear  it  back  to  the  holy  father  as  his  reply;  and  nothing  else  could 
they  obtain  from  him  in  response  to  their  message.  The  Pope,  how- 
ever construed  aright  this  testimonial  to  his  general  power;  and  he 
emplbyed  the  artist  in  his  proposed  work. 

The  influence  of  Giotto  was  most  felt  at  Florence,  the  centre  of 
his  early  home ;  and  he  left  there  not  less  than  one  hundred  pupils 
to  carry  out  the  principles  of  painting  which  he  had  introduced. 
In  Naples  he  met  with  a  truly  able  and  appreciative  comrade  in 
art,  named  Simone;  who  prior  to  their  meeting  in  1327,  had  al- 
ready become  popular  as  an  artist,  but  was  now  in  the  shade. 
Giotto  in  generous  friendship  inquired  as  to  his  methods  and  ex- 
plained to  him  his  own ;  and  an  undying  friendship  arose  between 
the  two  artists,  which  was  greatly  to  the  advancement  of  true  art  in 


THE    FLORENTINES   AND   SIENESE   PAINTEKS   CONTRASTED.  607 

Naples.  Every  variety  of  painting  then  known  was  practiced  by 
Giotto ;  fresco,  tempera,  Mosaic  and  miniature,  and  the  testimony  of 
Cennini,  as  well  as  modern  analysis  of  his  works,  shows  a  wondrous 
progress  in  his  knowledge  of  materials  and  methods.  M.  Angelo  used 
to  study  with  admiration  his  preserved  works ;  especially  eulogizing 
his  picture  of  the  death  of  the  mother  of  Jesus,  in  which  Christ  is 
represented  as  holding  in  his  arms  a  soul  in  the  form  of  a  babe.  His 
frescoes,  in  recent  times  uncovered,  executed  in  the  Campo  Santo  at 
Pisa,  have  opened  even  in  modern  days  a  new  field  of  art  study. 

It  is  of  course  only  among  artists  independent  in  their  methods, 
and  each  for  himself  studying  nature  in  his  own  way,  that  separa- 
tion into  schools  arises.  In  the  Byzantine  and  old  Latin  styles,  in 
which  each  generation  copied  slavishly  the  work  of  its  predecessor, 
there  could  be  no  distinction  of  schools  in  painting ;  since  there  were 
no  distinct  ideas  on  which  to  base  a  separation.  The  one  hundred 
pupils  left  by  Giotto  in  Florence  became  his  successors  in  style. 
About  A.  D.  1375,  a  generation  after  his  death,  his  method,  we  learn, 
was  introduced  into  Milan  by  an  artist  named  Giovanni,  and  into 
Venice  by  another  named  Antonio ;  in  the  latter  of  which  cities, 
however,  it  failed  to  supplant  the  Byzantine  style.  The  impulse 
given  by  genius,  however,  is  always  greater  than  its  simple  impress  ; 
and  from  Giotto  dates  the  origin  of  the  distinct  schools  which  soon 
gave  special  characteristics  to  Italian  painters. 

Sect.   3.  The  Tuscan  Schools;  the  Dramatic  of  Florence  and  the 
Contemplative  of  Siena. 

The  influence  of  Giotto,  though  felt  in  every  part  of  Italy  and  on 
painters  of  every  school,  was  naturally  the  greatest  in  his  own  native 
Tuscany.  The  spirit  of  the  Asiatic  Greek  lingered  still  in  the  Etruscan 
race,  making  them  ambitious  of  leadership  in  art ;  content  to  be  first 
in  gorgeous  Byzantine  while  no  other  style  was  attainable,  but  prompt 
to  follow  any  leader  whose  genius  would  bring  back  truth  to  nature 
in  painting,  as  Nicolo  had  in  sculpture.  In  Tuscany  there  were  two 
classes  of  people,  both  roused  by  the  spirit  of  Giotto ;  one  of  which, 
however,  manifested  this  impulse  quite  differently  from  the  other. 
There  were  the  commercial  class  of  Florence,  cosmopolitan  in  char- 
acter, and  moved  to  ecstacy  by  the  dramatic  action  accompanying 
natural  passion.  There  were,  on  the  other  hand,  the  quiet,  thought- 
ful people  of  the  valleys,  devoted  to  agriculture,  with  the  town  of 
Siena  as  their  staid  metropolis ;  and  its  people  loved  far  more  the 


608  ART   CRITICISM. 

contemplative  expressiveness  belonging  equally  to  nature  in  quiet 
life. 

The  Florentines,  boasting  in  the  thirteenth  century  of  two  hundred 
cloth  manufactories  and  of  an  annual  municipal  revenue  of  about  $3, 
000,000,  larger  than  that  of  all  England  in  the  fifteenth  century,  a 
people  who  voted  $100,000  for  a  bronze  gate,  and  $5,000,000  for  the 
bell-tower  of  their  metropolitan  cathedral,  were  pre-eminently  worldly 
in  their  ambition ;  a  characteristic  strikingly  illustrated  in  the  word- 
ing of  the  decree  commissioning  Arnolfo  as  the  architect  of  their 
magnificent  Cathedral;  a  document  still  preserved.  The  decree 
runs  thus,  "  Whereas  the  chief  aim  of  a  people  of  illustrious  origin 
should  be  to  act  in  such  a  way  that  from  its  seen  works  every  one 
should  recognize  its  wise  and  magnanimous  councils,  we  order  Ar- 
nolfo our  chief  architect  to  prepare  a  model  or  design  for  the  com- 
plete rebuilding  of  our  sacred  edifice ;  restoring  it  in  the  style  of  the 
greatest  magnificence  which  it  is  possible  for  human  genius  to  con- 
ceive ;  since  it  has  been  decreed  in  the  council,  both  the  popular  and 
the  select  branch,  by  the  ablest  men  of  this  city,  that  nothing  should 
be  undertaken  for  the  community  that  did  not  correspond  to  the 
ideas  of  its  most  enlightened  citizens,  moved  by  one  purpose  to  pro- 
mote the  grandeur  and  glory  of  the  country."  Although  it  is  a 
sanctuary  for  Divine  worship  thus  decreed,  not  a  thought  akin  to 
that  of  Solomon,  awed  at  the  responsible  task  of  rearing  a  temple 
worthy  of  Him  whose  throne  is  the  Heavens,  seems  to  enter  the 
Florentine's  mind :  to  him  there  is  no  place  equal  to  the  proud  mart 
which  had  given  him  his  wealth. 

Nothing  could  be  a  more  perfect  counterpart  to  this  than  the 
spirit  of  the  devout,  self-abnegating  Sienese.  Over  the  door  of  their 
council  was  inscribed  from  the  Latin  Vulgate  the  words  of  Paul,* 
"  Omne  quodcumque  facitis  in  verbo  aut  in  opere,  omnia  in  nomine 
Domini  Jesu  Christi,  gratias  agentes  Deo  et  Patri  per  ipsum;" 
Whatsoever  ye  do  in  word  or  deed  do  all  in  the  name  of  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  giving  thanks  to  God  for  him.  When  Duccio,  one  of 
their  best  painters  was  called  to  execute  his  celebrated  altar  piece^ 
he  pledged  himself  in  his  contract  dated  October  9th,  1308,  "I  will 
execute  it  according  to  my  best  ability  and  as  the  Lord  shall  grant 
me  skill ;"  and  when  it  was  finished  the  priests,  with  a  procession  of 
all  the  people  of  the  city,  carried  it  in  solemn  devotion  to  hang  it  in 
its  place,  giving  up  the  whole  day  to  thanksgiving  and  prayer  and 


Col.  iii.  17. 


THE  POLITICAL  AND  RELIGIOUS  SPIRIT  OF  TUSCANS.       ()09 

the  bestowing  of  alms  on  the  poor.  While  this  was  their  piety 
towards  God  their  social  virtue  was  illustrated  in  the  statement  of 
their  old  chronicler  Brandone,  who,  in  A.  D.  1317,  says,  "  Every  one 
minds  his  own  business  and  all  love  each  other  as  brethren ;"  as  also 
in  the  decree  passed  A.  D.  1438,  concerning  the  architect  of  their 
Cathedral,  "  no  one  even  suspected  of  immorality  shall  be  eligible." 

In  their  politics,  too,  the  Florentines  and  the  Sienese  were  equally 
the  antipodes  of  each  other.  The  Florentines  with  the  proud  spirit 
of  self-independence  were  democratic  in  their  own  chosen  govern- 
ment, and  hence  adherents  of  the  Guelf  party  which  sided  with  the 
Popes  in  their  contest  with  the  house  of  Austria  that  had  secured  the 
German  throne,  since  this  left  them  as  a  people  to  select  their  ow^n 
rulers;  and  thus  art  in  Florence  began  its  noble  career  under  a 
popular  government,  though  it  reached  its  perfection  by  the  great 
masters  under  the  enlightened  sway  of  the  princes  of  the  Medici 
family.  The  Sienese,  however,  loyal  to  the  old  order  of  things  in 
government,  devoted  to  their  sovereign  as  to  their  God,  were,  like 
the  Sicyonese  by  the  side  of  the  Athenians,  chivalrous  and  royalist, 
and  from  the  first  adhered  to  the  Ghibelline  or  Imperial  party. 

The  characteristics  of  the  two  Tuscan  schools  of  painting  existing 
before  Giotto's  day,  though  taking  their  decided  cast  from  his  direct 
influence,  might  readily  be  anticipated.  Neither  of  these  schools 
was  contented  with  the  profuse  glare  and  ornament  of  the  Byzantine 
style,  the  degenerate  legacy  of  modern  Greece;  nor  did  either  turn 
to  the  old  type  of  the  ideal  in  art,  some  of  whose  master-pieces  they 
had  inherited  from  ancient  Greece :  but,  true  to  the  spirit  of  their 
ancestry,  they  went  where  the  true  Greek  artist,  under  circumstances 
very  different,  had  gone,  to  the  ever  varying  field  of  nature  itself. 
The  men  and  things,  however,  in  nature  which  the  Florentine  and 
the  Sienese  artist  saw  about  them  were  most  unlike ;  and  hence  the 
difiTerences  in  their  style.  The  cast  of  the  Florentine  style  has  been 
called  dramatic,  that  of  the  Sienese  contemplative.  The  themes  of 
both  were  mainly  religious ;  but  the  Florentine  sought  to  present  the 
external,  to  make  the  sacred  scene  stirring,  and  by  outward  splendor 
to  exalt  its  sanctity.  The  Sienese  was  absorbed  in  the  sentiment  to 
be  expressed ;  he  sought  to  make  his  pictures  a  sermon  full  of  solemn 
thought  to  those  who  studied  them.  Though  both  avoided  the  glare 
of  the  Venetian  painters,  one  gave  a  lively  cheerfulness  to  the  hues 
as  well  as  to  the  action  and  expression  of  his  piece;  while  the  other 
threw  a  grave  and  even  sombre  coloring  over  the  real  saints  whose 
postures  and  looks  of  devotion  he  depicted.     From  the  commence- 

4  B 


610  •  ART  CRITICISM. 

ment,  through  several  generations  of  their  associated  history,  the  two 
schools  preserved  this  distinguishing  type ;  worthy  of  special  consid- 
eration by  the  student  of  the  methods  of  analysis  in  Art  Criticism. 

Of  Giotto's  one  hundred  pupils  some  had  influence  in  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  Florentine  School.  An  able  artist  named  Spinello 
Aretino,  born  when  Giotto  was  thirty-two  years  old,  A.  D.  1308, 
anticipated  by  two  centuries  the  spirit  of  the  Eeformation  in  religion 
and  exhibited  it  in  his  works.  Living  to  the  age  of  about  one  hun- 
dred years,  he  was  called  when  ninety  years  old  to  design  the  life  of 
St.  Benedict  the  great  Reformer  in  the  Church  of  St.  Miniato  at  Flor- 
ence; in  which  he  introduced  a  vivid  representation  of  the  struggle 
between  the  Empire  and  the  Papacy.  His  great  work,  "  The  Fall 
of  the  Rebel  Angels  at  Arezzo"  is  lost.  More  bold  and  less  tender 
than  Giotto  he  gave  the  impassioned  action  of  the  drama  to  the 
Florentine  style  of  painting  which  Orcagna  afterwards  perfected. 
Associated  with  him,  as  a  sort  of  counterpart,  was  BuiFulmaco,  an 
artist  of  great  power  but  fond  of  the  sportive.  His  chief  themes 
were  Scripture  incidents  and  characters ;  among  the  best  of  which 
are  The  Building  of  the  Ark,  and  Scenes  in  Christ's  Life.  Sacred 
themes  could  not  put  restraint  on  his  wit;  as  was  instanced  in  his 
picturing  Luke  the  evangelist  blowing  the  ink  out  of  his  pen ;  and 
in  his  revenge  on  a  troublesome  friar  by  painting  on  an  altar-piece 
in  water  colors,  which  a  sponge  would  take  off*,  a  young  bear  nestled 
in  the  arms  of  the  mother  of  Jesus. 

Orcagna,  the  next  great  leader  in  the  school,  born  A.  D.  1329, 
grew  up  under  the  influence  which  the  perfected  sculpture  of  Ghiberti 
exerted  on  artists.  His  works  show  by  their  fine  preservation  the 
improved  material  which  his  skill  enabled  him  to  use ;  while  the 
sublimity  of  action  which  he  threw  into  his  subjects  made  him  the 
precursor  of  M.  Angelo.  As  the  Raphael,  naturally  accompanying 
as  a  feminine  counterpart  the  masculine  Orcagna,  Angelico,  called 
Fra,  a  contraction  for  Frater  or  brother,  the  artist  monk  born  A.  D. 
1387,  added  a  new  element  to  the  developing  Florentine;  that  of  an 
intense  and  almost  supernatural  earnestness  of  manner  and  of  an 
unearthly  etherealness  of  mould  in  his  figures.  There  is  a  bewitch- 
ing fascination  about  his  feminine  angels  which  has  called  forth  ex- 
travagant eulogiums  from  critics  of  succeeding  generations  and  of 
different  lands,  and  which  have  been  adored  as  more  than  human  by 
his  brother  monks  who  have  succeeded  to  the  heritage  of  the  con- 
vents upon  whose  walls  he  breathed  out  his  sweet  spirit.  It  was  in 
bis  age  that  the   art-critic  Cennini  lived;   whose   full   descriptions 


LEADING   MASTERS   IN   THE  TUSCAN   SCHOOLS.  611 

of  the  artists  of  this  school  are  so  valuable  to  the  thorough  student 
of  the  history  of  art. 

While  many  artists  of  merit  accompanied  the  leading  masters 
mentioned,  one  of  the  successors  of  Angelico  Massacio,  born  A.  D. 
1402,  became  the  author  of  an  independent  style.  He  studied 
architectural  perspective  under  the  great  Brunelleschi ;  from  whom 
the  grand  characteristic  of  his  style  became  scientific  accuracy 
of  form.  He  drew  from  the  nude  figure,  both  male  and  female; 
and  is  usually  ranked  as  the  perfecter  of  the  natural  style,  add- 
ing, as  he  did,  exactness  of  proportion  and  symmetry  to  the  quali- 
ties of  action  and  expression  first  attained  in  the  Florentine,  then 
etherealized  under  Angelico.  After  Massacio  one  more  eminent 
pioneer  in  the  Florentine  school  led  on  to  the  age  of  the  grand  mas- 
ters. Ghirlandaio,  born  1449,  the  teacher  of  M.  Angelo,  drew  even 
the  mother  of  Jesus,  with  the  holy  child  himself,  from  living  models. 
All  his  figures,  even  those  of  servant  women,  are  princesses  in  mien 
and  bearing.  The  grandeur  of  conception  and  fearlessness  in  attempt 
which  characterized  Ghirlandaio  and  his  works  is  exhibited  in  his 
bold  proposal  to  the  Florentine  Court  to  cover  the  whole  line  of  the 
walls  of  their  city  on  its  exterior  face  with  historical  frescoes.  From 
him  the  Florentine  School  caught  its  last  characteristic  feature,  which 
became  a  formative  element  in  the  three  climactic  artists,  who,  after 
Ghirlandaio,  made  the  history  of  painting  in  Florence  and  in  all  the 
world  so  illustrious. 

While  these  leaders  were  appearing  in  Florence,  a  succession  kindred 
in  principle,  but  formed  under  different  circumstances  were  brought 
forward  in  Siena.  Though  the  pomp  and  display  of  Florence  had 
given  special  prominence  to  the  artist's  profession,  Siena  seems  to 
have  been  the  natural  first  home  and  seat  of  art  in  Tuscany.  There 
in  the  twelfth  century,  a  hundred  years  even  before  Cimabue,  a 
fraternity  of  artists  chiefly  sculptors  existed ;  whose  bond  of  agree- 
ment, published  in  1355,  though  existing  before,  is  in  keeping  with 
the  spirit  which  we  have  seen  to  be  peculiar  to  the  Sienese.  Its 
pious  character  is  exhibited  in  the  preamble,  "  Since  we  are  teachers 
to  ignorant  men,"  and  "  since  in  God  every  perfection  is  eminently 
united,"  "  we  will  in  our  work  earnestly  ask  the  aid  of  the  Divine 
grace."  Its  moral  spirit  is  set  forth  in  the  provision,  "Any  member 
of  our  guild  who  shall  dare  to  use  in  his  work  gold,  silver  or  color 
other  than  that  which  he  may  have  promised  to  employ,  as  for  in- 
stance alloyed  gold  for  pure  gold,  tin  for  silver,  cobalt  blue  for  ultra- 
marine, indigo  for  azure,  red  ochre  or  carmine  for  cinnabar,  shall  be 


612  ART  CRITICISM. 

punished  and  fined  upon  every  conviction  ten  pounds."  The  object 
of  this  provision  seems  to  have  been  to  keep  up  the  reputation  of 
their  fraternity  for  excellency  of  workmanship,  quite  as  much  as  to 
promote  individual  moral  integrity ;  and  hence  the  Tuscan  paintings 
have  always  been  marked  for  the  durableness  of  their  colors.  Out 
of  this  association  seems  to  have  grown  the  order  of  St.  Luke,  named 
from  the  tradition  that  Luke  was  an  artist ;  a  fraternity  made  up  at 
first  of  such  men  as  the  orifici  or  common  gilders,  but  embracing 
afterwards  the  ablest  artists  of  succeeding  generations,  such  as  Ghi- 
berti,  Brunelleschi,  Orcagna  and  a  long  subsequent  list. 

Among  the  Sienese  fraternity  was  found  in  the  age  of  Giotto 
Simon e  Martini,  born  1284,  whose  congenial  taste  drew  him  to  Giotto 
as  his  teacher  and  most  attached  friend.  Under  his  teaching  Simone's 
style  was  transformed  into  that  natural  sweet  expression  which  be- 
came a  leading  type  in  the  established  Sienese  School.  Simone 
traveled  extensively,  visiting  even  Avignon  in  France,  to  perfect  as 
well  as  to  practice  his  art  in  different  fields ;  but  his  settled  style, 
beginning  with  the  dramatic  action  which  Giotto  infused  as  the 
breath  of  its  natural  life  into  Florentine  art,  became  a  softened  lyric, 
more  tender  in  sentiment  and  more  plaintive  in  expression  than 
suited  the  Florentine.  After  Simone  the  next  great  master  of  this 
school  was  Ambrogio,  born  1265.  Of  him  the  historian  and  critic 
Vasari,  himself  of  the  Florentine  School,  says,  "  In  his  youth  Am- 
brogio studied  literature ;"  and  this  he  argues  made  him  "  eminent 
as  an  artist."  Ambrogio  lived  to  be  83  years  old ;  and  was  laborious 
during  them  all.  He  painted  historical  scenes,  after  the  Florentine 
type,  and  allegorical  in  the  Sienese  style.  His  greatest  work,  "  The 
Career  of  a  Franciscan  Missionary"  is  lost;  one  of  whose  scenes,  the 
death  of  the  missionary  in  the  midst  of  a  terrific  hurricane  with 
lightning  and  hail,  anticipated  the  most  difficult  attempt  of  later 
landscape  painters.  One  of  his  best  preserved  works  is  his  allegori- 
cal representation  of  the  "  Effects  of  Good  and  Bad  Government"  in 
the  Public  Palace  at  Siena. 

After  Ambrogio  one  or  two  artists  of  great  merit  appeared  in  this 
school ;  but  from  the  nature  of  the  principle  on  which  it  was  founded, 
the  straining  after  an  unnatural  fervor  beyond  the  power  of  human 
beings  to  maintain  as  a  natural  condition  of  mind,  this  style  degene- 
rated and  ceased  to  be  natural.  Under  Andrea  Varni,  born  1345, 
who  painted  the  "  Procession  to  Calvary,"  introducing  the  fabled 
"Wandering  Jew"  receiving  the  impress  of  Christ's  "marred  visage" 
of  which  he  was  to  be  the  standing  memorial,  the  decline  of  the  true 


PADUAN  AND  CLASSIC  INFLUENCES  AROUND  THEM.        613 

Sienese  became  marked.     The  School  of  Siena  has  a  future  history  of 
its  own;  but  its  true  type  passed  for  a  time  to  the  Umbrian  School. 

Sect.   4.     The   School  of  Padua    distinguished    by  Classic    forms; 

THE   DIRECTLY  ASSOCIATED  SCHOOL  OF   VerONA  AND   FeRRARA,  AND  THE 

indirectly  connected  schools  of   milan,   bologna,  modena  and 
Parma. 

Some  one  hundred  and  fifty  or  two  hundred  miles  north  of  Tus- 
cany runs  the  narrow  but  extended  State  of  Venetian  Lombardy ; 
stretching  from  Venice  on  the  Eastern  Gulf  to  Milan  on  the  Western 
border  near  Sardinia.  Extending  through  this  region  are  several 
chief  cities;  Padua  nearest  to  Venice;  Verona  west  of  Padua; 
Mantua  southwest  of  Verona ;  and  Milan  far  to  the  west  of  all. 
Lying  between  Tuscany  on  the  south  and  Lombardy  on  the  north, 
are  the  four  small  States,  stretching  in  order  from  the  Gulf  westward, 
of  Ferrara,  Bologna,  Modena  and  Parma ;  each  having  its  capital 
city  of  the  same  name.  Each  of  these  cities,  Mantua  perhaps  ex- 
cepted, has  been  the  centre  of  a  school  of  art,  noted  each  in  its  day. 
Padua,  the  intellectual  head,  casting  off  early  the  uncongenial  glitter 
of  its  showy  neighbor  Venice,  became  the  seat  of  a  style  of  art  pecu- 
liar to  itself;  from  whose  influence  the  neighboring  Lombard  city 
of  Verona  and  the  adjoining  State  of  Ferrara  received  a  direct  and 
controlling  cast ;  while  the  more  distant  cities  of  Mantua  and  Milan 
and  the  less  contiguous  States  of  Bologna,  Modena  and  Parma 
received  a  less  direct  yet  decidedly  formative  impress. 

The  special  pride  of  Padua  was  its  University,  established  in  the 
eleventh  century,  renowned  throughout  its  history  for  its  men 
eminent  in  science  and  literature,  and  most  exalted  by  the  genius 
of  Galileo;  who  for  about  twenty  years  near  the  close  of  the  sixteenth 
century  was  one  of  its  Professors.  The  tendency  of  science  is  always 
to  precision  in  form ;  and,  under  the  shadow  of  an  institution  which 
exerted  an  influence  so  controlling  on  everything  within  its  vicinity, 
it  was  natural  that  the  chief  care  of  its  artists  should  be  to  prove 
faultless  among  judges  most  disposed  to  criticise  error  in  geometrical 
and  anatomical  exactness. 

Before  the  time  of  Giotto  there  were  Paduan  painters  of  note  in 
their  time.  Giotto  visited  Padua  and  infused  his  spirit  into  the  best 
of  their  number.  The  principle  of  Giotto,  that  nature  should  be 
made  the  painter's  model,  had  the  effect  to  break  up  the  formal 
sameness  of  the  Byzantine  style  which  made  all  schools  alike,  and 
to  bring  out  the  decided  qualities  of  each  class  of  artists,  with  all 

52 


614  ART   CRITICISM. 

their  differences  of  native  character  and  surrounding  influences. 
Guarcento,  who  flourished  at  Padua  about  A.  D.  1350,  in  the  genera- 
tion succeeding  Giotto,  began  to  give  cast  to  the  school  of  his  native 
city ;  adding  to  the  special  study  of  form  the  dramatic  expression 
of  the  Florentine  School  and  the  brilliant  coloring  of  the  Venetian. 

The  great  master  of  the  Paduan  School,  however,  the  artist  who 
brought  out  and  fixed  its  peculiar  style,  was  Squarcione,  born  A.  D. 
1396,  who  flourished  therefore  more  than  a  century  after  Giotto. 
Squarcione  formed  the  opinion  that  the  ancient  models  of  the  great 
Grecian  masters  were  a  truer  type  for  imitation  than  the  forms  of 
men  met  by  the  artist  in  society,  since  they  were  ideals  founded  on 
the  real.  He  traveled  extensively,  extending  his  tour  of  observation 
to  Greece.  He  collected  as  far  as  he  could  secure  them,  specimens 
of  the  antique,  and  made  numerous  drawings  of  others,  gathering  a 
complete  Museum  to  carry  home.  On  his  return  he  established  an 
Academy  of  Design ;  the  leading  feature  of  whose  instruction  was 
the  copying  of  the  antique  as  models'  in  form.  So  great  was  the 
reputation  of  the  traveled  teacher  that  not  less  than  one  hundred 
pupils  were  gathered  into  his  Academy ;  and  from  his  admirers  he 
received  the  title  of  "  Father  of  Painters."  His  teaching  led  not 
only  to  the  cultivation  of  a  classic  style,  but  to  the  preference  of 
mythological  themes.  However  excellent  a  training  his  Academy 
might  have  given  to  young  sculptors,  it  led  in  painting  to  statue-like 
forms,  which  in  unskilful  hands  became  ghostly  in  aspect ;  it  gave  the 
stiff*  sharp  outline  of  marble  edges  to  folds  of  dress,  instead  of  the 
indistinct  fading  off"  into  the  color  of  objects  around,  which  belongs  to 
real  dress,  modified  as  it  is  in  appearance  by  its  own  color  and  that 
of  its  surroundings ;  and,  most  of  all,  the  classic  Greek  ideals  of  men 
and  women  were  far  from  being  natural  models  for  the  Asiatics, 
who  were  subjects  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament  narrative,  and 
whose  representation  was  necessarily  the  chief  aim  of  Italian 
painters. 

At  Mantua,  about  a  generation  after  Squarcione,  Mantegna,  born 
A.  D.  1430  when  Squarcione  was  at  the  zenith  of  his  fame,  began  to 
eclipse  his  predecessor  and  master.  Though  called  the  successor  of 
Squarcione  in  the  Paduan  School,  he  fixed  his  studio  at  Mantua  that 
he  might  be  independent  and  improve  on  the  style  of  the  Academy 
at  Padua.  He  was  the  Phidias,  as  Squarcione  was  the  Ageladas  of 
his  age  in  form ;  giving  grander  and  fuller  proportions  to  his  figures 
and  a  greater  richness  to  their  drapery.  His  best  piece,  the  "Madon- 
na della  Vittoria,"  now  in  the  gallery  of  the  Louvre  at  Paris,  and 


SCHOOLS   OF   MANTUA,  VERONA,  MILAN   AND   BOLOGNA.    615 

his  cartoons  of  the  "Triumphs  of  Caesar"  at  Hampton  Court,  Eng- 
land, exhibit  a  comprehensiveness  of  study  and  elegance  as  well  as 
breadth  of  design  which  stamps  the  artist  a  genius  of  the  highest 
order.  He  is  however  a  true  Paduan  in  style ;  form  being  his  chief 
aim,  and  color  subordinate. 

At  Verona  the  history  of  the  art  of  painting  shows  a  struggle  be- 
tween the  old  Lombard  and  Venetian  styles  of  coloring;  but  the 
study  of  form,  originated  in  the  Paduan  School,  held  sway.  The 
ablest  of  the  school,  Paul  Veronese,  flourished  at  a  late  period,  after 
the  era  of  the  great  masters ;  and  is  therefore  to  be  referred  to  the 
era  of  their  influence  on  this  and  other  schools.  In  the  State  of 
Ferrara,  a  kindred  influence  was  seen ;  the  Venetian  school  culturing 
brilliance  of  coloring,  and  the  Paduan  inspiring  grace  in  form  among 
its  artists.  The  influence  of  Padua  on  the  neighbor  city  of  Verona 
and  the  adjoining  State  of  Ferrara  was  thus  direct  and  controlling 
in  respect  to  form ;  though  in  color  the  influence  of  Venice  is  appar- 
ent. Some  critics  suppose  that  even  in  Venice  the  ideas  of  classic 
form  prevalent  in  Padua  may  be  traced. 

At  remoter  points  where  the  influence  of  Giotto  had  been  felt,  his 
early  study  at  Florence  caused  that  school  afterwards  to  be  regarded 
as  the  authoritative  head  of  subordinate  schools.  The  ideas  of  form, 
however,  which  prevailed  at  Padua,  were  so  congenial  with  Lombard 
taste,  that  even  Milan  in  the  extreme  west  of  this  State  adopted  the 
Paduan  model ;  a  tendency  which  at  a  later  period  invited  the  most 
thoroughly  Grecian  of  the  three  great  masters,  Lionardo,  both  to 
practice  and  to  teach  there  his  peculiar  style. 

This  indirect  influence  of  the  classic  spirit  as  to  form  was  more 
marked  at  Bologna.  One  of  the  earliest  painters  of  this  school  was 
da  Gubbio,  a  contemporary  and  friend  of  Dante,  and  hence  flourishing 
in  the  same  age  with  Giotto;  whom  Kaphael  afterwards  ranked  as 
mediate  in  excellence  betvveen  Perugino  of  Umbria,  his  own  teacher, 
and  Bellini,  one  of  the  great  lights  of  the  Venetian  school.  At  a 
later  period,  in  the  latter  part  of  the  fourteenth  century,  or  in  the 
generation  succeeding  that  of  Giotto,  Vitale  was  a  leader  in  the 
Bolognese  School.  A  strange  religious  fancy  led  him  to  decline 
painting  Jesus  suflering  on  the  cross ;  though  he  had  no  scruples 
about  paintings  of  the  Madonna.  In  the  age  of  Lionardo,  but  while 
he  was  but  a  youth,  the  yet  more  famous  leader  in  this  school,  Melizzo 
arose.  He  was  the  recognized  head  of  the  style  of  ceiling  painting, 
called  by  Italian  artists  "  Sotto-in-su ;"  or  below-in-above ;  in  which 
the  figures  are  designed  to  be  represented  as  ascending  perpendicu- 


616  ART   CRITICISM. 

larly  and  erect,  with  their  feet  downwards ;  in  which  representation 
the  most  difficult  kind  of  foreshortening  is  required.  By  contempo- 
raries he  was  extravagantly  eulogized,  and  extolled  as  "the  incom- 
parable painter"  and  "the  splendor  of  all  Italy."  The  schools  of 
Modena  and  Parma  were  comparatively  unimportant  until  after  the 
age  of  the  great  masters;  when  Parma  was  made  forever  renowned  by 
the  genius  of  Correggio. 

Sect.  5.  The  School  of  Venice  ;  devoted  to  the  Attainment  of  rich- 
ness AND  Brilliance  of  Coloring. 

Venice,  the  chief  city  of  Italy  on  the  East,  is  as  peculiar  in  the 
history  of  painting  as  it  is  in  its  location,  in  the  habits  of  its  people 
and  in  its  affiliation  with  other  nations.  After  the  fall  of  the  Roman 
Empire  and  the  interruption  by  the  Muhammedan  conquest  of  the 
old  routes  of  trade  with  India,  the  hardy  and  enterprising  inhabi- 
tants of  the  marshy  environs  of  Venice  had  the  skill  to  make  interest 
with  the  Saracen,  and  get  possession  of  a  large  share  of  the  trade  by 
which  the  Romans,  Greeks  and  Egyptians  had  in  turn  gained  the 
wealth  which  they  expended  upon  art. 

Enriched  by  this  trade,  and  having  their  taste  for  art  awakened  by 
intercourse  with  the  now  cultured  and  aspiring  Arab  race,  the  Vene- 
tians added  more  and  more  to  the  grandeur  and  beauty  of  their 
edifices,  and  to  the  grace  and  richness  of  their  equipage  comprised 
chiefly  in  the  gondolas  or  boats  that  ploughed  the  canals  which 
were  the  thoroughfares  of  their  pile-built  city.  While  in  architecture 
both  the  Saracenic  and  Byzantine  shared  their  patronage,  in  painting 
the  rich  coloring  of  the  Byzantine  became  the  favorite.  The  glaring 
pure  colors,  gold,  crimson  and  blue  which  were  attractive  to  them 
when  yet  rude  in  their  taste,  under  the  influence  of  a  more  refined, 
judgment  and  a  more  comprehensive  culture  were  softened  down 
into  the  darker  but  even  richer  purple  and  maroon.  The  habits  of 
the  people,  driving  their  business  amid  the  shades  resting  even  at 
noonday  on  the  surface  of  their  canals  shut  out  from  the  sunlight, 
often  too  enveloped  in  fog,  revelling  at  night  in  the  subdued  glare- 
of  torch-light  falling  on  boat,  water  and  shore,  cultivated  a  fondness 
for  that  bewitching  fascination  of  dim  outline  in  gorgeous  shade, 
which  is  the  prevailing  cast  of  Venetian  painting. 

While  the  early  taste  of  the  School  of  Venice  was  transplanted] 
from  the  East,  its  higher  characteristics  came  from  the  opposite  di- 
rection, from  Germany ;  early  in  the  field  in  the  modern  revival  of 
art  as  well  as  of  religion.    Commercial  intercourse,  political  adhesion 


VENETIAN   SCHOOL,    AND    INFLUENCES   FORMING    IT.       617 

to  the  Imperial  or  Ghibelline  as  opposed  to  the  Papal  or  Guelph 
party,  and  also  kindred  temperament  seen  in  the  Venetian  fondness 
for  festivities  and  parades,  harmonizing  with  the  pervading  cheerful- 
ness of  German  design  in  art,  all  seem  to  have  tended  to  this  close 
affiliation  between  German  and  Venetian  artists.  Up  to  the  time 
of  Giotto  Venetian  painting  was  substantially  Byzantine.  As  early 
as  A.  D.  1375,  Antonio,  a  follower  of  Giotto  and  the  Florentine 
School,  attempted  to  introduce  an  improved  style ;  but  the  clear,  bold 
outline  and  the  transparent  light  coloring  of  the  Florentine  School, 
did  not  commend  itself  to  either  the  people  or  the  artists  of  the 
gorgeous  island  city.  At  a  very  early  period,  however,  German 
artists  at  Vienna  succeeded  in  giving  a  new  cast  to  Venetian  draw- 
ing if  not  to  coloring ;  the  dark  style  of  shading  of  the  German 
agreeing  better  with  the  Venetian  taste,  while  also  the  domestic 
cheerfulness  of  expression  peculiar  to  the  Dutch,  then  associated 
with  the  German  School,  was  more  in  keeping  with  the  Venetian 
spirit  than  the  sterner  dramatic  energy  of  the  Florentine  School. 
The  name  of  Giovanni  Alamanus,  or  John  the  German  turned  into 
Italian,  occurring  among  the  leaders  in  the  new  Venetian  style, 
introduced  apparently  early  in  the  fourteenth  century,  is  an  indi- 
cation how  perfectly  domesticated  and  nationalized  the  artist  of 
the  murky  Dutch  lowlands  had  become  among  the  lagoons 
of  the  great  city  of  Eastern  Italy.  The  artist  whose  influence  in 
establishing  this  change  at  Venice  appears  to  have  been  greatest 
was  Gentile  da  Fabriano,  born  A.  D.  1370.  Trained  to  the  Floren- 
tine style  as  to  form,  highly  dramatic  in  his  themes  and  in  the  pos- 
ture and  expression  of  his  figures,  yet  rich  and  even  gay  in  coloring 
and  fascinating  in  aerial  effects,  he  united  excellences  that  made  him 
a  favorite  not  only  at  Venice,  but  also  at  Rome,  whose  critics  were 
the  most  exacting  as  to  precision  in  form.  Michel  Angelo,  looking 
back  to  Gentile  over  a  century  and  a-half  of  progress  in  art,  regarded 
him  as  a  prophet  of  the  future  in  his  day ;  and,  playing  upon  his 
name.  Gentile,  or  "  the  man  of  all  nations,"  he  said  that  "  Gentile's 
works  as  well  as  his  name  were  his  autobiography." 

Another  stage  of  transition  and  advance  in  the  Venetian  School 
occurred  when  about  A.  D.  1450,  the  art  of  painting  in  oil  was  intro- 
duced into  Italy.  The  fame  of  the  invention  of  Van  Eyck  reached 
Venice  through  its  association  with  Germany.  Antonelli,  a  Vene- 
tian artist,  made  the  long  voyage  then  required  in.  reaching  Holland ; 
and  his  spirit  so  won  on  the  inventor  that  he  disclosed  to  him  his 
secret.     Venetian  taste  prepared  the  way  for  the  ready  adoption  of 

52*  4  C 


618  ART   CRITICISM. 

this  new  vehicle ;  which  gave  a  richness  and  depth  to  colors  never 
before  attained,  while  the  dark  shade  as  well  as  the  indistinctness  of 
outline  it  allowed  were  equally  in  keeping  with  Venetian  preference. 
The  story  of  the  tragic  fate  of  the  guileless  artist,  who  had  thus 
sought  and  found  and  brought  home  the  invention  so  long  desired 
by  artists  of  every  age,  his  secret  murder  by  a  rival  artist  who 
vainly  aspired  to  the  credit  of  the  invention,  forms  a  sad  episode 
in  the  annals  of  art.  From  the  period  of  the  introduction  of  oil- 
painting  dates  the  superior  success  of  the  Venetian  School ;  since 
even  the  intelligent  and  comprehensive  spirit  of  the  Florentine 
School  was  so  averse  to  the  sluggish  flow  and  labored  kneading  pecu- 
liar to  the  new  vehicle,  as  well  as  to  the  darkness  of  the  shades  pro- 
duced by  it,  that  even  down  to  the  age  of  the  great  masters  the  pre- 
judice remained.  The  themes  of  Venetian  artists  were  still  those 
calling  for  a  quiet  ease  and  dignity.  Even  in  their  Scripture  pieces 
the  figures  have  for  their  models  merchant  princes;  and  as  no 
monarch  of  earth  ever  combined  the  air  of  lordly  dignity  belonging 
to  true  nobility  and  the  courtly  yet  familiar  bearing  of  a  gentleman 
among  his  equals  which  characterized  a  doge  of  Venice,  so  in  a  city 
of  merchant  princes,  artists  could  not  fail  to  give  a  lordly  grandeur 
to  the  figures  put  upon  their  canvas. 

Among  the  leading  masters  of  this  era,  born  A.  D.  1501,  was 
Bellini;  who  died  A.  D.  1581,  aged  eighty  years.  Contemporary 
with  the  great  masters,  he  preserved  still  the  true  character  of  the 
Venetian  School,  and  transmitted  it  to  able  pupils;  though  the  ablest 
of  their  number,  Titian  and  Giorgione,  influenced  by  the  great  mas- 
ters as  well  as  by  their  own  superior  genius,  gave  to  Venetian  art  the 
last  and  highest  stage  of  its  progress.  Bellini  excelled  especially  in 
the  magnificence  of  his  architectural  back-grounds ;  a  feature  which 
reached  its  highest  excellence  beneath  the  sweep  of  his  pencil  and 
the  tinge  of  his  brush,  and  which,  because  of  its  power,  was  revived 
by  the  last  light  of  the  Venetian  School,  Paul  Veronese.  To  this 
stage  in  the  perfection  of  "  alluring  color  at  Venice,"  began  by  Gen- 
tile and  perfected  by  Titian,  Fuseli  ascribes  the  influence  which  led 
the  way  to  Landscape  Painting;  since  it  demonstrated  the  methods 
of  securing  its  two  leading  characteristics,  "the  harmony  due  to 
balance  of  colors,"  and  the  "breadth  of  local  tints." 

Sect.  6.  The  Umbrian  School  of  Central  and  the  Neapolitan  of 
Southern  Italy  ;  Formal  in  style  and  Mystic  in  Eeligious  spirit. 

In  the  North  of  Italy,  within  a  comparatively  small  territory,  we 


UMBRIAN   ART,  AND   TRADITIONS   GIVING    ITS   CAST.       619 

liave  found  the  distinct  divisions  and  subdivisions  of  schools  so 
numerous  as  to  require  their  grouping  into  three  sections ;  those  cen- 
tring about  Florence,  Padua  and  Venice.  Turning  now  southward 
all  the  remainder  of  Italy,  including  the  central  region  of  the  Papal 
States  and  the  southern  dominion  of  Naples,  may  be  grouped  so  far 
as  the  history  of  painting  is  concerned  in  a  single  section ;  their  pre- 
vailing characteristics  up  to  the  age  of  the  great  masters  being  sub- 
stantially one.  The  separation  of  Naples  from  Northern  Italy  by 
the  intervening  Roman  States  associating  them  locally  with  Rome, 
as  well  as  the  influence  of  a  succession  of  rulers  always  in  the  inter- 
est of  the  Church,  has  produced  for  centuries  a  controlling  influence 
on  the  progress  of  the  Neapolitan  race  in  science,  literature  and  art, 
such  as  the  native  character  of  this  mercurial  people  would  not,  if 
otherwise  associated,  have  allowed. 

The  characteristics  of  the  style  of  painting  prevalent  in  the  south- 
ern portion  of  Italy  were  a  formal  as  opposed  to  a  natural  model  in 
drawing,  and  a  mystic  as  contrasted  with  a  practical  religious  convic- 
tion in  design.  The  first  of  these  peculiarities  was  the  result  of  that 
spirit,  opposed  to  reform,  which  fastened  on  Egyptian  artists  a  stereo- 
typed pattern  from  which  they  dared  not  hazard  a  departure ;  and  also 
the  absence  of  any  better  model,  existing  at  home  or  received  from 
abroad,  and  suggesting  new  and  improved  ideas  in  art.  At  Rome, 
the  paintings  of  orthodox  pattern  were  after  the  old  Latin,  as  opposed 
to  the  Byzantine  type;  without  anatomical  correctness  in  outline, 
devoid  of  expression  in  features,  and  destitute  of  both  body  and  dis- 
tinctness of  color.  The  utter  lack  of  old  classic  models  w^hich  might 
give  to  Roman  artists,  as  they  had  to  Nicolo  of  Pisa,  a  new  principle 
in  form  is  intimated  in  the  fact  mentioned,  that  as  late  as  A.  D.  1450 
there  were  collected  in  Rome  only  six  specimens  of  ancient  statu- 
ary and  those  not  of  the  highest  order  of  art.  The  Roman  people, 
moreover,  unlike  the  commercial  and  adventurous  inhabitants  of 
Pisa,  Florence  and  Venice  never  went  abroad  to  borrow  ideas  from 
other  nations ;  nor  were  they  open  to  receive  new  opinions  and  prin- 
ciples from  men  of  genius  who  came  among  them  from  abroad. 

The  spirit  of  mystery  and  superstition,  fostered  during  the  crusades 
by  oriental  legends,  which  converted  natural  into  supernatural 
agencies,  which  was  credulous  as  to  the  claim  to  miraculous  power 
still  made  by  men  of  ascetic  and  monastic  life,  and  which  paid  special 
homage  to  images  of  saints,  prevailed  in  this  more  secluded  section 
of  Italy  long  after  it  had  been  eradicated  from  the  more  worldly-wise 
cities  and  provinces  of  northern  Italy.     The  natural  chief  seat  of 


620  ART   CRITICISM. 

this  medieval  spirit  was  the  retired  valley  of  Umbria,  north  of  Rome, 
and  lying  between  the  upper  Tiber  and  the  Apennine  range.  Pliny 
states  that  the  Umbrians  were  regarded  the  most  ancient  aboriginal 
tribe  of  Italy;  that  the  Greek  colonists  of  Etruria,  meeting  them  on 
their  first  entrance  into  Italy,  called  them  Ombrioi,  because  they  were 
regarded  as  remnants  of  the  antediluvian  race  who  escaped  in  their 
mountains  from  the  flood.  This  ancestral  tradition,  which  made  their 
valleys  the  special  care  of  Providence  and  the  scene  of  Divine  inter- 
position, seems  to  have  been  rather  strengthened  than  weakened  by 
the  doctrines  of  Christianity  as  they  received  them ;  and  secluded 
from  intercourse  with  other  men  by  their  inland  and  mountain-girt 
location,  the  dream  of  their  early  age  has  been  left  to  this  day  un- 
broken by  collision  with  the  experience  of  more  cosmopolitan  neigh- 
bors. This  was  the  home  of  Francis;  who  at  the  little  town  of  Assisi 
founded,  A.  D.  1209,  the  ascetic  and  mystic  brotherhood  of  the  Fran- 
ciscans. The  renown  of  this  order,  as  well  as  the  lively  and  vigor- 
ous intelligence  of  the  Umbrians,  invited  a  visit  from  Cimabue  and 
afterwards  from  Giotto;  whose  paintings  still  adorn  the  shrine  of 
Assisi.  Although  in  Umbria,  as  well  as  in  other  parts  of  Italy,  the 
style  introduced  by  Giotto  led  to  the  study  of  nature's  models,  this 
influence  was  restricted  by  the  popular  cast  of  mind  and  modified  by 
counter  influences  coming  from  other  schools  than  the  Florentine. 
Through  Ancona,  the  chief  seaport  of  the  Papal  States  on  the  Adri- 
atic, the  Venetian  taste  in  coloring  spread  to  a  considerable  extent; 
while  through  Urbino,  an  inland  town  where  quiet  thought  took  the 
place  of  business  excitement,  there  came  an  influence  from  the  school 
of  Siena,  leading  to  a  fondness  for  themes  relating  to  angels  and  to 
supernatural  scenes  as  well  as  beings ;  which  latter  feature  was  already 
characteristic  of  the  Umbrian  artists. 

The  head  of  the  Umbrian  or  early  Roman  School  as  it  finally 
took  shape,  was  Piero  della  Francesco ;  whose  distinctive  name  indi- 
cates his  relation  to  the  Franciscan  brotherhood.  Born  A.  D.  1400, 
he  lived  to  the  age  of  ninety-four  years ;  late  enough  to  have  known 
the  three  great  masters  in  their  early  life;  since  A.  D.  1494,  the  time 
of  his  death,  Lionardo  da  Vinci  was  forty-two  years  of  age,  M. 
Angelo  twenty,  and  Raphael  eleven  years  old.  As  a  teacher  he  may 
be  said  to  have  formed  the  style  of  the  great  painters  of  Umbria 
and  Romagna.  The  disciple  of  Massacio  the  great  Florentine  dram- 
atic artist,  he  practiced  his  art  first  at  Perugia  on  the  Tuscan  or 
western  side  of  the  Tiber.  Crossing,  however,  to  the  eastern  side 
into  Umbria,  he  gave  to  that  part  of  Italy  the  glory  of  being  the 


MASTERS   IN    THE   iMYSTIC  STYLE   OF   UMBRIA.  621 

foster  mother  of  the  greatest  genius  in  art.  Piero  excelled  in  the 
three  features  requisite  to  success  in  the  natural  style  introduced  by- 
Giotto,  and  constantly  improved  upon  after  his  day ;  perspective, 
foreshortening,  and  the  securing  of  apparent  breadth  of  space  be- 
tween and  around  his  figures ;  the  two  former  of  which  are  requisite 
in  historical  grouping  without  extended  back-ground,  while  the  latter 
is  the  attainment  without  which  there  can  be  no  success  in  landscape 
painting. 

Piero  had  as  his  pupils  the  immediate  precursors  and  instructors 
of  the  great  masters;  among  whom  the  most  noted  were  Luca 
Signorelli,  Antonio,  Pietro  Pollajuolo  and  Andrea  Verrochio. 
Luca  was  bold  in  design,  fond  of  exhibiting  his  anatomical  skill  in 
the  nude,  and  noted  for  the  air  of  majesty  associated  with  even 
violence  of  action  in  his  figures.  In  these  respects  Luca  has  been 
styled  the  precursor  of  M.  Angelo ;  who  in  his  "  Last  Judgment" 
has  the  same  style  both  of  conception  and  execution  displayed  by 
Luca  in  his  "  End  of  the  World."  Antonio  is  said  to  have  been  the 
first  Italian  artist  who  practiced  dissection  of  human  bodies  in 
order  to  gain  anatomical  exactness  in  drawing.  Verrochio  was  more 
renowned  in  his  pupils  than  in  his  execution ;  for  his  works  are  few, 
and  as  far  as  Vasari  judges,  "  hard  and  crude :"  yet  he  had  a  power 
in  giving  distinctness  to  outlines  in  form,  and  purity  to  tints  in  color, 
and  above  all  an  aptness  which  enabled  him  to  advance  his  pupils 
far  beyond  himself  in  skill.  Among  those  were  three  destined  to  an 
illustrious  future ;  Lionardo  the  first  of  the  three  great  masters,  Peru- 
gino  the  teacher  of  Raphael,  the  third  of  the  three,  and  Lorenzo  di 
Oredi  one  of  the  chief  lights  in  the  future  of  the  Umbrian  School. 
Verrochio's  most  famed  picture  is  his  Baptism  of  Christ ;  in  which 
is  an  angel  wrought  by  the  superior  hand  of  Lionardo  while  yet  a 
pupil. 

The  artist  who  made  the  Umbrian  School  most  noted,  while 
at  the  same  time  he  departed  widely  from  its  spirit,  was  Pietro 
Vanucco,  usually  called  Perugino,  from  his  native  place,  Peru- 
gia. Born  A.  D.  1446,  he  lived  till  A.  D.  1524.  Attracted 
from  the  Etrurian  border  into  Umbria  by  the  fame  of  its 
school  of  art,  his  first  studies  gave  the  mystic  cast  of  that  school 
to  his  early  works.  Induced  later  in  life  to  visit  Florence  he  took 
on  some  of  the  characteristics  of  that  school.  Returning  to  his  native 
city  he  opened  a  studio,  received  pupils,  and  had  numerous  orders 
for  painting  on  Christian  subjects.  Becoming  mercenary  in  spirit 
he  employed  his  pupils  to  add  to  his  reputation  and  to  his  revenues ; 


622  ART   CRITICISM. 

Raphael  himself,  as  a  youthful  pupil,  having  thus  been  rendered 
serviceable.  His  early  works  were  after  the  pietistic  Umbrian  type ; 
his  paintings  in  middle  life  though  on  Scripture  themes,  took  more  of 
the  secular  cast  of  the  Florentine  School ;  while  the  productions  of 
his  later  life  were  some  of  them  wanton  in  expression  and  vulgar  in 
associations,  which  is  especially  seen  in  his  "  Assumption." 

The  most  finished  and  purest  of  the  school  in  this  culminating  age 
was  Lorenzo  di  Credi.  Born  1459,  he  flourished  till  1537.  In  the 
nice  elaboration  of  his  pieces  he  resembled  Lionardo  da  Vinci,  and 
became  noted  as  an  oracle  of  refined  taste.  The  influence  of  the 
celebrated  Italian  reformer  Savanarola,  and  of  a  Dominican  monk 
who  sympathized  with  him,  led  him  to  the  opposite  extreme  of  Peru- 
gino's  wantonness;  so  that  he  rejected  the  nude  entirely.  The  spirit 
of  the  Italian  reformer,  however,  did  not  tend  to  a  forsaking  of 
nature  as  the  artist's  model ;  but  only  to  the  choice  of  a  chaste  as 
opposed  to  a  wanton  subject.  In  one  of  his  sermons  Savanarola  thus 
expressed  his  idea ;  "  Creatures  are  beautiful  in  proportion  as  they 
participate  in  and  approximate  to  the  beauty  of  the  Creator ;  and 
perfection  of  form  is  relative  to  beauty  of  mind.  Bring  hither  two 
women  equally  perfect  in  person  ;  let  one  be  a  saint  and  the  other  a 
sinner,  you  shall  find  that  the  saint  will  be  more  generally  loved 
than  the  sinner,  and  that  on  her  all  eyes  will  be  directed."  Lorenzo 
di  Credi  received  in  its  spirit  this  principle  of  the  Christian  reformer 
as  the  moral  law  of  his  art ;  and  following  it  he  became  the  true 
artist  of  his  school. 

The  sweetest  of  the  galaxy  in  this  school  at  that  era,  the  Raphael 
of  the  Umbrian  painters,  was  Francesco  Francia.  Born  1450,  and 
pursuing  his  art  till  1517,  he  was  warmly  admired  by  Raphael  when 
as  a  youth  he  knew  him  as  an  artist  already  mature ;  and  from  him, 
both  as  to  the  subjects  and  character  of  his  own  incomparable  works, 
Raphael  evidently  received  the  bent  which  gave  direction  to  his 
rapidly  developing  mind.  Francia  was  fond  of  portraits,  particularly 
of  Madonnas;  and  though  he  designed  from  ideal  conceptions  he 
caught  from  observing  nature  living  grace ;  and  in  this  Raphael  be- 
came his  imitator  and  friendly  rival.  Raphael  appreciated  Francia's 
judgment;  and  sent  him  his  best  pieces  for  his  criticism.  Francia, 
too,  appreciated  Raphael ;  and  spoke  of  him  as  "  the  Zeuxis  of  our 
age."  Perhaps  never  in  the  history  of  art  was  the  cast  of  the  men 
who  were  to  follow  more  completely  foreshadowed  than  were  Lion- 
onardo,  M.  Angelo  and  Raphael  in  the  age  of  the  Umbrian  School 
preceding  their  appearance. 


THE   NEAPOLITAN  SCHOOL   AND   ITS   MASTERS.  623 

In  Naples,  associated  as  we  have  observed  with  the  Koman  States 
locally,  intellectually  and  religiously,  the  spirit  of  art  was  early 
awakened ;  but  the  Neapolitan  was  less  distinguished  than  the  Um- 
brian  or  early  Roman  School  by  great  masters.  Contemporary  even 
with  Cimabue,  Tomaso  de'  Stefani,  born  A.  D.  1230  and  flourish- 
ing till  1310,  attained  a  style  superior  to  that  of  his  age  in  point  of 
naturalness;  as  his  paintings  still  seen  in  Naples  prove.  Over  the 
principal  altar  in  the  Church  of  Santa  Maria  del  Carmine  is  a  cru- 
cifix by  Stefani,  which  is  said  to  have  thus  addressed  the  great  theo- 
logian Thomas  Aquinas  as  he  stood  admiring  it,  "Bene  scripsisti  de 
me,  Thoma;  quam  ergo  mercedem  recipies?"  "Thou  hast  written  well 
of  me;  what  reward  therefore  wouldst  thou  receive?"  To  which  the 
humble  theologian  replied,  "Non  aliam  nisi  te,"  "No  other  but  thee." 
This  tradition  bespeaks  at  once  the  merit  of  the  work  of  this  early 
Neapolitan  artist,  and  the  mystic  and  superstitious  spirit  of  the  early 
Neapolitan  School.  At  the  period  of  Giotto's  visit  to  Naples,  Simone, 
of  the  generation  following,  became  an  admirer  of  the  natural  style ; 
and  assisted  Giotto  in  his  paintings  executed  there.  But  the  spirit 
of  the  Neapolitan  was  not  only  opposed  to  but  intolerant  of  the  im- 
provement Giotto  proposed.  Giotto  was  literally  driven  from  Naples 
by  the  opposition  of  his  brother  artists ;  and  an  order  most  inferior 
and  formal  succeeded.  As  exceptions  to  this  prevailing  inferiority 
there  appeared  about  the  opening  of  the  fifteenth  century  two  artists 
of  originality  and  comparative  eminence,  Colautonio  and  his  yet 
more  eminent  son-in-law  Antonio  Solario ;  whose  works  show  that 
genius  in  art  was  not  confined  entirely  to  the  more  favored  region  of 
northern  Italy.  The  Neapolitans  claim,  as  a  native  Sicilian,  Anto- 
nello  da  Messina,  born  A.  D.  1414  and  living  till  A.  D.  1493;  the 
artist  already  alluded  to  as  the  enterprising  Venetian  who  visited 
Holland  to  obtain  from  Van  Eyck  his  invention-  of  oil  painting. 

The  improved  Neapolitan  School  began  with  Andrea  Sabbatine,  a 
pupil  of  Raphael ;  who  devoted  himself  to  the  generous  effort  to  create 
a  school  of  a  higher  order  in  his  native  city.  The  close  connection  of 
the  Neapolitan  School  with  the  Umbrian  up  to  the  era  of  the  great 
masters  is  exemplified  in  the  fact  that  the  best  pictures  in  the  Neapo- 
litan churches  were  by  Umbrian  painters;  among  which  Per ugino's 
grand  painting  of  the  Assumption,  presenting  at  once  the  excellences 
and  the  vices  of  his  style,  first  inspired  Andrea  to  seek  to  excel  as  a 
painter,  and  directed  him  to  Perugino's  pupil  Raphael  as  a  teacher. 


624  ART   CRITICISM. 


Sect.  7.  The  Age  of  the  three  Great  Masters,  Lionardo  da  Vinci, 
Michel  Angelo  and  Kaphael  Sanzio. 

In  the  rise  of  the  great  masters  of  Italian  art,  principles  ever  true, 
but  too  often  overlooked  as  to  the  progress  of  mankind  in  any  de- 
partment of  noble  achievement,  were  illustrated.  As  in  ancient 
Greece  so  in  modern  Italy,  centuries  were  required  for  the  develop- 
ment of  the  ripe  fruits  of  genius ;  nurtured  as  its  growing  germ  must 
be  by  the  added  experience  of  succeeding  generations.  Genius  alone 
cannot  rise  to  excellence ;  it  is  only  genius  guided  by  the  lamp  of 
past  experience  and  trimming  that*Iamp  amidst  midnight  toil,  unit- 
ing constant  practice  with  thorough  study  of  scientific  principles,  that 
has  ever  attained  to  pre-eminent  superiority.  The  Italian  mind  is 
underestimated  when  it  is  only  remembered  that  it  has  produced  the 
greatest  of  poetic  and  artistic  genius,  as  Dante,  Ariosto  and  Tasso,  and 
Giotto  and  his  successors  in  art  for  four  centuries,  while  it  is  forgotten 
that  it  has  produced  jurists  like  Machiavelli,  astronomers  like  Galileo 
and  chemists  like  Galvani  and  Volta.  The  three  great  masters  in 
painting  were  paragons  of  industry,  both  in  studying  the  science  and 
in  elaborating  the  practice  of  their  art;  and  they  lived  at  an  era, 
two  centuries  after  Giotto  and  Dante,  when  Italian  intellect  had  in 
every  department  of  human  pursuit  reached  its  acme.  It  was  a  co- 
incidence not  without  significance  that  five  years  after  Italian  science 
culminated  in  the  discovery  by  Columbus,  A.  D.  1492,  of  the  West- 
ern World,  Italian  art  culminated  A.  D.  1497  in  the  design  of  the 
most  perfect  work  of  art  ever  executed  by  man,  "  The  Last  Supper," 
of  Lionardo.  It  is  also  to  be  especially  observed  in  tracing  the 
causes  that  produce  great  results  that  the  same  year,  A.  D.  1452, 
which  gave  birth  to  Lionardo  the  earliest  born  of  the  three  masters 
also  brought  into  the  world  Savanarola  the  great  Italian  religious 
reformer;  while  also,  the  very  year,  A.  D.  1483,  of  the  birth  of 
Eaphael  the  latest  born  of  the  three  masters,  was  the  year  that  ush- 
ered into  being  Luther  the  yet  more  illustrious  religious  reformer  of 
Germany. 

Lionardo,  called  da  Vinci  from  a  small  town  near  Florence  where 
he  was  born  A.  D.  1542,  showed  at  an  early  age  such  a  genius  for 
art  that  his  father,  who  w^as  a  lawyer,  placed  him  under  the  tuition 
of  Andrea  Verocchio.  His  superior  power  after  some  months  showed 
itself  when  his  teacher  employed  him,  as  he  did  other  pupils,  to  exe- 
cute a  portion  of  one  of  his  paintings  for  which  he  had  an  order. 
The  task  was  to  paint  an  angel  in  the  scene  of  Christ's  Baptism ; 


LIONARDO   DA   VINCI;    HIS   EARLY   PROMISE.  625 

which  he  executed  with  such  ability, Vasari  relates,  that,  Verocchio 
threw  down  his  brush  and  declared  he  would  never  take  it  up  again, 
in  chagrin  "  that  a  child  should  so  excel  him."  The  picture  is  now 
preserved  in  the  Academy  of  Arts  at  Florence.  Eeturning  home  soon 
after,  yet  a  mere  youth,  he  astonished  his  father,  who  desired  him  to 
paint  a  piece  for  a  peasant  whom  he  wished  to  favor,  by  executing 
on  a  piece  sawed  from  the  trunk  of  a  fig-tree  a  gorgon's  head  begirt 
with  snakes,  lizards  and  toads,  so  frightfully  natural  that  the  peasant 
was  afraid  of  it;  and  such  a  master-piece  of  naturalness  that  it  was 
purchased  as  a  special  treasure  by  the  duke  of  Milan. 

Lionardo  rapidly  developed  into  one  of  the  most  perfect  ideals  of 
personal  beauty  and  grandeur  in  physical,  intellectual  and  moral 
aspect.  He  w-as  tall,  robust,  of  matchless  grace  in  feature  and  limb, 
and  of  muscular  strength  so  Herculean  that  he  could  twist  a  horse- 
shoe in  two  with  apparent  ease.  He  became  thorough  master  not 
only  of  the  principles  of  the  fine  arts  as  practically  studied,  but  of 
the  abstruse  laws  of  the  mathematics,  anatomy,  optics,  chemistry 
and  mechanics  as  they  applied  to  drawing,  sculpture,  painting,  archi- 
tecture and  landscape-gardening;  he  added  to  these  more  general 
studies  in  astronomy  and  kindred  sciences;  and  he  became  eminent, 
too,  for  skill  in  music  and  for  excellence  in  poetry.  He  united  the 
rare  characteristics  as  a  scholar  of  a  lively  wit  and  fascinating  spright- 
liness  in  conversation  with  a  most  laborious  employ  of  the  pen ;  and 
twelve  large  volumes  of  his  manuscripts  now  in  the  Ambrosian  Li- 
brary at  Milan  attest  not  only  his  diligence  but  the  versatility  and 
comprehensiveness  of  his  talent  and  scholarship.  He  had  idiosyn- 
crasies of  character;  carrying  his  idea  of  painting  objects  reflected 
from  a  mirror  so  far  as  to  write  all  his  manuscripts  from  right  to 
left  so  that  a  mirror  must  be  employed  to  invert  the  lines ;  remaining 
unmarried  mainly  from  an  intellectual  admiration  of  beauty  which 
made  him  the  lover  of  an  ideal  which  he  embodied  in  both  sculpture 
and  painting  but  never  met  in  real  life ;  and  having  a  self-apprecia- 
tion which  showed  itself  in  a  dignified  reticence,  less  offensive  indeed 
than  the  occasionally  over-bearing  self-esteem  of  M.  Angelo. 

While  painting,  as  the  art  of  arts,  according  to  the  popular  esti- 
mate of  his  day  was  the  department  in  which  Lionardo  excelled, 
his  nude  Leda,  for  its  chaste  and  almost  unimpassioned  expression 
and  yet  more  for  its  exquisite  symmetry  especially  in  the  head,  is  by 
some  admired  as  superior  to  the  Venus  de  Medici.  As  subsidiary 
to  his  main  art  Lionardo  always  carried  a  sketch  book  about  with 
him,  in  which  he  copied  every  striking  expression  of  countenance 
5.3  4  D 


626  ART   CRITICISM. 

and  position  of  men  in  action  which  he  thought  might  be  of  service 
in  his  studio ;  and  numberless  specimens  of  these  drawings  are  still 
preserved.  At  the  age  of  about  thirty-one,  leaving  Florence  to  seek 
an  independent  field,  he  entered  the  service  of  the  Duke  of  Milan 
as  general  supervisor  of  public  works';  and  the  two  monuments  of 
his  surpassing  early  skill,  in  fields  most  different,  are  the  "  grand 
canal"  which  draws  water  from  the  neighboring  rivers  for  irrigation 
and  navigation,  one  of  the  noblest  pieces  of  engineering  of  the  kind 
in  the  world,  and  the  fresco  of  the  "  Coena  Domini,"  "  The  Lord's 
Supper,"  perhaps  the  highest  work  of  Christian  art ;  both  of  which 
monuments  of  the  ages  Lionardo  was  executing  at  the  same  time. 
He  remained  at  Milan  seventeen  years,  till  A.  D.  1499 ;  when  the  city 
was  taken  and  ravaged  by  the  French ;  during  which  time  he  opened 
an  Academy  where  numerous  pupils  learned  his  style  of  art. 

His  grandest  work  was  executed  in  the  last  years  of  his  sojourn 
at  Milan ;  between  A.  D.  1497-9.  The  painting,  ordered  by  the 
Duke  of  Milan,  was  done  in  fresco  on  the  wall  of  the  refectory 
in  the  Dominican  Convent.  An  incident  which  occurred  in  the 
latter  part  of  the  period  of  two  years  during  which  it  was  in  pro- 
gress, strikingly  illustrates  the  character  and  method  of  the  great 
artist.  The  prior,  annoyed  at  the  long  interruption  to  his  use  of  the 
room,  after  frequent  reproaches  of  the  artist,  complained  to  the  duke  of 
his  dilatoriness ;  stating  that  he  would  sit  all  day,  pondering  and  doing 
nothing.  In  reply  to  the  duke's  inquiry  about  this,  Lionardo  wrote 
as  follows,  "  Men  of  genius  are  sometimes  producing  most  when  they 
seem  to  be  laboring  the  least ;  their  minds  being  occupied  in  the 
elucidation  of  their  ideas,  and  in  the  completion  of  those  concep- 
tions to  which  they  afterwards  give  form  and  expression  with  the 
hand."  He  then  added  that  he  was  "  still  in  want  of  two  heads." 
One  of  these,  the  Saviour's  he  said  he  "  could  not  hope  to  find  on 
earth ;"  while  "  he  had  not  yet  attained  the  power  of  presenting  it  to 
himself  in  imagination  with  all  that  perfection  of  beauty  and  celes- 
tial grace  which  seemed  to  him  to  be  demanded  for  the  representa- 
tion of  the  Divine  Being  incarnate."  The  second  head  wanting  was 
that  of  Judas ;  of  which,  he  said,  he  "  did  not  think  it  possible  to 
imagine  features  that  could  graphically  render  the  countenance  of  a 
man,  who,  after  so  many  benefits  received  from  his  Master,  betrayed 
his  Lord  and  the  Creator  of  the  world."  With  regard  to  this  latter, 
however,  he  said,  he  "  would  make  diligent  search  ;  and  if  he  could 
not  do  better  after  all  his  effort,  there  would  still  remain  to  him  the 
head  of  the  impertinent  and  annoying  prior."     The  duke  relished 


LIONARDO^S   MASTER-PIECE  AND   LATER   LIPE.  627 

the  joke ;  and  the  prior  was  careful  not  to  give  further  occasion  for 
such  an  immortalizing  of  his  visage. 

Lionardo's  study  of  this  grand  scene  represents  Jesus  sitting  as  the 
central  figure,  with  downcast  eyes,  in  the  act  of  saying,  "  One  of  you 
shall  betray  me."  On  his  right  sits  first,  grieving  John,  with  hands 
clasped,  turning  to  Peter  who  is  whispering  to  him ;  second,  suspicious 
Judas,  clutching  the  bag  in  his  hand  on  the  table ;  third,  impulsive 
Peter,  reaching  forward  behind  Judas  to  whisper  to  John ;  fourth, 
cautious  Andrew,  starting  back  with  horror,  having  both  hands 
raised ;  fifth,  stern  James  the  Less,  reaching  one  hand  behind  Andrew 
to  press  Peter  forward  in  his  inquiry ;  and  sixth,  guileless  Bartho- 
lomew, standing  and  straining  forward  as  he  leans  on  the  table  as  if 
to  undei-stand  better  what  is  passing.  On  Christ's  right  is,  first, 
doubting  Thomas,  standing  behind  and  appealingly  raising  his  finger 
as  if  saying,  "Is  it  I?"  second,  conscientious  James  the  Greater, 
throwing  himself  back  and  advancing  his  hands,  as  if  exclaiming 
that  such  treachery  was  impossible ;  third,  anxious  Philip,  tossing  his 
head  wildly  forward,  and  striking  his  hand  on  his  breast  as  if  pas- 
sionately averring  his  innocence;  fourth,  astute  Matthew,  reaching 
his  head  from  Christ  towards  the  two  disciples  beyond  him,  and  hav- 
ing his  hands  stretched  towards  Christ  as  if  informing  them  of 
Christ's  remark ;  fifth,  tragic  Thaddeus,  turning  away  his  head  and 
flinging  out  his  arm  as  if  incredulous  that  one  could  be  so  base ;  and 
sixth,  nervous  Simon,  reaching  his  head  and  hands  towards  Matthew 
as  if  asking  farther  explanation  of  Jesus'  meaning. 

Returning  after  the  French  invasion  of  Milan,  about  1500,  to 
Florence,  Lionardo  was  warmly  received.  Brought  into  contact, 
here,  with  M.  Angelo,  who  was  now  rising  to  fame,  and  whose  over- 
bearing disposition  offended  his  self-respect,  Lionardo  engaged  in 
few  public  works.  The  most  note-worthy  is  his  Cartoon,  never  put 
into  colors,  of  the  "  Struggle  for  the  Standard,"  in  which  the  con- 
tending soldiers  and  horses  seem  alive  in  their  dashing  fury ;  and 
his  portrait  of  Mona  Lisa,  a  most  exquisite  embodiment  of  an  intel- 
lectual female  head.  After  about  fourteen  years  at  Florence,  during 
which  he  made  occasional  visits  to  Milan,  he  was  induced  in  1514  to  visit 
Pome.  Here  several  orders  were  given  him  ;  but  some  disparaging 
remarks  of  the  Pope  ofiending  his  sensitive  nature,  he  retired,  and 
went  to  the  Court  of  Francis  I.  of  France,  then  temporarily  at  Pavia, 
south  of  Milan;  whom  he  followed  to  Paris.  Old  age  had  now 
enfeebled  his  powers ;  and,  aside  from  training  a  few  pupils  to  his 


628  ART   CRITICISM. 

method,  he  accomplished  comparatively  little  in  the  five  remaining 
years  of  his  life.     He  died  near  Fontainebleau  in  1519. 

The  characteristic  excellences  of  Lionardo's  method  were  his  ex- 
traordinary care  and  delicacy  of  taste  in  design,  which  made  the 
posture  and  expression  of  his  figures  the  happiest  conceivable ;  the 
matchless  symmetry  and  anatomical  correctness  of  his  drawing ;  the 
almost  faultless  gradation  of  colors  in  shade  and  tint  which  made 
him  the  father  of  chiaroscuro ;  and  the  labored  finish  of  every  part 
of  his  work,  so  that  no  touch  could  afterwards  be  given  without  mar- 
ring the  previous  work.  The  only  portion  of  his  voluminous  manu- 
scripts which  have  been  published  is  his  "  Treatise  on  Painting," 
which  has  been  translated  into  German,  English  and  French,  and 
of  which  Mrs.  Jameson  says  that  it  is  "  the  foundation  of  all  that  has 
since  been  written  on  the  subject,  whether  relating  to  the  theory  or 
the  practice  of  the  art ;"  and  also  a  collection  of  extracts  from  his 
philosophical  writings  published  as  late  as  1797  in  Paris,  of  which 
the  learned  Hallam  says,  "  The  discoveries  which  made  Galileo,  and 
Kepler,  and  Maestlin,  and  Maurolycus,  and  Castelli,  and  other  names 
illustrious,  the  system  of  Copernicus,  the  very  theories  of  recent 
geologists,  are  anticipated  by  da  Vinci  within  the  compass  of  a  few 
pages."  Lionardo  was  pre-eminently  the  scholar  artist ;  the  monu- 
ments of  whose  perfected  genius  are  few  in  numbers,  but  whose 
genius  itself  has  awakened  thousands  to  the  love  of  art. 

The  second  of  the  three  great  masters,  Michel  Angelo  Buonarroti, 
was  born  of  noble  parentage,  at  the  Castle  of  Caprese  in  the  then 
Commonwealth  of  Florence,  A.  D.  1474.  His  nurse  was  the  wife 
of  a  stone  carver ;  and  when  but  a  boy  he  delighted  in  drawing  and 
moulding,  neglecting  his  school  for  this  employ.  A  pupil  of  Ghir- 
landaio  introduced  him  to  this  able  painter ;  and  soon  he  showed  his 
ability  by  copying  a  print  of  St.  Antony  beaten  by  devils,  coloring 
with  great  skill  the  animals  introduced.  His  father,  who  at  first 
thought  it  a  degradation,  yielded  at  last  to  his  son's  persistent  bent 
and  put  him  for  three  years,  from  fourteen  to  seventeen  years  of  age, 
under  Ghirlandaio;  during  which  time  drawing  and  coloring  were  his 
studies.  At  this  era,  about  A.  D.  1491,  Lorenzo  di  Medici  was  mak- 
ing his  collection  of  antiques  dug  from  the  ruins  of  Rome  and  other 
cities  of  Italy ;  and  his  garden  adorned  with  them  was  thrown  open 
to  the  public.  Here  Angelo's  boyhood  love  for  sculpture  came  back 
upon  him.  His  first  attempt,  the  copying  of  a  laughing  faun,  so 
pleased  the  duke,  that  he  took  him  into  his  palace,  giving  him  a  room 
and  maintenance.     Lorenzo  died  A.  D.  1492 ;  but  his  son  continued 


U.   ANGELO;   HIS  EARLY  TASTE   FOR  SCULPTURE.         629 

his  patronage.  Angelo  persevered,  copying  several  antiques,  among 
others  the  sleeping  Cupid ;  but  began  also  to  make  original  studies 
producing  his  Pieta,  now  in  St.  Peter's  at  Rome,  and  afterwards  his 
David,  now  in  the  piazza  of  the  Grand  Duke  at  Florence. 

It  was  during  this  period  that  Angelo  gave  an  effectual  reply  to 
the  pretentious  critics  who  disputed  the  power  of  modern  sculpture 
to  equal  the  ancient.  Privately  executing  a  statue,  he  broke  off  one 
arm  and  concealed  it  in  his  room ;  while  he  engaged  the  gardener  to 
bury  the  statue.  After  some  days  the  gardener  professed  to  have 
found  a  buried  statue ;  the  critics  gathered  to  the  place  and  saw  it 
exhumed ;  it  was  cleaned  and  set  up  and  universally  declared  to  be 
a  matchless  relic  of  ancient  Grecian  sculpture,  the  only  regret  being 
the  lack  of  the  lost  arm.  When  his  opponents  were  sufficiently  com- 
mitted, Angelo  brought  out  the  fresh  cut  arm,  and  showed  by  the 
perfect  fit  of  the  fracture,  that  the  two  were  made  by  the  same,  and 
that  a  modern  hand. 

At  this  time,  when  about  twenty-five  years  old,  Angelo,  was  called 
back  to  his  second  art ;  being  directed  to  prepare  a  cartoon  for  a  his- 
torical painting  to  be  executed  on  the  side  of  a  hall  in  the  Ducal 
palace  opposite  that  for  which  Lionardo  prepared  his  design. 
Neither  of  these  designs  of  the  two  great  artists  were  executed,  polit- 
ical agitations  preventing ;  but  both  had  their  enthusiastic  admirers. 
Almost  immediately  the  artist's  genius  was  recalled  to  sculpture;  as 
he  was  called  to  Rome  by  Pope  Julius  II.  to  design  and  erect  a  mag- 
nificent mausoleum ;  whose  proportions  were  to  be  so  grand  that  its 
execution  was  finally  deferred  till  the  completion  of  St.  Peter's.  The 
only  part  of  this  master-piece  of  art  in  sculpture  ever  completed  was 
the  Moses,  now  in  St.  Peter's.  Its  study,  however,  gave  a  direction 
to  Angelo's  mind,  which  made  him  aspire  to  comprehensiveness  like 
that  of  Lionardo;  until  he  became  pre-eminent  in^all  the  three  arts 
of  design  as  well  as  cultured  by  the  study  of  music  and  poesy.  The 
grand  conception  of  the  mausoleum  still  lingered  in  his  imagination 
amid  all  his  future  labors ;  and  the  aspiration  to  complete  it  filled 
up  many  stolen  hours  of  future  employ. 

Julius  now  insisted  on  employing  Angelo  to  fresco  the  ceiling 
of  the  Sixtine  Chapel  in  the  Vatican  Palace;  the  sides  of  which  had 
already  been  covered  by  the  ablest  artists  of  the  former  generation. 
The  artist  reluctantly  yielded,  since  the  whole  range  of  his  study  and 
practice  must  thus  be  changed ;  but  when  he  consented  his  whole 
soul  was  thrown  into  his  new  employ,  and  in  twenty  months  that  en- 
tire series  of  matchless  conceptions  were  finished  by  his  own  single 
53  * 


630  ART   CRITICISM. 

hand;  first  the  Six  days  of  Creation,  and  events  till  the  Deluge,  includ- 
ing the  Temptation,  Fall  and  Expulsion  from  Eden ;  then  leading  inci- 
dents in  the  time  of  Moses  and  the  Prophets,  closing  with  the  contrast 
between  the  frenzied  Sybil  and  the  inspired  and  holy  seer.  Shutting 
himself  up  alone  in  the  church,  having  to  repaint  a  portion  because 
through  inexperience  his  mortar  was  too  damp  and  the  colors  quickly 
faded  out,  surmounting  every  obstacle,  he  triumphantly  finished  the 
entire  work.  Never  had  such  unearthly  scenes  been  made  so  real, 
never  such  bold  outlines  sketched,  and  never  pictured  if  conceived 
such  light  and  shade,  sunlight  and  cloud,  chaos  and  restored  earth, 
Paradise  brilliance  and  infernal  gloom,  man  in  his  perfection  and 
fiends  in  their  supernatural  dread.  The  impatient  Pope  insisted 
again  and  again  on  the  temporary  removal  of  the  scaffolding  that  he 
might  anticipate  the  effect  of  the  completed  works;  while  Raphael, 
then  in  his  prime  at  thirty  years  of  age  w^as  in  ecstasies  of  unselfish 
admiration;  and  exclaimed  that  he  thanked  God  "he  was  born  in  the 
time  of  Michel  Angelo  Buonarroti!"  The  entire  chapel  was  now 
covered,  except  the  end  opposite  the  entrance ;  reserved  still  for  the 
greatest  triumph  of  Angelo's  genius,  the  Last  Judgment;  the  most 
thrilling  work  of  passion  in  the  history  of  Christian  art,  as  Lionardo's 
Last  Supper  is  the  first  to  claim  intellectual  admiration. 

Under  three  succeeding  Popes  Angelo  w^as  employed  on  inferior 
work,  chiefly  as  architect  and  engineer;  when  about  twenty  years 
after  he  had  painted  the  ceiling  of  the  Sixtine  Chapel  he  was  called 
to  fill  up  the  vacant  end.  His  Last  Judgment  was  conceived  and 
begun;  but,  stolen  hours  spent  in  designing  his  favorite  ideal  the 
mausoleum  for  St.  Peter's,  delayed  his  work  so  greatly  that  it  was 
not  until  eight  years  later,  on  Christmas  day  A.  D.  1541,  that  Paul 
HI.  could  open  the  Chapel  and  admit  the  expectant  lovers  of  art. 
During  this  long,  delay  the  Pope  often  visited  the  artist  to  encourage 
him  at  his  work ;  he  criticised,  but  without  any  effect  on  the  indepen- 
dent artist,  the  nudity  of  the  figures;  but  he  was  careful  not  to  make 
the  mistake  of  some  of  his  predecessors  in  assuming  any  tone  of  au- 
thority towards  the  high  spirited  master,  whom  for  forty  years  and 
more  the  world  had  acknowledged  monarch  in  the  kingdom  of  art. 
The  Pope's  master  of  ceremonies,  annoyed  that  his  petty  reign  in  this 
part  of  the  Vatican  was  so  long  interfered  with,  attempted  remon- 
strance ;  but  the  next  day  he  found  his  unmistakable  portrait  borne 
by  one  of  the  lost  in  the  infernal  regions,  with  asses'  ears  on  his  head 
and  a  serpent  twined  about  his  body.  The  Pope  came  to  beseech  the 
despot-in-art  to  relieve  his  victim  from  such  an  immortality;   but 


M.  ANGELO'S  MASTER-PIECES  AND  HIS  CHARACTERISTICS.  631 

the  tyrant  replied  to  his  august  intercessor,  "  Though  your  Holiness 
be  empowered  to  release  a  man  from  purgatory,  that  jurisdiction  does 
not  extend  to  those  once  doomed  to  the  lower  prison-house  of  hell." 
Five  years  after  the  completion  of  this  picture,  at  the  age  of  seventy, 
the  artist  was  directed  by  Paul  III.  to  superintend  the  erection  of 
St.  Peter's;  the  character  of  which  employ  has  been  presented  under 
the  subject  of  architecture.  It  was  while  laboriously  engaged  in  this 
great  work,  that,  eighteen  years  later,  at  the  age  of  eighty-eight,  M. 
Angelo  ceased  his  work  on  earth. 

The  special  characteristic  of  M.  Angelo  as  an  artist  was  the  gran- 
deur of  his  conception  and  boldness  in  attempting  whatever  he  con- 
ceived. As  this  made  him  seek  the  majestic  in  sculpture  and  the 
grand  in  architecture,  so  it  made  him  in  painting  aspire  after  a  com- 
prehensiveness of  theme,  an  impassioned  energy  of  action,  and  a 
vividness  in  coloring  .that  had  never  before  been  united  in  any 
painter.  The  groups  in  the  ceiling  of  the  Sixtine  Chapel  are,  taken 
together,  a  complete  epic,  thrilling  in  each  part,  and  as  comprehen- 
sive in  their  combination  as  the  works  of  Homer  or  Milton;  each 
picture  telling  a  story  which  a  book  would  be  needed  to  unfold,  and 
the  group  making  a  volume  of  impressive  instruction  and  of  stirring 
appeal.  This  characteristic  made  M.  Angelo  impatient  of  the  re- 
straint and  labored  kneading  of  oil  colors;  for  he  wished  to  lay  on 
his  hues  and  tints  at  a  dash  of  the  brush,  as  he  struck  out  his  outline 
by  a  sweep  of  his  pencil.  His  temperament  made  him  overbearing 
towards  rivals,  and  terribly  severe  on  disparaging  censors ;  yet  he  was 
genial  and  generous  to  appreciative  critics,  and  to  artists  who  loved 
their  art  and  longed  to  excel  in   it  without   dreaming  of  rivalry. 

The  third  of  the  galaxy  of  great  masters  growing  up  together, 
Raphael  Sanzio,  born  A.  D.  1483  at  Urbino  in  the  Roman  posses- 
sions, was  early  trained  to  the  practice  of  art  by  his  father,  who  was 
an  indifterent  artist;  and  at  twelve  years  of  age  was  placed  under 
the  instruction  of  Perugino,  with  whom  he  remained  about  eight 
years.  After  leaving  this  master,  Raphael  practiced  his  art  for  two 
or  three  years  in  Perugia ;  showing  the  indications  of  natural  loveli- 
ness of  conception  and  execution  which  afterwards  became  his  char- 
acteristic, but  following  the  stiff  ascetic  style  of  representation 
belonging  to  the  Umbrian  School.  In  1504  he  visited  Florence; 
when  a  new  world  at  once  opened  to  him  in  his  profession.  The 
cartoons  of  Lionardo's  "Battle  for  the  Standard"  and  the  "Surprise 
of  the  Soldiers  bathing"  by  M.  Angelo  were  just  opened  for  public 
inspection ;  they  awakened  in  young  Raphael,  now  twenty-one  years 


632  ART   CRITICISM. 

of  age,  an  idea  of  art  entirely  new,  and  inspired  a  burning  ardor  to 
acquire  the  same  style.  Self-reliant  he  soon  after  repaired  to  Perugia ; 
but  soon  returned  again  to  Florence,  where  in  three  years  he  painted 
about  thirty  altar-pieces  which  successively  grew  into  likeness  to  the 
style  of  Lionardo.  During  this  period  he  attained  that  quiet  love- 
liness which  characterized  his  portraits  and  his  Madonnas;  the  most 
admired  of  whic^  were  executed  at  this  era. 

His  Florentine  reputation  soon  reached  Rome;  whither  Pope 
Julius  II.  hurried  him,  and  where  A.  D.  1508  he  commenced  that 
career  of  transcendent  excellence  in  art,  which,  though  cut  short  at 
thirty-seven  years  of  age,  made  him  not  only  one  of  the  most  success- 
ful, but  the  most  voluminous  of  artists.  In  Umbria  under  Perugino 
he  had  surpassed  his  master  in  the  dreamy  supernatural  air  given  to 
saints ;  at  Florence  he  had  rivalled  Lionardo  in  giving  liveliness  and 
naturalness  of  expression  and  action  to  beings  human,  yet  of  surpass- 
ingly exquisite  mould;  and  now  at  Rome  studying  the  nude,  he 
caught  the  energy  and  vast  breadth  of  conception  of  M.  Angelo, 
adding  to  it  a  classic  grace  borrowed  from  study  of  the  ideals  of  the 
ancient  Greeks ;  and  in  this  third  and  climactic  style  his  manly  genius 
and  womanly  heart  so  won  on  his  great  fellow-artist  that  M.  Angelo 
himself  magnanimously  commended  Raphael  to  the  Pope  as  his 
superior  in  his  own  chosen  art. 

Immediately  on  arriving  at  Rome  the  frescoes  known  as  the 
"Stanze"  or  chambers  of  Raphael,  embracing  three  chambers  of  a 
saloon  in  the  Vatican  palace,  were  commenced;  his  design  being  to 
present  the  collected  results  of  the  history  of  the  Church.  In  the 
first  chamber  the  four  walls  are  covered  with  those  master-pieces, 
"  Theology,"  or  the  "  Dispute  as  to  the  Sacrament ;"  "  Poetry,"  or 
"Parnassus;"  "Philosophy,"  or  "The  School  of  Athens ;"  and  "Juris-, 
prudence."  The  collection  of  the  robed  and  mitred  dignitaries  in 
the  first,  partakes,  and  not  without  propriety,  of  Raphael's  early 
Umbrian  style.  As  he  was  studying  the  second  and  third  Raphael  was 
visiting  M.  Angelo's  progressing  work  in  the  Sixtine  Chapel,  and  was- 
catching  those  ideas  which  gave  freedom  and  boldness  to  his  grouping 
and  classic  symmetry  and  grace  to  his  figures;  and  the  "Parnassus," 
and  yet  more  "  The  School  of  Athens,"  have  been  the  admiration  of 
critics  and  artists  of  succeeding  generations.  The  fourth,  "Jurispru- 
dence," though  less  attractive  to  most  beholders,  is,  as  an  exhibi- 
tion of  the  intellectual  comprehensiveness  of  the  artist,  a  superior 
work;  representing   Justinian  ofiering   his  Code   and   Gregory   his 


IIAPHAEL;   HIS   STYLE   AND   HIS   CHIEF   WORKS.  633 

Decretals  as  the  embodiment  of  the  Science  of  Civil  and  Ecclesiasti- 
cal Law. 

From  this  time  the  private  orders  that  crowded  upon  Raphael 
were  numberless.  He  became  the  head  of  a  school  of  young  artists 
some  of  whom  so  caught  his  style  that  he  employed  them  to  work  up 
his  designs.  His  sketches  and  unfinished  drawings,  and  especially 
his  completed  cartoons,  some  of  which  were  so  masterly  in  mere  pen- 
cil outline  that  after  his  death  at  Rome  A.  D.  1520  they  were  re- 
garded more  valuable  without  color  than  if  finished  by  his  pupils, 
are  among  the  choicest  labors  of  Raphael's  life.  Though  not  like 
Lionardo  and  Angelo  a  master  in  every  art,  Raphael  showed  skill  in 
sculpture  and  architecture ;  but  his  title  to  the  third  place  as  a  com- 
plete master  is  his  comprehensiveness  in  the  art  of  arts.  In  painting 
one  department  after  another  was  mastered ;  while  success  in  each 
new  field  did  not  lead  to  neglect  of  former  acquisitions.  His  method 
of  design  was  to  unite  the  ideal  with  the  real ;  as  when  he  drew  on  a 
barrel-head  the  exquisite  form  of  the  peasant  mother  and  her  child, 
which  then  by  future  study  he  recast  for  his  Madonna  della  Seggiola. 
Of  his  general  habit  of  conception  he  thus  writes  to  a  friend :  "  To 
paint  a  figure  truly  beautiful  it  might  be  necessary  that  I  should  see 
many  beautiful  forms,  with  the  further  proviso  that  you  should  your- 
self be  near  to  select  the  best;  but  seeing  that  good  judges  and  beau- 
tiful women  are  scarce  I  avail  myself  also  of  certain  ideas  that  come 
into  my  mind."  Yet  more,  as  Mrs.  Jameson  and  other  biographers 
have  well  urged,  Raphael  was  pure  in  morals :  and  nothing  could 
more  establish  the  fact,  that  no  artist,  however  great  in  genius,  can 
be  a  leading  master,  unless,  as  Cicero  declared  of  the  orator,  "he  be 
a  good  man,"  than  the  rise  together  of  three  men  like  Lionardo,  An- 
gelo and  Raphael;  all  most  laborious  and  comprehensive  masters 
while  yet  so  unlike,  and  all  capable  of  such  labor  and  such  attained 
skill  because  none  of  their  powers  Vere  weakened  and  wasted  by 
sensual  indulgence. 

Sect.  8.  The  Schools  of  Northern  Italy  as  Influenced  by  Lionardo, 
AND  OF  Central  and  Southern  Italy  by  M.  Angelo  and  Eaphael. 

It  was  to  be  expected  that  the  three  great  masters  of  the  early 
period  of  the  sixteenth  century  would  exert  a  marked  influence  on 
the  schools  of  painting  throughout  Italy;  yet,  as  their  excellence 
was  only  the  culmination  of  an  improvement  that  had  been  steadily 
progressing  for  two  entire  centuries,  the  distinct  marks  of  that  influ- 
ence are  relatively  less  palpable  than  those  impressed  by  some  of 

4E 


634  ART   CRITICISM. 

their  able  predecessors,  especially  by  Giotto.  The  traces  of  this  in- 
fluence on  different  schools  is  quite  unlike ;  the  Florentine  having 
already  reached  a  standard  which  could  only  receive,  as  it  were,  a 
finishing  touch  from  its  own  three  foster  sons ;  the  Umbrian,  which 
had  succeeded  to  and  virtually  been  the  developed  perfecting  of  the 
Sienese,  having  received  in  Lorenzo  de  Credi,  the  contemporary  and 
partial  pupil  of  Lionardo,  its  highest  possible  improvement;  while 
the  Venetian  School  and  the  Schools  of  Northern  and  Southern 
Europe,  more  out  of  the  centre  of  this  gradual  advance,  were  in  a 
condition  of  development  better  fitted  to  receive  a  new  and  decided 
forward  impulse. 

The  character  of  the  influence  exerted  by  these  different  masters 
was  widely  dissimilar.  Lionardo,  the  earliest  and  oldest,  was  pre- 
eminently a  man  of  science  and  culture;  as  a  teacher  imparting 
principles  which  gave  a  higher  intelligence  and  a  more  finished  exe- 
cution to  artists  already  able,  who  did  not  think  of  making  his  works  a 
model ;  while  his  own  self-respect  and  his  sense  of  gentlemanly  courtesy 
made  him  averse  to  pressing  himself  into  notice  where  more  forward 
and  overbearing  men  might  jostle  him  in  his  path.  Lionardo's  in- 
fluence was  seen  in  the  general  spirit  of  desire  for  universal  culture 
awakened  among  the  artists  of  Italy,  France,  and  even  of  Spain  and 
Germany  through  the  products  of  his  pen  as  well  as  of  his  pencil  and 
brush.  Besides  this  general  influence  he  was  the  virtual  founder  at 
Milan,  the  seat  of  his  chief  labors,  of  a  school  of  finished  artists ;  chief 
among  whom  were  Luini  and  Oggione,  who  executed  far  more  works 
than  their  master,  and  in  a  style  so  perfectly  his  that  no  critic  could 
have  distinguished  the  works  of  the  teacher  from  those  of  the  pupil. 
In  France,  also,  Lionardo  left  an  impress  which  will  be  remarked  in 
considering  the  history  of  French  painting. 

Michel  Angelo  was  a  man  of  towering  genius  rather  than  of 
labored  culture ;  who  alike  by  his  great  intellect  and  his  great  will 
was  bound  to  be  chief  wherever  he  moved ;  unfitted  to  be  a  winning  and 
patient  teacher,  yet  revealing  in  his  works  new  methods  to  such  an 
eye  as  Raphael's,  so  that  without  establishing  a  school  or  receiving 
pupils  he  had  imitators  beyond  even  professed  instructors.  His 
grandeur  of  design  and  intense  action  naturally  aroused  to  new  life 
the  now  waning  Dramatic  School  of  Florence;  while  it  was  the  only 
power  mighty  enough  to  break  in  upon  the  stereotyped  pomp  of  the 
Venetian  School,  whose  leaders,  Titian,  Giorgione  and  Tintoretto 
made  henceforth  M.  Angelo's  drawing  to  underlie  their  gorgeous 
coloring. 


INFLUENCES  ON   LOMBAKD   AND   TUSCAN   SCHOOLS.        635 

Raphael,  on  the  other  hand,  was  of  almost  feminine  spirit;  learn- 
ing  from  every  master  he  met,  and  never  thought  of  as  a  rival  even 
by  M.  Angelo,  who  confessed  Raphael's  superiority  to  himself  in 
themes  of  gentle  grace  and  Christian  loveliness;  acquiring  every- 
thing by  intuition,  and  unable  to  impart  to  another  the  principles  of 
his  own  success,  since  he  did  not  himself  know  their  reasons ;  yet  sur- 
rounded by  admirers  and  attracting  especially  pupils  of  genius 
kindred  to  his  own,  who  by  intuition  like  his  own  caught  his  style. 
In  the  Florentine  School  Fra  Bartolomeo  was  his  admirer;  in  the 
Venetian  Fra  Sebastiano  was  his  contemporary  and  copyist ;  and  in 
the  Sienese  Francesco  Francia  almost  adored  him  as  divine.  At 
Rome  Raphael  surrounded  himself  with  kindred  spirits;  who,  be- 
coming under  the  name  of  pupils  masters  of  his  style,  were  employed 
by  him  in  working  up  his  designs ;  and  who  after  his  early  death 
established  what  came  to  be  called  the  Roman  School.  At  Naples 
one  of  Raphael's  pupils  became  the  head  of  the  modern  Neapolitan 
School ;  followed  by  imitators  of  such  genius  and  popularity  among 
the  Neapolitan  people  that  Raphael  was  as  truly  the  head  of  the 
Neapolitan  as  of  the  Roman  School. 

Commencing  at  the  North  and  taking  a  more  particular  view  of 
the  influence  of  the  three  great  masters,  five  leading  schools  claim 
notice,  and  many  of  the  ablest  Italian  artists  pass  in  review.  The 
first  in  point  of  both  place  and  time  is  Parma  with  its  incomparable 
artist  Correggio ;  the  acknowledged  leader  in  a  style  of  chiaroscuro 
which  prepared  the  way  for  modern  landscape  painting.  Correggio 
took  his  name  from  the  little  town  near  Modena  where  A.  D.  1493 
he  was  born  and  where  also  A.  D.  1534,  at  the  age  of  forty-one  years, 
he  died.  Studying  his  art  at  Mantua  some  works  of  Lionardo  da 
Vinci  and  of  Raphael  had  more  influence  than  his  teachers  in  giving 
character  to  the  finish  of  his  style;  while  his  own  genius  in  private 
practice  gave  cast  to  his  design  and  general  method  of  composition. 
It  was  when  standing  before  one  of  Raphael's  master-pieces  that 
Correggio  is  said  to  have  exclaimed,  "  Anch'  io  son  pittore,"  '  I  also 
am  a  painter.'  His  three  main  excellencies  were  breadth  of  view,  espe- 
cially the  immeasurable  expanse  of  sky  opening  between  his  figures; 
a  power  of  gradation  in  light  and  shade  and  in  the  execution  of 
chiaroscuro  uniting  that  of  M.  Angelo  in  form,  of  Raphael  in  ex- 
pressiveness, and  of  Titian  in  hue.  Fuseli  styles  him  "the  father  of 
landscape;"  and  says  that  he  "attained  the  climax  of  harmony"  by 
securing  a  "unity  of  the  whole"  in  his  pieces,  and  by  his  chiaroscuro 
which  was  "his  great  power."     Called  in  1518  to  Parma,  this  city 


636  ART   CRITICISIM. 

became  the  scene  of  his  principal  life-labors,  and  the  seat  of  a  school 
made  up,  not  of  pupils,  of  which  he  had  none,  but  of  imitators.  A 
convent,  a  church,  and  the  cathedral  at  Parma  are  the  treasure-houses 
of  his  great  works  in  fresco ;  the  Ascension  of  Christ  in  which  the 
aerial  form  of  Jesus  seems  to  shoot  upward  in  the  clear  azure  while 
his  apostles  float  on  clouds  around,  and  the  Assumption  of  Mary 
with  angels  hovering  in  the  apparently  boundless  heavens  above  her, 
are  the  master-pieces  of  his  power  in  breadth  of  space,  gradation  and 
brilliance  of  lights,  and  foreshortening.  A  series  of  classic  themes 
executed  at  Mantua,  and  easel-pieces  distributed  in  almost  all  the 
chief  galleries  of  Europe  bear  almost  equal  testimony,  so  uniformly 
glowing  was  his  conception  and  so  finished  everything  he  touched,  to 
his  surpassing  skill.  In  1530  Correggio,  after  a  short  and  unobtru- 
sive life  at  Parma  and  Mantua,  retired  to  his  native  town ;  leaving 
behind  at  Parma  imitators  who  founded  a  school.  Among  these 
Parmigiano  became  most  eminent;  of  whose  master-piece,  "Moses 
breaking  the  Tables,"  the  English  poet  Gray  said,  "that,  though 
many  years  had  elapsed  since  he  saw  it,  the  Moses  of  Parmigiano  had 
inspired  his  Welsh  bard."  In  the  later  Eclectic  School  he  was  re- 
garded as  the  model  for  grace ;  which  he  showed  in  portraits. 

In  the  Tuscan  Schools  the  artist  most  eminent  in  characteristics 
borrowed  from  the  great  masters  was  Era  Bartolomeo,  born  A.  D. 
1469  and  deceased  A.  D.  1517.  He  first  studied  Lionardo's  style 
and  attained  especial  grandeur  of  conception.  Being  religiously  in- 
clined and  fond  of  learning  he  became  a  monk  when  thirty-one  years 
of  age.  Baphael  succeeded  in  drawing  him  out  of  his  seclusion,  and 
he  visited  Bome ;  but  becoming  disheartened  among  such  rivals  as 
M.  Angelo  and  Baphael  he  retired  soon  to  Florence.  Spurred  by 
the  impulse  of  apparent  failure,  he  painted  his  nude  St.  Sebastian; 
which  together  with  his  "Madonna  della  Misericordia "  at  Lucca 
have  stamped  him  as  one  of  the  original  as  well  as  ablest  of  Floren- 
tine artists.  With  less  judgment  most  Tuscan  paintws  chose  M. 
Angelo  as  their  model;  and  utterly  unable  to  apprehend  the  spirit 
that  animated  his  great  mind  they  verified  the  remark  of  Fuseli  that 
M.  Angelo  lived  to  see  his  style  perverted  in  the  Tuscan  as  well  as  in 
the  Venetian  School. 

It  was  in  the  Venetian  School,  and  especially  in  the  three  masters 
Giorgione,  Titian  and  Tintoretto,  to  which  list  may  be  added  Paul 
Veronese,  that  the  most  striking  illustration  of  the  influence  of  the 
three  great  masters  is  to  be  seen.  Prior  to  this  age  the  Venetian 
painters,  absorbed  wholly  in  the  effort  at  excellence  in  color,  in  de- 


VENETIAN  SCHOOL  UNDER  GIORGIONE  AND  TITIAN.      637 

sign  attempted  nothing  but  those  same  "fine  old  Venetian  gentlemen, 
all  of  the  olden  time."  The  genius  of  M.  Angelo  and  of  Raphael 
awakened  other  ideas  of  men  and  of  women ;  and  soon  the  grand 
and  almost  tragic  action  of  the  former,  and  the  expressive  loveliness 
of  the  latter,  began  to  be  aspired  after. 

Giorgione,  born  1477,  properly  named  Barbarelli  Giorgio,  was 
trained  under  Bellini,  the  last  of  the  old  Venetian  masters,  stiff  in 
form  and  gorgeous  in  hue.  The  study  of  Lionardo's  works  led  Gior- 
gione to  attempt  boldness  of  outline,  action  and  expression  in  his 
figures ;  to  which  was  added  a  graduating  of  his  darker  colors  still 
rich  and  gaudy,  and  a  yet  finer  gradation  in  his  lighter  colors  in 
sky  and  cloud,  which  made  him  the  leader  in  an  entirely  new  style 
of  Venetian  painting.  He  died  at  th-e  age  of  thirty-five,  A.  D.  1511, 
of  the  plague;  leaving  numerous  frescoes  which  have  since  perished, 
also  portraits  still  preserved,  and  his  master-piece,  "The  Infant 
Moses"  now  in  the  Pitti  Palace,  Florence,  to  bespeak  his  claim  as 
the  renovator  of  the  Venetian  School. 

Titian,  or  Tiziano  Vercellio,  born  the  same  year  with  Giorgione, 
remarked  when  a  child  for  his  taste  in  coloring  with  the  juices  of 
flowers,  placed  at  nine  years  of  age  in  the  study  of  an  indifferent 
artist,  soon  found  his  way  into  the  school  of  the  Bellini.  Associated 
however  with  Giorgione  he  caught  the  impulse  of  his  genius ;  and 
for  years  the  two  artists  were  so  perfectly  one  in  their  style  that  at 
Giorgione's  death  Titian  finished  his  pictures  left  incomplete.  Through 
a  direct  or  indirect  influence  coming  from  M.  Angelo,  Titian  began 
to  give  to  his  compositions  a  breadth  of  field  and  an  openness  and 
clearness  of  back-ground  which  made  him  even  more  truly  than 
Correggio  the  author  of  perfect  landscape  as  far  as  this  branch  of 
painting  was  attained  by  Italian  artists.  He  lived  to  be  ninety-nine 
years  of  age,  making  Venice  his  chief  home  with  short  residences  at 
Ferrara,  Bologna,  Mantua  and  Rome. 

In  portrait  painting  Titian  was  characterized  by  a  happy  choice 
of  attitudes  and  a  freshness  of  expression ;  which,  added  to  the  ex- 
quisite finish  of  hair,  cheek  and  every  feature,  made  him  a  favorite 
with  royal  sitters.  Charles  V.  of  Germany  employed  him  no  less 
than  four  times  to  •  paint  his  likeness,  sayipg  that  he  esteemed  it 
his  highest  honor  to  be  handed  down  to  posterity  by  the  skill  of  such 
an  artist;  while  nearly  all  the  potentates  and  princes  of  Southern 
Europe  sought  for  themselves  the  same  honor.  In  classic,  mytho- 
logical and  ideal  subjects  Titian's  coloring  had  a  charm  indescriba- 
ble.    His  failure  was  in  form ;  brought  to  view  by  M.  Angelo  on 

54 


638  AET   CEITICISM. 

Titian's  visit  to  Kome,  when  he  exclaimed,  "  What  a  pity  that  Titian 
does  not  draw  as  well  as  he  paints,"  and  declared  that  "Titian  would 
have  been  the  first  painter  in  the  world  had  he  only  been  early 
grounded  in  correct  drawing."  This  judgment  was  passed  by  the 
ablest  master  in  bold  outline  with  the  pencil ;  and  it  is  at  once  a  sad 
comment  on  the  impossibility  of  universal  perfection  and  a  striking 
confirmation  of  Lionardo's  teaching  as  to  the  fundamental  impor- 
tance of  drawing,  that  the  most  skilful  colorist  of  his  own  or  of  any 
age  should  not  be  able  to  atone  for  this  fault  by  all  other  excellences. 
In  landscape  Titian  sought  to  picture  ideal  oftener  than  real  scenes; 
in  which  he  attained  such  a  power  in  making  sky  and  earth  glow 
with  soft  hues  and  tints  that  Kugler  calls  his  style  "the  glorification 
of  earthly  existence."  Fuseli,  moreover,  gives  him  this  credit  for  gen- 
eral excellence  both  in  real  and  ideal  scenes;  "landscape  whether  it 
be  considered  as  the  transcript  of  a  spot,  or  the  rich  combination  of 
congenial  objects,  or  as  the  scene  of  a  phenomenon,  dates  its  origin 
from  him."  Living  to  so  great  an  age  and  always  industrious,  paint- 
ing with  flower-juice  at  nine  years  of  age  and  executing  with  trem- 
bling hand  a  dead  Christ  still  preserved  in  Venice  at  ninety-nine 
years,  the  works  of  Titian  are  as  numerous  as  they  are  in  themselves 
valuable. 

Titian's  fault  made  Tintoret;  while  his  excellences  made  many 
artists.  That  fault  was  jealousy  of  rivalship,  especially  in  his  pupils. 
Jacopo  Robusti,  called  "Tintoretto,"  or  the  little  dyer,  from  his 
father's  occupation,  born  A.  D.  1512,  entered  at  an  early  age  the 
studio  of  Titian ;  from  which  he  was  not  long  after  dismissed  with 
the  master's  stinging  remark,  "That  he  would  never  make  anything 
but  a  dauber."  Conscious  of  genius,  and  also  determined  to  show 
his  powers,  Tintoretto  procured  a  room  and  trained  himself  to  such 
a  degree  of  perfection  that  he  dared  to  place  over  his  door  the  in- 
scription, "II  desegno  di  Michel  Angelo;  il  colorito  di  Tiziano;"  the 
drawing  of  Michel  Angelo,  the  coloring  of  Titian.  He  studied 
perspective  and  foreshortening  by  suspending  plaster-cast  models  in 
every  conceivable  position  and  then  drawing  them ;  and  he  obtained 
chiaroscuro  by  suspending  those  same  models  at  night,  and  painting 
their  shadows  cast  by  lamplight  on  a  richly  colored  back-ground. 
With  a  rich  and  almost  rampant  imagination  in  design  and  compo- 
sition, retaining  the  gorgeous  Venetian  coloring,  and  adding  the 
power  in  drawing  and  shading  just  mentioned  Tintoret  fascinated 
the  more  lively  and  fantastic  of  the  Venetian  people. 

Tintoret's  reputation  tempted  him  into   extravagant  fancies   in 


Raphael's  influence  on  different  schools.      639 

design;  as  well  as  into  the  more  legitimate  love  of  showing  his 
power  in  overcoming  difficulties  in  form  and  color,  as  in  foreshorten- 
ing and  deep  shadows.  A  weak  ambition  led  him  to  make  his 
Paradise  the  largest  canvas  ever  covered  with  an  oil  painting; 
eig]ity-four  feet  three  inches  broad  and  thirty-four  feet  high. 
Though  painting  in  oil  he  finished  his  pieces  with  such  amazing 
rapidity  that  his  early  nickname  received  the  addition  "II  furioso 
Tintoretto."  The  superior  merits  of  the  finer  works  of  his  best 
days,  when  a  chastened  taste  controlled  him,  are  acknowledged  by 
all  critics.  His  inventive  genius  in  landscape-painting  has  called 
forth  this  remark  of  his  great  admirer  Buskin,  "There  is  not  the 
commonest  object  to  which  he  will  not  attach  a  range  of  suggestive- 
ness  almost  limitless;  nor  a  stone,  leaf,  or  a  shadow,  nor  anything  so 
small,  but  he  will  give  it  meaning  and  oracular  voice." 

The  last  leader  in  the  Venetian  School  was  Paul,  called  Veronese 
from  his  native  city  Verona.  Born  A.  D.  1528,  he  came  as  a  youth  to 
Venice,  studied  the  works  of  Titian  and  Tintoret,  and  while  copy- 
ing many  of  their  excellencies  went  back  in  the  main  to  the  style  of 
Bellini  and  the  earlier  Venetian  artists.  AVhile  Titian  excelled  in 
the  attitude  and  expression  of  his  figures,  as  well  as  in  open  back- 
ground, and  while  Tintoret  sought  dramatic  action  in  his  figures 
united  to  a  more  varied  alternation  of  shades  in  his  perspective, 
Paul  Veronese  delighted  in  architectural  relief  rather  than  open 
sky.  This  feature  introduced  into  his  first  great  work  in  the  church 
of  St.  Sebastian  at  Venice,  complimentary  as  it  was  to  traditional 
taste,  called  forth  such  popular  applause  as  to  confirm  the  artist  in 
his  chosen  style.  Want  of  extended  study  made  it  stereotyped  and 
hence  faulty  in  design.  In  every  class  of  composition,  in  Scripture 
or  historic  themes,  as  his  figures  are  all  Venetian  in  costume  and 
features,  so  his  magnificent  architecture  is  all  of  the  Italian  villa  or 
Roman  colonnade  style  favorite  in  his  day.  The  last  of  his  line, 
failing  in  comprehensiveness,  Paul  Veronese  became  a  leader  in  the 
decline  of  the  Venetian  school. 

Passing  from  these  schools  of  Northern  Italy,  on  whose  style  all 
three  of  the  great  masters  seem  to  have  exerted  an  influence,  we  find 
the  rising  school,  called  the  Boman,  succeeding  to  the  Umbrian  as 
the  Umbrian  had  succeeded  to  the  Sienese,  to  be  stamped  with  the 
special  impress  of  the  most  winsome  of  the  three,  Baphael  Sanzio. 
Lionardo,  though  urged,  declined  all  offers  for  paintings  at  Bome; 
Michel  Angelo  worked  alone,  admitting  no  hand  to  touch  his  works 
and  no  mind  to  share  his  conceptions;  but  Baphael's  studio  was 


640  ART  CRITICISM. 

surrounded  by  loving  imitators,  whom  he  delighted  to  employ  in 
working  up  the  glowing  conceptions  which  his  fertile  imagination 
traced  in  outline  and  conceived  as  finished  with  such  distinctness  of 
apprehension  that  he  could  convey  his  thoughts  to  another  mind  and 
see  his  ideal  realized  by  another  hand. 

Among  the  employees  of  Eaphael,  the  one  who  during  the  life  of 
his  master  most  perfectly  copied  his  style  was  Giulio  Pippi,  born 
1492,  died  1546;  called  Romano  as  the  virtual  head  of  the  new  or 
Roman  school.  He  not  only  worked  upon  the  designs  of  Raphael 
while  he  was  living  but  after  his  death  was  employed  to  finish  some 
of  his  sketches  left  incomplete.  Four  years  after  Raphael's  death  he 
removed  to  Mantua ;  where  he  became  engaged  as  architect  as  well  as 
painter.  While  under  Raphael  and  at  Rome  the  classic  models  both 
as  to  design  and  form  had  been  Romano's  study,  and  his  excellence 
in  recasting  them  gave  origin  to  his  name;  but,  released  from  this 
guiding  and  chastening  influence,  a  coarse  elegance,  like  to  that  of 
the  rude  native  as  compared  with  the  Greek-cultured  Roman,  made 
his  name  yet  more  appropriate.  A  host  of  followers  were  attracted 
to  him ;  whose  style  being  a  virtual  return  to  the  perverted  classic, 
soon  caused  the  decline  of  the  Roman  school. 

At  Bologna  and  its-  neighboring  towns  grew  up  three  followers  of 
Raphael  who  became  associated  models  in  the  future  Eclectic  school 
of  the  Caracci.  These  were  Primaticcio,  Tibaldi,  and  Nicolo  dell' 
Abate.  Primaticcio,  trained  under  two  pupils  of  Francia  Raphael's 
bosom  friend  and  counterpart,  associated  with  Giulio  Romano  in 
many  of  his  extensive  works,  employed  then  by  Francis  I.  at  Fon- 
tainebleau  near  Paris,  like  Giulio  labored  to  attain  Raphael's  com- 
prehensiveness in  invention,  while  in  execution  he  was  seldom 
finished.  Tibaldi,  a  pupil  of  the  same  teachers  with  Primaticcio, 
who  practised  his  art  in  Spain  as  well  as  in  Italy,  was  distinguished 
for  a  decorum  in  design  and  a  skill  in  laying  on  his  foundation 
colors,  which  gave  him  the  merit  of  a  master  in  the  succeeding 
Eclectic  age.  Nicolo,  a  native  of  Modena,  an  associate  of  Prima- 
ticcio in  many  of  his  larger  works,  displayed  a  simple,  unaffected 
beauty  which  seemed  to  the  Eclectics  the  embodiment  of  their  own 
idea  of  the  excellencies  of  all  the  best  masters  combined. 

While  pupils  of  Raphael  in  several  cities  gave  their  master's  cast 
to  diflferent  schools,  no  less  than  three  of  them  found  their  way  to 
Naples;  one  of  whom  became  the  virtual  founder  of  the  modern 
Neapolitan  school.  Penni,  a  confidential  pupil  of  Raphael's,  going 
to  Naples  after  executing  a  few  pieces  in  the  true  Roman  style,  exact 


SPANISH   NATIONALITY   AND   SPANISH   PAINTING.  641 

in  form  but  lacking  expression,  died  early.  Andrea  Sabbatini,  of 
Salerno,  established  in  Naples  before  Kaphael  became  noted,  visiting 
Rome,  worked  with  him  for  a  while;  when,  returning  A.  D.  1513,  he 
became  the  virtual  head  of  the  new  Neapolitan  school.  In  him  and 
his  pupils  the  freedom  and  naturalness  of  drawing  belonging  to 
Raphael's  style  at  Florence,  and  the  winning  sweetness  of  expression 
characterizing  his  best  days,  became  the  model  for  imitation.  Yet  a 
third  pupil  of  Raphael,  Polidoro  Caldara,  became  in  this  new 
school  a  master  in  the  later  and  easily  perverted  style  of  Raphael; 
a  study  of  the  antique  in  form  with  a  freedom  and  picturesqueness 
of  drawing  and  grouping.  The  characteristics  of  these  two  artists 
were  handed  down  by  two  or  three  generations  of  Neapolitan  artists. 

Sect.  9.  The  Spanish  Schools;  formal  and  mystic  in  style;  histori- 
cally ASSOCIATED  WITH  THE   SCHOOL  OF  SOUTHERN  AND  CENTRAL  ItALY  ; 

Culminating  in  Velasquez  and  Murillo  of  Seville. 

The  history  of  art,  like  the  life  of  the  artist,  is  peculiarly  unmixed 
with  the  transitions  of  nations,  the  conflict  of  political  aspirants,  and 
the  strifes  and  struggles  of  men  in  civil  society,  which  so  fill  up  the 
thoughts  and  the  employ  of  the  mass  of  mankind.  In  the  whole 
history  of  the  Italian  painters  from  Giotto  to  Raphael  there  has  been 
scarcely  occasion  to  allude  to  the  fact  that  the  Italian  States  were  rent 
by  civil  factions  and  devastated  by  foreign  armies ;  that  the  Northern 
States  were  now  elective,  now  hereditary  in  the  succession  of  their 
native  rulers ;  that  now  France,  now  Germany,  now  Spain  brought 
one  and  another  province  under  its  sway;  that  Rome  itself  saw 
Popes  now  dethroning  emperors  and  kings  and  now  dethroned  by 
them ;  and  that  the  South  of  Italy  was  but  a  dependence  of  Spain. 
Over  the  Italian  artist's  studio  the  storm  of  foreign  war,  and  the  tor- 
nado of  civil  revolution  swept  almost  unheeded;  for  religion  was 
always  at  hand  to  patronize,  and  rulers,  from  taste  as  well  as  policy, 
vied  with  each  other  in  showing  their  devotion  to  art.  When  war 
brings  in  rulers  that  undervalue  art,  it  may  suffer  from  lack  of  patron- 
age;  but  its  life  is  not  dependent  on  forms  of  political  organization. 

The  history  of  painting  in  Spain  shows  that  while  the  demands  of 
religion  raised  up  native  artists  in  every  age  it  was  the  power  of 
Spanish  nationality  that  at  last  dignified  Spanish  art.  It  was  not  until 
long  after  painting  had  been  aspiring  to  and  attaining  perfection  in 
Italy,  not  until  such  princes  appeared  as  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  and 
especially  Charles  V.  and  Philip  II.  whose  two  long  reigns  from 
1516  to  1598  devoted  to  art  as  well  as  to  general  progress  made 

54  «  4  F 


642  ART  CRITICISM. 

Spain  a  united  and  powerful  nationality  around  which  political  glory 
and  grandeur  began  to  gather,  that  true  genius  in  art  was  developed 
and  fostered,  and  Spanish  artists  like  Velasquez  and  Murillo  arose 
who  challenged  the  homage  of  all  Europe.  While  both  these  great 
princes  were  enamored  of  art  and  devoted  time  and  money  freely  to 
the  collection  of  paintings  and  to  the  encouragement  of  artists,  it  was 
as  late  as  A.  D.  1563  that  Madrid  was  made  the  national  capital 
and  the  first  stone  laid  in  the  foundation  of  that  gloomy  yet  grand  - 
old  convent-like  palace,  the  Escurial,  destined  to  be  the  receptacle  I 
for  generations  of  the  best  works  of  Spanish  artists;  with  whose  gen- 
eral cast  the  aspect  of  the  building  has  proved  to  be  in  admirable 
keeping. 

In  Spain  a  truly  native  style,  the  offspring  of  a  special  taste,  has 
prevailed  from  the  earliest  times ;  and  though  successive  influences 
from  Italy  and  Germany  modified  the  methods  of  some  of  the  best 
Spanish  painters,  it  had  no  power  to  change  the  native  style,  which 
reached  its  climax  of  perfection  in  Velasquez  and  Murillo.  Th< 
chief  source  for  the  authentic  history  of  Spanish  painting  is  the  worl 
of  Pacheco,  the  father-in-law  of  Velasquez,  published  at  Seville  in 
1649 ;  the  heterogeneous  yet  rich  reminiscences  of  a  garrulous  and 
self-complacent  old  artist,  too  proud  of  his  great  son-in-law  to  conceal 
it,  yet  full  to  overflowing  of  those  details  of  methods,  of  the  home-life 
of  artists,  of  the  comic  relief  as  well  as  of  the  dramatic  grandeur  of 
art  history,  which  forms  the  richest  store-house  of  principles  as  well 
as  of  facts.  Pacheco  is  a  living  embodiment  of  the  spirit  of  Spanish 
art;  praising  the  idea  of  drawing  from  nature,  but  boasting  of  his 
own  authority  as  an  officer  of  the  Holy  Inquisition  which  required 
him  to  visit  the  studios  of  artists,  galleries  of  paintings  and  print- 
shops,  and  to  see  that  nothing  not  in  accordance  with  the  rules  of  the 
Catholic  faith  should  appear  in  the  representations  made  by  artists 
of  sacred  subjects;  condemning  as  the  duly  commissioned  Inquisito- 
rial censor  the  study  and  execution  of  the  nude,  yet  criticising  with 
double-tongued  logic  like  this,  M.  Angelo's  license  in  his  Last  Judg- 
ment, in  picturing  "the  angels  without  wings  and  the  saints  without 
clothes;"  for  "although  the  former  do  not  possess  the  one  and  the 
latter  will  not  have  the  other,  yet  since  angels  without  wings  are  not 
known  to  us,  and  our  eyes  do  not  allow  us  to  see  the  saints  without 
clothes,  as  we  shall  hereafter,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  this  repre- 
sentation is  improper';"  and  finally  citing  as  a  warning  the  case  of  a 
paintei?  at  Cordova  who  was  subjected  to  a  severe  penance  because 
he  had  painted  the  blessed  Virgin  "with  a  hooped  petticoat,  a  pointed 


EARLY  SCHOOLS  OF  SARAGOSSA,  ARAGON  AND  CASTILE.    643 

spencer,  a  saffron-colored  head-dress,  pantalettes  and  a  fringed  doub- 
let." 

Of  tlie  early  history  of  painting  in  Spain  we  have  only  fragmen- 
tary statements.  In  the  earliest  era  traceable  a  style  of  painting 
prevailed  in  Aragon  with  its  commercial  towns  over  against  Italy, 
Byzantine  in  style,  like  that  early  prevalent  in  Venice ;  while  in  the 
central  towns  of  Aragon  and  in  Castile  the  inland  State,  the  old 
Gothic  style,  similar  to  that  of  ancient  Lombardy,  held  sway.  Artists 
of  some  note  existed  in  the  fourteenth  and  even  in  the  thirteenth 
century ;  one  of  whom  is  mentioned  as  employed  in  England  as  early 
as  A.  D.  1257.  It  was  of  course  in  the  North  of  Spain  that  the 
mediaeval  Gothic  and  the  earliest  improved  Christian  painting  was 
executed ;  since  the  Southern  portion  of  this  storied  land  was  under 
the  control  of  the  Moors  and  of  Muhammedan  art  until  nearly  A.  D. 
1500.  The  chief  early  schools  were  located  at  Saragossa,  the  old  in- 
land capitol  of  Aragon,  in  the  North-east  of  Spain;  at  Valencia  on 
the  Mediterranean  coast,  a  school  which  seems  to  have  been  trans- 
ferred at  a  later  day  Westward  to  Toledo  and  Madrid  in  the  heart 
of  New  Castile;  and  lastly  at  Seville  in  the  extreme  South,  in  old 
Andalusia,  so*near  to  the  Moorish  cities  of  Cordova  and  Granada  as 
to  breathe  the  intellectual  atmosphere  of  the  former  and  the  art  inspi- 
ration of  the  latter  seat  of  Arabian  greatness. 

•  The  School  of  Saragossa  originated  probably  early  in  the  four- 
teenth century,  when  Pope  John  XX.  erected  the  metropolitan 
Church  of  that  city  into  a  cathedral,  which  Torrente  and  his  pupils 
decorated ;  whose  style  in  altar-pieces  and  fresco,  after  the  Gothic  or 
Romanesque  of  Lombardy  prior  to  Giotto,  can  be  traced  for  two 
centuries.  In  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  while  the  great 
masters  of  Italy  were  living,  the  influence  of  resident  German  artists 
prevailed  in  this  School ;  who  added  the  sombre  aspect  of  Spanish 
ideas  to  the  vivid  naturalness  of  action  peculiar  to  the  German  paint- 
ers. A  striking  illustration  of  this  is  found  in  the  statement  of  Ber- 
mudez,  a  Spanish  writer  on  art;  who  says  of  the  artists  of  this  period, 
"  The  coloring  is  not  so  bright  as  that  of  the  old  German  painters ; 
but  there  is  in  it  a  sort  of  softness  like  in  effect  to  a  veil  thrown  over 
their  pictures."     Yet  later  an  Italian  spirit  prevailed  at  Saragossa. 

The  School  of  Aragon  and  Castile  proper  began  with  Pedro  de 
Aponte,  painter  to  Juan  11.  of  Aragon  at  Saragossa;  who  followed 
Juan's  son  Ferdinand  V.  when  by  his  marriage  to  Isabella  of  Castile 
the  two  kingdoms  were  united  and  the  seat  of  the  Court  removed  to 
Castile  in  1479.  He  was  succeeded  by  an  artist  trained  in  Italy  named 


644  ART   CRITICISM. 

Belegret,  who  excelled  in  fresco.  Charles  V.,  a  little  later,  brought 
in  a  Court  influence  which  attracted  the  best  Italian  artists  to  Cas- 
tile, while  it  also  gave  to  native  artists  an  inspiration  to  excel  in 
that  School  of  art  with  which  the  monarch  had  become  enam- 
ored during  his  sojourn  in  Italy  and  his  acquaintance  especially 
with  Titian.  A  most  decided  Italian  cast  was  introduced  by 
Berraguete;  who  in  1503  was  a  pupil  of  Michel  Angelo  at  Florence; 
*  and  who  on  returning  to  his  native  country  was  employed  by  Charles 
V.  in  the  triple  character  taught  by  his  master,  to  adorn  as  architect 
Madrid  and  Granada,  while  as  sculptor  he  surmounted  the  gates  of 
Toledo  with  statues,  and  enriched  the  gallery  of  the  Escurial  with 
paintings.  Titian,  also,  either  in  person  or  by  his  paintings,  was 
made  to  visit  the  Court  of  the  Emperor  whose  portraits  executed  at 
Bologna  had  won  Charles'  admiration ;  and  the  Escurial  Palace  at 
Madrid  is  now  rich  with  Titian's  finest  works.  The  pride  of  this 
School  was  Morales,  born  about  A.  D.  1500;  called  "the  divine"  by 
his  contemporaries,  because  of  the  celestial  languor  which  he  threw 
into  his  pictures  of  the  suffering  Jesus  and  of  his  "Madonnas  dolo- 
rosas."  Pacheco  and  others  criticise  the  stiffiiess  of  his  drawing, 
but  compare  his  rich  and  mellow  coloring  to  that  of  Correggio ;  while 
the  expression  he  threw  into  Christ's  features  is  styled  a  "sublime 
spirit  of  self-sacrifice  and  resigned  love."  Morales  lived  to  a  good 
old  age,  painting  from  a  love  of  art,  and  died  A.  D.  1786,  never  en- 
riched by  his  profession;  for  when  Philip  II.  in  1581  said  to  him, 
"You  are  very  old  Morales;"  he  replied,  "Yes,  and  very  poor." 
With  him  disappeared  the  truly  religious  painters  of  Spain,  and  the 
school  of  old  Aragon  and  Castile. 

At  Valencia,  an  ancient  seaport  of  large  commerce  with  the  Le- 
vant, whose  Cathedral  consecrated  A.  D.  1492  stands  on  the  site  suc- 
cessively occupied  by  a  Roman  temple  to  Diana  and  a  Moorish  mosque, 
the  old  Byzantine  style  in  painting  seems  at  an  early  day  to  have 
prevailed;  a  tendency  which  made  the  Venetian  afterwards  favorite. 
The  first  artist  to  break  away  from  the  formal  and  inaugurate  the 
natural  style  in  this  School  seems  to  have  been  Joanes,  born  A.  D. 
1523,  who  though  religious  in  his  themes  had  a  style  kindred  to 
Raphael's ;  which  is  specially  remarked  in  the  manly  form  given  to 
Saul  in  his  martyrdom  of  Stephen.  After  him  followed  Navarette, 
born  A.  D.  1526,  called  "El  Mudo,"  The  Mute;  because  having  lost 
his  hearing  at  three  years  of  age  he  never  learned  to  talk.  In  him 
again,  as  in  the  Roman  instance  cited  was  illustrated  the  fact  that  a 
special  gift  for  plastic  art  is  bestowed  on  the  deaf,  as  a  special  gift  for 


SCHOOLS   OF   VALENCIA   AND   SEVILLE.  646 

music  on  the  blind.  After  having  studied  under  Titian  at  Venice, 
returning  to  Spain,  he  was  employed  by  Philip  II.  to  adorn  the  Es- 
curial;  where  he  showed  an  independence  in  introducing  natural  life 
into  sacred  scenes,  as  a  dog,  cat  and  a  partridge  in  the  Holy  Family, 
and  even  angels  with  beards,  which  shocked  most  rudely  the  Church 
Inquisitors.  Unable,  however,  to  undermine  him  in  the  royal  favor 
they  succeeded  in  obtaining  this  provision  in  his  future  employ;  "the 
artist  shall  not  introduce  any  dog  or  cat,  or  other  unbecoming  figure  ; 
but  all  shall  be  saints,  or  such  as  incite  to  devotion."  His  confidence 
in  his  own  power  as  an  artist  was  brought  out,  when  as  a  painting  of 
the  Last  Supper,  executed  by  Titian  for  the  refectory  of  the  Escurial, 
upon  being  unrolled  was  found  to  be  too  large  for  the  wall  and 
Philip  had  ordered  it  to  be  cut  to  fit  the  space.  El  Mudo  by  signs 
begged  the  king  to  spare  it  and  place  it  elsewhere ;  pledging  himself 
in  six  months  to  make  a  perfect  copy  of  the  requisite  proportions,  or 
to  lose  his  head  if  he  failed. 

It  was  at  once  indicative  of  the  liberal  spirit  of  the  School  of  Va- 
lencia and  of  the  undying  spirit  of  art  in  the  Grecian  race  that  one 
of  the  eminent  painters  of  this  School,  named  Domenico  Theotocofiuli, 
was  a  Greek;  hence  called  "El  Greco."  A  pupil  of  Titian,  his  style 
was  decidedly  Venetian,  opposed  to  the  bold  drawling  of  M.  Angelo, 
but  skilful  in  grouping  and  rich  in  coloring.  Pacheco  living  in  his 
day,  says;  "When  I  asked  Domenico  Greco  'which  was  the  more 
difiicult  drawing  or  color,'  his  answer  w^as,  '  Color.' "  The  ablest 
artist  of  this  School  was  Ribalta,  born  A.  D.  1551.  Being  rudely 
treated  and  called  a  mere  dauber  by  the  artist  with  whom  he  was 
studying,  and  with  whose  daughter  he  had  fallen  in  love,  he  left  for 
Italy  where  he  studied  the  style  of  Raphael.  Returning  and  calling 
on  his  old  master,  not  finding  him  at  home  but  meeting  his  daughter, 
Ribalta  painted  a  hasty  sketch  on  his  easel.  When  the  old  man 
came  home  and  saw  the  painting,  gazing  at  it  with  admiration,  he 
called  his  daughter  and  exclaimed  with  enthusiasm,  pointing  to  the 
picture,  "  That  is  such  a  man  as  I  would  have  you  marry ;  and  not 
that  dauber  Ribalta."  Ribalta  not  only  won  his  bride  but  became 
the  idol  of  Valencia  for  the  natural  air  and  winning  expression 
which  mark  his  numerous  works. 

At  Seville  four  artists  were  noted  for  altar-pieces  and  frescoes  in 
the  latter  part  of  the  fifteenth  century.  A  generation  later  Pedro 
Campaiia,  born  at  Brussels  A.  D.  1503  but  educated  in  Italy,  came 
and  settled  in  Seville,  only  returning  in  advanced  life  to  Brussels. 
This  Flemish  painter  executed,  among  other  works,  the  Descent  from 


646  ART   CRITICISM. 

the  Cross  in  the  Cathedral  of  Seville;  whose  two  truly  Spanish  char- 
acteristics are  thus  illustrated.  When  Murillo,  young  as  an  artist, 
stood  for  hours  gazing  at  this  picture,  and  was  asked  his  reason,  he 
replied,  alluding  to  its  life-like  expression,  "I  am  waiting  till  these 
men  have  taken  down  our  Lord."  Pacheco  presents  its  characteris- 
tic of  sombre  gloominess,  when  he  says,  "One  would  be  afraid  to  be 
alone  with  it  in  a  gloomy  chapel."  To  Luis  de  Vargas,  however,  is 
attributed  the  honor  of  having  founded  a  higher  school  of  painting 
in  his  native  city  of  Seville.  Born  1502,  he  studied  in  Italy  where 
he  early  showed  a  love  for  the  natural.  His  finest  painting  is  styled 
"La  Gamba,"from  the  exquisitely  wrought  leg  of  Adam  shown  in  it. 
Pacheco  has  to  censure  one  of  his  pictures  of  Christ  bearing  his 
cross,  because  the  Divine  Redeemer  is  represented  clothed  only  with 
a  tunic  so  that  much  of  his  form  is  nude ;  which  feature  betrays  the 
artist's  yearning  to  trench  on  the  inquisitor's  rule  in  his  love  of  na- 
ture. So  sweet  and  almost  Raphael-like  was  the  loveliness  of  many 
of  his  figures,  and  such  was  his  consequent  power  with  the  lovers  of 
true  art,  that  nothing  but  a  Spanish  Inquisition  could  have  prevented 
Spanish  genius  in  art  from  rivalling  that  of  Italy.  Though  eminently 
devout  in  spirit,  de  Vargas  had  that  rich  vein  of  humor  which  is  so 
generally  allied  with  the  deepest  reverence  that  it  seems  to  be  a  part 
almost  of  religion;  for  reverential  admiration  and  respect  for  the 
really  true,  the  beautiful  and  the  good  seems  naturally  to  call  forth 
the  opposite  feeling  towards  the  contrary  qualities.  An  affected 
painter  once  showing  him  with  great  self-complacence  a  wretched  daub 
representing  the  crucifixion,  and  asking  his  opinion  of  it,  de  Vargas, 
looking  intently  at  it,  replied,  "  that  the  crucified  one  seemed  to  be 
saying  to  his  torturers, '  Father,  forgive  them  for  they  know  not  what 
they  do ;' "  which  expression  of  de  Vargas  the  stupid  artist  interpreted 
as  a  compliment  and  reported  it  with  childish  delight. 

Pablo  de  Cespedes,  born  1538,  the  Spanish  Correggio,  is  by  some 
made  the  head  of  the  improved  school  of  Seville.  Studying  first  at 
home  he  acquired  in  Italy  the  method  of  Correggio  with  its  breadth 
of  open  space,  its  retreating  sky,  and  projected  figures  in  fore- 
ground; when  returning  he  engrafted  these  new  features  upon 
Spanish  art.  Of  him  Pacheco  says:  "De  Cespedes  was  a  great 
imitator  of  the  beautiful  manner  of  Correggio;  and  he  was  also  one 
of  the  best  colorists  in  Spain.  The  school  of  Andalusia  owes  to  him 
the  fine  tone  of  their  flesh  tint,  as  he  has  shown  in  this  city  of  Se- 
ville and  in  his  native  town  of  Cordova."  Roelos,  born  about 
A.  D.  1560,  was  in  design  and  color  the  Spanish  Tintoret.     His  St. 


PACHECO   AND   VELASQUEZ  THE  SPANISH   ANGELO.         647 

Anne  teaching  the  virgin  Mary,  pictures  the  maiden  in  a  rich  rose- 
colored  tunic  and  a  bhie  mantle  studded  with  gilt  stars ;  while  by 
the  mother  stands  a  table  spread  with  refreshments,  with  a  cat  and 
dog .  sitting  near,  and  by  the  child  a  basket  of  play-things.  One  of 
his  Madonnas  represents  the  babe  Jesus  nude,  while  Mary  holds  the 
swaddling  band  admiring  the  child  before  she  swathes  him. 

Next  came  Pacheco,  born  about  A.  D.  1579,  more  of  a  critic  than 
an  artist ;  the  first  in  modern  times  to  give  a  colored  tint  as  a  finish  to 
statuary;  performing  for  the  sculptor  Montanes,  the  service  rendered 
by  the  Greek  painter  Nicias  to  Praxiteles.  Pacheco  also  had  the 
peculiar  merit  of  a  good  teacher,  the  capacity  to  put  a  youth  of  true 
genius  upon  the  road  to  greater  success  than  his  less  gifted  instruc- 
tor; a  merit  which  w^as  realized  in  his  pupils  Cano  and  Velasquez. 
The  two  artists  named  Francisco  de  Herrera  next  added  to  the  ad- 
vancing art  of  Seville.  The  father,  born  A.  D.  1576,  practiced  the 
bold  and  vigorous  touch  which  Velasquez  adopted  and  improved. 
Herrera  carrying  it  to  an  excess  of  violence  so  absurd  that  he  is  said 
to  have  employed  a  maid  servant  with  a  broom  to  smear  his  canvas 
with  the  foundation  colors.  The  son,  born  A.  D.  1622,  became 
known  in  Italy  as  Lo  Spagnuolo  dei  Pesche,  The  Fish  Spaniard, 
from  his  devotion  to  still  life,  especially  to  scenes  in  which  water 
views  and  fishermen  were  introduced.  Alonzo  Cano,  born  A.  D. 
1601,  a  pupil  of  Pacheco,  was  trained  entirely  at  home.  His  chief 
study  was  castes  of  the  antiques;  he  became  a  proficient  in  tinting 
statuary ;  while  his  best  paintings  were  master-pieces  of  tender  senti- 
ment in  forms  so  etherial  as  to  be  almost  ghostly.  With  Cano 
flourished  Turbaran,  born  A.  D.  1598,  a  pupil  of  Eoelos,  who 
painted  from  nature  and  excelled  in  giving  grace  to  drapery. 
Brought  up  by  Velasquez  to  Madrid,  so  much  was  he  esteemed  at 
Court  that  Philip  IV.,  stopping  one  day  at  his  studio  to  examine  his 
work,  complimented  him  with  the  title  "Pintor  del  Key  y  Hey  de 
los  pintores,"  "Painter  of  the  King  and  King  of  the  painters." 
The  age  of  the  two  great  masters  was  now  ushered  in. 

Diego  Velasquez,  born  A.  D.  1599,  was  in  early  life  a  pupil  of  the 
elder  Herrera.  The  harshness  of  this  master  soon  drove  away  his 
sensitive  pupil;  not,  however,  until. he  had  caught, Herrera's  dashing 
style  of  drawing,  as  a  foundation  for  future  excellencies.  Entering 
the  studio  of  Pacheco,  the  rules  of  the  Academy  there  insisted  upon 
were  just  the  bridle  his  bold  and  independent  genius  needed.  After 
five  years  he  married  his  master's  daughter;  an  event  which  in  his 
treatise,  written  at  the  age  of  seventy  years,  the  old  man  can  hardly 


648  AET  CRITICISM. 

sufficiently  congratulate  himself  upon.  "I  hold  it,"  he  writes,  "no 
disgrace  that  the  pupil  should  surpass  the  master.  Lionardo  da 
Vinci  did  not  lose  anything  by  having  Raphael  as  his  pupil ;  nor 
Giorgione  Titian;  nor  Plato  Aristotle."  At  the  age,  of  about 
twenty  years  Velasquez  had  already  originated  improved  methods, 
some  of  which  Pacheco  thus  describes,  "He  kept  in  his  pay  an 
apprentice  boy,  who  served  him  for  a  model  in  different  sorts  of 
action  and  in  various  attitudes;  sometimes  laughing,  sometimes  cry- 
ing. From  him  he  executed  many  heads  in  charcoal ;  heightening 
the  effect  in  some  by  a  ground  in  white  or  blue  paper;  working 
up  others  in  natural  colors;  and  thus  he  acquired  his  accuracy  in 
portraits." 

In  1622,  when  twenty-three  years  of  age, .  Velasquez  went  to 
Madrid ;  but  shortly  afterward  returned  to  Seville.  Invited  back  to 
Madrid  he  painted  the  portrait  of  Philip  IV.  In  1628  Rubens 
visited  Madrid,  met  and  admired  Velasquez,  and  during  his  nine 
months'  stay  imparted  to  him  valuable  instruction.  The  next  year 
Velasquez  visited  Italy;  drew  much  at  Venice,  studying  especially 
the  methods  of  Tintoret ;  went  to  Rome  and  studied  the  works  of  M. 
Angelo  and  Raphael ;  and  returned  a  comprehensive  master,  enriched 
with  the  principles  of  the  greatest  Italian  painters,  but  true  to 
nature  in  applying  them  all  in  his  practice.  Philip  IV.  gave  him  a 
studio  in  his  palace,  to  which  he  had  a  private  key,  and  in  which  he 
would  sit  for  hours  to  see  him  work.  In  portrait,  historic  and  sacred 
subjects  he  rivalled  the  ablest  Italian  masters;  in  domestic  scenes 
and  still  life  the  Flemish ;  and  in  landscape  he  was  the  precursor  of 
the  best  English  artists. 

In  1648  Philip  IV.  employed  him  to  visit  the  galleries  and  studios 
of  Italy  and  purchase  paintings  for  the  Escurial  Palace;  a  work 
which  called  forth  his  rare  merits  as  a  critic  as  well  as  an  artist; 
after  completing  which  he  returned  to  Madrid  to  eclipse  his  own 
former  fame  by  yet  superior  works.  At  Rome,  during  this  excursion, 
he  executed  the  best  of  his  works  in  portrait,  that  of  Pope  Innocent 
X.;  and  in  1656,  at  Madrid,  he  painted  that  master-piece  styled  by 
admirers  "  The  Theology  of  Art."  In  it  Velasquez  represents  him- 
self taking  the  portrait  of  Margarita,  the  king's  daughter,  with  her 
maids  of  honor  around  her  and  a  landscape  in  the  back-ground.  In 
linear  and  aerial  perspective,  in  correctness  of  shading  and  local 
tint,  and  in  the  perfectly  life-like  representation  of  animal  and  at- 
tendant personages,  it  stands  without  rival.  Philip  IV,,  so  devoted 
to  art  and  so  attached  to  Velasquez,  had  complimented  one  of  the 


MUEILLO   THE   SPANISH    RAPHAEL.  649 

artist's  early  efforts,  a  portrait  of  his  Captain-General,  by  coming 
into  the  artist's  studio  shortly  after  he  had  ordered  the  General  to 
distant  duty,  and  suddenly  turning  to  the  portrait  as  if  he  had  mis- 
taken it  for  the  General  himself,  exclaiming,  "  What !  are  you  still 
here?  Did  I  not  order  you  elsewhere?"  When,  now,  his  last  and 
grandest  work  of  art  was  finished,  the  king's  delight  knew  no  bounds. 
Taking  up  a  brush,  having  learned  from  watching  Velasquez  some- 
thing of  his  art,  he  painted  upon  the  artist's  breast  in  the  picture 
the  cross  of  Saint  lago,  the  highest  honor  in  his  gift.  The  royal 
decoration,  still  seen  upon  Velasquez'  greatest  work,  is  at  once  a 
monument  of  the  genius  that  called  forth  the  honor  and  of  the  value 
of  patronage  in  calling  forth  genius. 

Bartolome  Estaban  Murillo,  the  second  of  the  two  great  Spanish 
masters,  w^as  to  Velasquez,  both  in  friendly  intercourse  and  in  style 
of  art,  what  Raphael  was  to  M.  Angelo.  Born  at  Seville,  A.  D. 
1616,  showing  an  early  aptitude  for  art,  he  was  placed  in  the  studio 
of  a  relative  named  Castillo;  where  he  learned  to  execute  coarse 
sketches  which  sold  so  well  to  the  country  people  at  the  fairs  of  his 
native  town,  as  to  give  him,  from  early  youth,  an  ample  livelihood. 
A  report  as  to  Vandyke,  brought  by  a  fellow-pupil  who  had  studied 
under  him  at  Madrid,  opened  a  new  world  in  art  to  Murillo,  then 
only  twenty-three  years  of  age.  To  gain  requisite  means  for  study  at 
Madrid  he  painted  a  large  number  of  cheap  pictures,  which  he  sold 
to  traders  to  the  American  colonies  at  such  an  advantage  as  to 
soon  realize  the  sum  needed  for  his  tour.  These  pictures,  treasured 
because  they  are  Murillo's,  are  now  the  pride  of  many  an  old 
Church  in  Spanish  South  America.  Proceeding,  A.  D.  1643, 
to  Madrid,  Murillo  was  received  with  great  kindness  by  Velas- 
quez, now  at  the  zenith  of  his  fame;  and  through  him  Murillo 
was  permitted  to  study  and  copy  the  best  paintings  of  Titian, 
Rubens,  Vandyke,  Ribera,  and  Velasquez.  Returning  then  to 
Seville,  though  Velasquez  urged  him  to  visit  Rome,  he  spent  the 
remainder  of  his  life  industrious  and  honored  in  practicing  his 
art. 

Like  Raphael,  Murillo  had,  after  commencing  his  profession, 
three  different  styles,  the  first  entitled  "frio,"  or  cold;  the  second 
"calido,"  or  warm;  the  third  "vaporoso,"  or  misty.  The  first  prac- 
ticed for  about  three  years  after  his  return  from  Seville,  was  vigor- 
ous in  design  but  coarse  in  coloring  and  finishing.  In  1648,  when 
thirty-two  years  of  age,  Murillo  married  an  Andalusian  lady  of 
rank  and  fortune;  a  marriage  which  gave  a  new  character  to  his 

55  4  G 


660  ART  CRITICISM. 

mode  of  life  and  equally  to  his  style.  His  befope  bold  and  vigorous 
drawing  was  softened  down  and  hidden  by  a  subdued  and  polished 
style  of  finish  which  manifestly  tended  to  an  extreme;  a  style  which 
he  seems  to  have  continued  for  about  ten  or  twelve  years.  In  1658 
he  planned  an  Art  Academy,  in  which  several  able  artists  were 
united  and  which  went  into  operation  A.  D.  1660.  Association  with 
artists  in  such  a  connection,  and  with  the  atmosphere  of  Academic 
teaching,  brought  back  the  vigor  of  his  youth  and  unfettered  him 
from  the  trammels  of  artificial  society  and  aspiration  in  art  to  which 
his  marriage  seems  to  have  subjected  him.  The  bold  design  and 
vigorous  drawing  of  his  first  style  was  united  to  the  finished  coloring 
and  sweet  grace  of  his  second  style;  while  over  both  was  thrown,  by 
his  genius,  a  dreamy  mist  of  fascinating  attractiveness. 

Murillo's  works  were  almost  numberless ;  like  Raphael's  his  paint- 
ings were  preferred  to  those  of  his  more  scientific  and  sublime 
rivals;  for,  while  Velasquez  was  beyond  rivalry  in  all  the  higher 
walks  of  art,  Murillo  in  scenes  of  social  life  and  themes  of  sentiment, 
which  always  win,  w^as  inimitable.  The  fortunes  of  w^ar  in  Spain, 
joined  to  their  own  superior  attractiveness  for  ordinary  beholders, 
have  caused  a  wider  dispersion  of  the  works  of  Murillo  than  of 
almost  any  modern  artist.  They  are  found  in  the  galleries  of 
France,  of  England,  of  Germany,  and  even  of  Russia ;  and  though 
a  critic  like  Ruskin  may  protest  against  this  comparatively  high 
rank  assigned  to  Murillo,  and  call  him  a  "base"  artist,  his  style 
will  always  be  a  favorite  with  popular  observers. 

After  Velasquez  and  Murillo,  w^ho  had  brought  art  to  perfection 
in  Spain,  when  it  had  declined  in  Italy,  painting  rapidly  degenerated 
in  Spain,  as  it  had  in  Italy  after  M.  Angelo  and  Raphael ;  perhaps 
because  the  spirit  of  imitation  of  great  men  is  the  most  deadly  foe 
to  naturalness  in  art  and  literature.  The  greatest  minds  had 
struggled  in  vain  to  break  down  the  national  spirit,  which  united 
with  ecclesiastical  caution  in  Spain,  opposed  simple  naturalness  in 
design  and  coloring;  and  even  Velasquez  and  Murillo  left  what 
they  had  found,  the  favorite  popular  sombre  hues  in  coloring  as  the 
ecclesiastical  standard  of  drawing  in  sacred  scenes  and  personages. 

Sect.  10.  The  Eclectic  School  of  Bologna,  Imitative  though  Select; 
Established  by  the  Caracci,  Adornep  by  Domenichino  and  Guido, 

CLOSING  WITH   CaRLO   DoLCE. 

In  seeking  entireness  of  view,  while  considering  the  Spanish 
Schools,  the  later  period  of  the  history  of  the  Italian  Schools  has 


ECLECTIC  SCHOOL   ITS   PRINCIPLE;   THE   CARACCI.  651 

been  anticipated.  Kugler  argues  that  when  the  culminating  and 
climactic  period  of  art  has  been  reached  in  any  country  nothing  else 
than  a  decline  can  be  expected.  The  development  of  Spanish  genius 
was  late  in  point  of  time;  struggling,  as  it  did,  beneath  greater 
causes  of  depression  than  Italian  art ;  being  long  unconcentrated  in 
idea  by  the  want  of  a  Spanish  nationality ;  restricted  in  its  field  by 
the  Moorish  occupation  of  the  rich  Southern  provinces,  even  up  to 
the  time  when  Italian  art  had  reached  its  climax  of  perfection;  and, 
even  after  that  era,  repressed  by  an  ecclesiastical  surveillance  that 
put  its  ban  on  the  independent  conceptions  of  an  originating  mind, 
and  almost  suppressed  by  a  national  taste  wedded  to  the  artificial 
past  which  made  true  genius,  except  in  the  very  last  age  of  imperial 
patronage,  seek  employment  anywhere  else  than  in  its  own  home. 
In  Spain  the  reaction  into  decline,  after  the  two  great  masters  who 
could  not  be  rivalled,  was  immediate  and  almost  complete.  In  Italy 
the  decline  took  another  turn. 

When  philosophy  as  in  Plato  and  Aristotle,  Kant  and  Reid,  has 
reached  the  acme  of  a  nation's  developement  when  science  as  in  Archi- 
medes and  Newton  has  exhausted  the  field  of  an  age's  advance  and 
no  new  path  for  generations  seems  to  open,  men  of  genius,  unable  to 
be  original,  and  compelled  to  be  servile  imitators  or  fruitless  vision- 
aries in  the  old  pursuit  turn  their  thoughts  to  some  unworked 
mine ;  and  the  mart  of  the  worn  out  vein  must  decline  and  decay. 
This  seems  to  have  been  the  history  of  the  decline  of  epic  and  dramatic 
poetry,  of  philosophy  and  oratory  in  Greece ;  and  also  of  Grecian 
sculpture  after  Phidias  and  Praxiteles,  and  of  painting  after  the 
great  masters  of  ancient  Greece  and  of  modern  Italy.  When  this 
decline  began  in  Italy  two  noble  classes  of  minds  struggled  against 
the  downward  tendency ;  the  Eclectic  School  of  the  Caracci,  and 
the  Naturalistic  School  of  Caravaggio.  The  history  of  these  schools 
deserves  for  their  own  merits,  and  demands  because  of  their  instruc- 
tiveness  a  prominent  place  in  the  history  of  Italian  painting ;  not  as 
a  model  period  for  the  artist  to  copy  after,  but  as  filling  up  the 
circle  of  complete  study. 

While  in  every  school  of  Italy,  save  Venice,  the  followers  of 
Lionardo,  of  Angelo,  and  of  Raphael  were  becoming  mere  copy- 
ists, at  Bologna  an  artist  of  grave  and  independent  bearing  ap- 
peared who  set  himself  earnestly  to  oppose  the  spirit  of  imitation.  It 
was  Ludovico  Caracci,  born  A.  D.  1555,  educated  in  part  under 
Tintoretto  at  Venice,  like  Lionardo  a  close  student  and  an  original 
thinker,  possessed  with  the  controlling  idea,  that,  since  the  great 


t)02  ART   CRITICISM. 

masters  had  perfected  painting  each  in  the  line  of  his  own  excellence, 
the  only  way  left  for  an  aspiring  artist,  was  to  select  and  combine 
their  several  excellencies.  Two  nephews  of  his,  Agostino,  born  A. 
D.  1558,  and  Annibale,  born  1560,  the  former  self-taught  and  theo- 
retical, the  latter  a  student  of  the  style  first  of  Correggio  and  Paul 
Veronese  in  Northern  Italy,  and  then  of  M.  Angelo  and  of  Raphael 
at  Rome,  united  with  them  in  opening  a  studio  and  establishing  a 
school  at  Bologna;  which  received  the  derisive  soubriquet  of  In- 
eamminati,  or.  Walkers  in  leading  strings.  The  three  Caracci  had 
severally  those  individual  peculiarities,  which,  when  brought  together, 
furnished  all  the  requisites  of  efficiency.  Ludovico,  popular  and 
impressive  in  manners  was  the  presiding  head ;  Agostino  learned  and 
analytic  was  the  chief  teacher  of  principles ;  and  Annibale  ready 
and  skilful  with  the  pencil  and  brush  was  the  practical  illustrator 
of  the  system.  The  models  of  the  school  were  set  forth  by  Agostino 
in  fourteen  lines  of  Italian  verse,  still  preserved ;  among  which  were 
"  the  drawing  of  Rome,  the  action  and  shading  of  Venice,  the  dig- 
nity in  coloring  of  Lombardy,  the  terrible  energy  of  M.  Angelo,  the 
true  natural  of  Titian,  the  sovereign  purity  of  Correggio,  the  exact 
symmetry  of  Raphael,  the  decorum  and  foundation  color  of  Tibaldi, 
the  invention  of  the  learned  Primaticcio,  the  grace  of  Parmigiano." 
As  the  last  of  this  list,  Nicolo,  an  imitator  of  Raphael  at  Bologna 
is  mentioned  as  the  model  of  all  excellencies ;  and  the  large  place 
thus  given  by  the  Caracci  to  this  and  other  mere  copyists  indicates  a 
critical  judgment  warped  by  prejudice ;  an  attribute  most  directly 
at  war  with  practical  adherence  to  the  principle  of  the  school. 

The  finished  works  of  Ludovico  were  few ;  and  these  are  regarded 
by  Kugler,  though  excelling  in  certain  particulars  as  without  har- 
mony as  a  whole.  The  two  principal  works  of  Agostino  are  the  "Last 
Sacrament  of  St.  Jerome"  at  Bologna,  and  "  Hercules  crushing  the 
Serpents"  at  Paris ;  both  of  which  show  the  labored  eflTort  of  a  theo- 
retic teacher  to  be  true  in  every  respect  to  his  principle.  Annibale 
was  a  voluminous  and  able  artist ;  his  numerous  paintings  display- 
ing many  of  the  excellencies  of  the  great  masters  whose  combined 
excellencies  he  sought  to  copy ;  while,  however,  there  is  an  air  of 
artificial  imitation  that  like  a  theatrical  style  in  a  public  speaker 
never  wins  as  does  a  less  polished  natural  enthusiasm.  The  great 
merit  of  Annibale  Caracci  was  his  origination  of  landscape  painting 
proper  in  Italy ;  the  back-ground  in  some  of  his  historical  pieces 
surpassing  that  of  the  figures  and  their  action  in  the  fore-ground. 

The  judgment  of  English  critics  as  to  the  comparative  merit  of 


L 


653 

the  Caracci  and  of  their  School  has  been  higher  than  that  of  the 
German  critic.  Of  Ludovico  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  wrote ;  "  Style 
in  painting  is  the  same  as  in  writing;  a  power  over  materials  whether 
words  or  colors  by  which  conceptions  or  sentiment  is  conveyed.  And 
in  this  Ludovico  Carracci,  I  mean  in  his  best  works,  appears  to  me 
to  approach  the  nearest  to  perfection.  His  unaffected  breadth  of 
light  and  shadow,  the  simplicity  of  coloring,  which,  holding  its 
proper  rank,  does  not  draw  aside  the  least  part  of  the  attention  from 
the  subject,  and  the  solemn  effect  of  that  twilight  which  seems  dif- 
fused over  his  pictures  appear  to  me  to  correspond  with  grave  and 
dignified  subjects  better  than  the  more  artificial  brilliancy  of  sun- 
shine which  enlightens  the  pictures  of  Titian."  Of  Annibale's 
"Descent  from  the  Cross"  John  Bell  says,  "  The  draAving  of  the  figure 
of  our  Saviour  is  at  once  the  most  learned  in  point  of  anatomy  and 
the  truest  to  nature  of  any  that  I  have  ever  seen." 

In  the  Eclectic  School,  as  in  others,  pupils  excelled  their  masters. 
The  ablest  first  developed  was  Zampieri,  called  Domenichino.  Born 
A.  D.  1581,  placed  when  young  in  the  study  of  the  German  master 
Calvart,  he  soon  found  his  way  into  the  School  of  the  Caracci. 
Though  at  first  slow  and  distrustful,  and  sometimes  trammelled  by 
the  rules  of  his  school,  he  was  preeminently  a  natural  artist.  He 
soon  developed  a  style  of  artless  loveliness  in  drawing  and  coloring 
so  akin  to  that  of  Raphael  that  some  able  artists,  as  Poussin,  have 
ranked  him  next  to  that  master.  Some  of  his  frescoes  at  Rome, 
especially  his  "  Two  Evangelists,"  Kugler  thinks  the  finest  in  expres- 
sion to  be  found  in  Rome;  while  the  artist's  best  works  are  the 
"  Scenes  in  the  Life  of  the  Virgin  Mary"  at  Fano.  Another  pupil, 
eminent  in  quite  a  different  line,  was  Albani,  born  A.  D.  1578.  A 
child  of  fortune,  possessed  of  a  beautiful  wife  and  of  every  desire  in 
the  reach  of  wealth,  his  style  of  painting  was  preeminently  the  ele- 
gant. His  studies  and  themes  were  chiefly  classic  mythology  and 
legend ;  and  Venus  and  the  Graces  he  adorned  with  all  conceivable 
personal  charms  and  surrounding  delights.  His  style  was  easier 
of  imitation  than  that  of  Domenichino,  and  he  gained  more  personal 
admirers  and  pupils.  In  his  old  age  a  deeper  sentiment  seemed  to 
possess  him,  and  his  themes  became  Christian.  The  star  of  this 
school  was  Guide  Reni,  born  A.  D.  1575.  Gifted  with  the  instinct 
of  a  refined  order  of  beauty,  he  studied  at  first  under  Calvart,  but 
soon  entered  the  school  of  the  Caracci.  With  an  early  style  strikingly 
natural  and  vigorous,  he  adopted  that  sweetness  and  joyousness  of 
conception  which  characterizes  his  later  works.     His  themes  were 

55* 


654  ART   CRITICISM. 

general  and  abstract.  His  '•* Aurora"  at  Rome,  where  he  was  long 
employed  by  the  Pope,  is  an  admirable  specimen  of  his  style;  the 
impression  of  swift  sailing  motion  in  every  part,  in  the  galloping 
steeds,  the  rolling  wheels,  the  torch  of  Lucifer  blown  back,  and  the 
forward  strain  of  Aurora  in  her  chariot,  fascinating  the  beholder  as 
if  the  scene  were  real.  In  his  last  days  Guido  fell  into  the  vice  of 
gaming,  and  to  repair  his  losses  painted  rapidly  for  money.  He  thus 
took  on  a  third  style,  his  designs  being  often  almost  devoid  of 
sentiment  and  his  execution  unfinished,  while,  however,  his  in- 
stinctive love  of  beautiful  forms  gave  a  charm  to  his  works  which 
brought  him  abundant  purchasers. 

Next  after  Guido,  Banbieri,  called  Guercino  or  Squinter,  from  the 
fact  that  in  early  childhood  his  right  eye  was  injured,  held  the  palm  of 
excellence  at  Bologna.  Born  A.  D.  1590,  despite  his  defective  sight  he 
showed  remarkable  early  skill  and  industry  in  drawing  and  painting. 
Like  Raphael  and  Guido  he  developed  three  different  styles  at  different 
periods  of  life ;  a  fact  which,  since  it  occurred  in  three  men  of  similar 
genius  and  virtually  in  the  same  school,  must  have  had  a  natural  cause. 
Youths  of  genius  both  as  writers,  speakers  and  artists,  develope  an  un- 
studied power,  attractive  for  its  naturalness  and  impressive  from  its  en- 
ergy ;  but  which  does  not  bear  too  frequent  repetition.  Such  minds,  find- 
ing themselves  soon  outstripped  by  mere  plodders  whose  every  effort  is 
an  advance,  either  sink  into  listless  inaction,  or  nerve  themselves  to  the 
humbling  acknowledgment  that  personal  improvement  is  needed  and 
to  the  self-denial  of  thorough  study  and  practice.  Thus  a  second,  manly 
and  manhood  style  is  attained.  Returning  success  and  consciousness 
of  increasing  power  invites  to  a  style  of  life  requiring  princely 
expenditure;  a  style  in  which  finish  must  be  sacrificed  for  rapidity 
of  execution ;  and  genius  stooping  from  its  empyrean  height,  poises 
itself  for  flight  in  a  lower,  denser  atmosphere,  where  its  weakened 
pinions  find  a  stronger  support,  and  can  thus  sustain  by  a  more 
languid  effort,  the  weight  they  must  still  bear.  Guercino,  like 
Raphael  and  Guido,  began  with  a  style  of  young  unchastened  vigor 
under  teachers  of  kindred  spirit;  as  he  advanced  he  sought  the 
finished  culture  of  established  schools ;  and,  when  overburdened  with 
pecuniary  demands,  he  became  studied  and  finished  in  execution. 
Guercino's  firststyle  was  an  exaggerated  natural,  almost  violent  in  ac- 
tion and  crude  in  execution ;  a  testimonial  that  in  art  as  in  literature 
early  ambition  for  notoriety  may  cause  future  mortification .  His  second 
style  displays  vigor  in  drawing  with  a  sweet  harmony  in  coloring,  and 
above  all  a  masterly  power  of  light  and  shade,  giving  such  a  reality 


ECLECTICS   OF   BOLCXJ^NA   AND    FLORENCE.  655 

of  relief  to  his  figures,  that  they  seem  separated  from  all  behind  and 
suspended  in  the  air ;  a  power  which  gained  him  the  title  of  the 
"Magician."  His  third  style,  developed  in  the  waning  of  Guido 
and  seeming  to  imitate  his  method  as  a  means  of  succeeding  to  his 
immense  patronage,  lacks  distinctness  in  aim  and  has  a  soulless 
beauty  which  speaks  only  to  the  eye  of  sense.  His  industry  is  indi- 
cated by  the  fact  that  he  executed  no  less  than  one  hundred  and  six 
altar  pieces,  and  one  hundred  and  forty-four  large  cabinet  pictures, 
besides  frescoes  and  small  pieces.  His  master-piece  in  magical  relief 
is  his  fresco  in  the  dome  of  the  Cathedral  of  Piacenza. 

While  eclecticism  had  its  chief  seat  at  Bologna,  it  was,  from  the 
causes  already  mentioned,  the  pervading  spirit  of  other  Italian 
schools.  The  School  of  the  Caracci  w^as  in  fact  anticipated  by  fifty 
years  in  the  person  of  Giulio  Campi,  born  A.  D.  1500,  at  Cremona 
in  Southern  Lombardy.  Trained  under  Giulio  Romano,  he  aimed  to 
combine  the  excellencies  most  diverse  of  Raphael  and  Correggio. 
His  family  relatives  were  his  chief  pupils ;  and  little  eclat  gathered 
about  his  school.  At  Milan  a  more  noted  and  extended  Eclectic 
School  originated  in  Procaccini,born  A.  D.  1520,  educated  at  Bologna, 
who  settled  at  Milan,  founded  a  school  and  executed  valuable  works 
for  that  city  in  a  style  mingling  the  grace  of  Parmigiano  and  the  breadth 
of  Correggio.  Among  his  numerous  pupils  and  successors  Crespi 
was  the  ornament  of  the  school.  At  Rome  a  kindred  school  was 
inaugurated  by  Baroccio,  born  A.  D.  1528,  who  studied  superficially 
the  great  masters,  aimed  at  a  combination  of  excellencies,  and  really 
excelled  in  giving  animated  emotion  to  his  figures,  and  an  admirable 
effect  in  chiaroscuro  to  his  back-grounds.  His  effort  died  with  him- 
self from  the  violent  opposition  of  his  associate  artists.  The  influ- 
ence he  exerted  however  reached  Florence,  and  there  led  to  more 
permanent  results. 

Even  during  the  life  of  M.  Angelo,  Florentine  artists  by  making 
him  their  model  planted  seeds  of  degeneracy  in  that  most  illustrious 
of  Italian  schools.  Vasari  then  flourished ;  who,  while  embalming 
for  all  time  the  memory  of  the  great  artists  that  preceded  him,  dis- 
closes by  his  empty  boast  how  unconscious  inferiority  is  of  its  own 
shameful  decline.  "We,"  says  he,  "paint  six  pictures  in  a  year, 
while  the  earlier  masters  took  six  years  to  one  picture;"  and  he  adds, 
"and  yet  these  pictures  are  much  more  perfectly  executed  than 
those  of  the  early  school  by  the  most  distinguished  masters."  Cer- 
tainly a  reform  was  needed  when  this  statement  could  come  from 
one  of  the  old  Florentine  School.     The  Eclectic  School  began  with 


656  ART  CRITICISM. 

Cigoli,  born  A.  D.  1559,  admired  for  his  attractive  warmth  in  color- 
ing, though  sentimental  in  expression.  Among  its  eminent  masters 
were  Allori,  noted  for  his  heroic  figure  of  Judith  holding  the  head  of 
Holofernes ;  Empoli,  who  reproduced  the  majestic  old  Venetian  princes, 
set  off,  however,  with  radiant  Florentine  lights ;  and  Rosselli,  who  with 
his  pupils  gave  to  portraits  a  life-like  freshness.  The  favorite  master, 
with  whom  the  eclectic  spirit  expired  in  Italy,  was  Carlo,  called  Dolce 
from  the  sweet  style  of  beauty  he  conceived.  Born  at  Florence,  A. 
D.  1616,  of  ancestors  who  for  two  generations  had  been  artists,  such 
was  his  promise,  at  the  age  of  nine  years,  that  he  was  placed  by  his 
mother,  then  a  widow,  in  the  studio  of  an  artist  named  Vignali.  In 
a  few  years  he  produced  a  St.  John,  and  shortly  afterwards  a  por- 
trait of  his  mother,  which  brought  the  fascination  of  his  developing 
style  to  public  notice.  Adopted  by  the  Medici  family,  now  repre- 
sented by  Pietro,  he  devoted  himself  to  single  figures,  often  heads 
only,  chiefly  Magdalenes  and  Madonnas,  whose  winning  sweetness  of 
expression  gave  him  his  name.  Dolce  had  but  one  style,  as  he  had 
but  one  ideal ;  always  failing,  as  in  his  Diogenes  and  his  Lantern, 
when  he  stepped  out  of  the  path  which  Nature  had  made  him  to 
walk  in.  Hence  his  numerous  works,  each  admired  where  it  is  a 
separate  treasure,  are  all  reproductions  of  the  same  type,  easily 
copied  by  an  artist  of  imitative  skill.  They  are  also  of  that  order 
of  excellence  in  which  female  artists  have  proved  themselves  eminent; 
and  Dolce's  daughter  Agnese  trained  by  himself,  became  his  most 
efficient  aid  in  working  up  his  designs,  and  his  most  successful  copier 
after  his  death.  It  was  natural  that  the  Eclectic  age,  which  had 
kept  alive  a  spirit  of  art  nearly  two  centuries,  whose  principle  how- 
ever was  successful  imitation,  should  close  with  such  an  artist  as 
Dolce ;  whose  one  ideal,  and  that  a  feminine  type,  could  so  readily 
be  copied,  thus  putting  the  artist  of  greatest  ability  on  a  level  with 
one  of  the  least  skill  and  merit. 

Sect.  11.  The  Keactionary  Natural  School  preceding  the  decline 
OF  Italian  Art;  originating  with  Caravaggio,  and  adorned  by 
Salvator  Eosa. 

As  already  intimated  the  first  spring  of  aspiring  genius  is  after  a 
style  original  and  truly  natural ;  as  is  seen  in  the  early  bent  of  Ea- 
phael,  Guido  and  Guercino.  This  is  the  history  of  art  in  a  nation 
as  in  the  individual.  The  first  great  poets  of  Greece  and  of  England, 
the  first  true  artists  of  Italy  and  of  Germany  were  pre-eminently  of 
the  Natural  School.  Forgetful  that  culture  which  even  genius  needs  for 


CARAVAGGIO  AND  SALVATOR  ROSA.      657 

a  sustained  flight  must  never  cease  to  be  progressive,  artists  and 
schools  of  art  have  soon  become  stereotyped ;  the  master  only  repeat- 
ing himself,  both  in  his  own  productions  and  in  his  pupils.  Unmind- 
ful, again,  that  this  progress  can  only  come  from  an  ever  stimulating 
aspiration  for  originality  united  with  the  comprehensiveness  given  by 
liberal  culture,  schools  eclectic  in  principle  have  bound  too  tight 
the  fetters  of  authority,  needed  indeed  by  genius,  till  bursting  from 
the  galling  bonds,  aspiring  minds  have  rushed  to  the  opposite  ex- 
treme of  lawlessness  as  to  style  in  letters  and  art.  It  is  in  this  law 
of  the  impulse  of  genius,  so  illustrated  in  the  history  of  both  art  and 
letters,  that  the  rise  of  the  Eeactionary  Natural  School  preceding  the 
decline  of  art  in  Italy  is  probably  to  be  found. 

The  same  unartistic  spirit  of  imitation,  degenerating  into  man- 
nerism, which  aroused  Caracci  only  fifteen  years  earlier  to  seek 
relief  in  eclecticism,  inspired  Caravaggio  to  force  a  reform  by  a 
return  to  naturalism.  M.  Angeli  Amerighi,  called  Caravaggio 
from  the  town  where  he  was  born  A.  D.  1569,  was  in  youth  a  paint- 
grinder  for  an  artist  at  Milan,  who  aroused  his  ambition  to  become 
himself  an  artist.  Going  to  Venice  he  studied  the  works  of  Gior- 
gione,  and  became  at  first  an  imitator.  Being  of  a  passionate  tem- 
per and  dissolute  in  habits,  he  commenced  a  wandering  life,  and  adopted 
a  style  of  painting  in  keeping.  At  Rome  he  killed  a  companion  of 
his  revels ;  and  fled  to  Sicily,  but  was  pursued,  attacked  and  severely 
wounded  by  assassins.  Pardoned  by  the  Pope  he  left  Sicily  for 
Rome  again ;  but  being  roughly  assailed  on  landing  at  Civita  Vec- 
chia,  and  stripped  of  everything,  he  undertook  to  w^alk  to  the  city  a 
distance  of  forty  miles,  his  wounds  became  inflamed,  and  ere  he 
reached  the  gate  he  sank  down  and  died  of  exhaustion  at  the  age  of 
forty  years.  He  painted  indeed  from  nature ;  but  from  unnatural 
scenes  of  passion  and  lust  met  in  the  dens  of  infamy,  seldom  seen 
and  scarcely  dreamed  of  by  the  mass  of  virtuous  society.  There  is 
a  power  and  a  pathos  about  his  best  works  at  Rome ;  arising  from 
the  passion  which  was  real  in  the  artist  and  truly  transferred  to  his 
canvas,  and  from  the  dark  shadows,  so  in  contrast  with  the  sweet 
clear  light  of  ordinary  life,  ever  settling  on  the  pathway  of  men  that 
"love  darkness  rather  than  light  because  their  deeds  are  evil." 
Caravaggio's  style  in  themes  appropriate  was  masterly;  a  large 
part  of  his  subjects  were  after  Schiller's  early  literary  fancies  in  his 
Robbers,  scenes  of  murder,  sorcery  and  robbery ;  his  "  Gamester" 
being  a  type.  In  themes  of  a  religious  cast,  however,  nothing  could 
be  more  inappropriate ;  Kugler  saying  of  the  very  beat  of  them,  his 

4  H 


658  ART   CRITICISM. 

"  Entombment  of  Christ  in  the  Vatican,"  that  it  is  *'  too  like  the 
funeral  ceremony  of  a  gipsy  chief." 

Caravaggio  had  numerous  imitators  among  young  artists  of  genius, 
many  of  whom,  however,  when  their  judgment  matured,  changed 
their  style  to  one  less  passionate  and  more  gentle,  both  in  design  and 
shading;  which  perhaps  Caravaggio  would  have  done  had  his  life 
been  spared.  While  many  for  a  time  were  in  love  with  his  style 
who  afterwards  abandoned  it,  many  others  with  more  or  less  of 
modification  adopted  it  as  a  permanent  method ;  among  whom  were 
several  foreign  artists  as  Vouet  and  Valentin  of  France,  Corenzio,  a 
Greek,  and  Ribera  the  eminient  Spanish  painter,  settled  at  Naples. 

Shortly  after  Raphael's  death  a  rival  style  to  his  had  been  intro- 
duced at  Naples  by  one  of  his  pupils,  Polidora  Caldara.  At  first  an 
imitator  at  Rome  of  his  master,  going  to  Naples  he  broke  suddenly 
into  a  style  quite  opposite :  his  designs  being  pictures  of  passion  in 
excess  and  his  coloring  in  deep  brown  hues  grand  but  gloomy.  At 
a  later  day  Ribera  called  "  Lo  Spagnoletto,"  the  little  Spaniard,  born 
A.  D.  1593,  who  was  at  first  a  pupil  of  his  relative  Ribalto  in  Spain, 
then  of  Caravaggio,  became  the  leading  spirit  in  a  Naturalist  School 
of  Art  at  Naples ;  where  he  spent  forty  years  of  his  life.  Many  of 
his  works  show  the  influence  of  his  early  instruction  in  the  liveliness 
of  their  coloring ;  some  of  his  sacred  themes  are  chaste  in  design  and 
admirable  in  execution ;  but  most  of  his  works,  treasured  at  Naples 
and  Madrid,  are  scenes  of  horror,  such  as  martyrdoms  and  exe- 
cutions. 

The  last  among  the  truly  able  painters  of  this  school  was  Salvator 
Rosa.  The  school  closed  as  it  began,  with  a  wild  adventurer  as  its 
great  representative.  Born  near  Naples,  A.  D.  1615,  Salvator  hav- 
ing acquired  the  art  of  sketching  at  the  age  of  eighteen  years,  made 
an  art  tour  to  the  mountain  dens  of  banditti,  among  whom  he  took 
sketches  for  future  use.  Returning  he  executed  cheap  pictures  on 
paper  to  gain  means  to  support  his  family,  left  dependent  by  his 
father's  death.  One  of  these  falling  into  the  hands  of  an  artist,  his 
merit  was  discovered;  and  he  was  drawn  to  the  School  of  Ribera. 
Visiting  Rome  at  about  twenty  years  of  age  he  became  eminent  in  the 
threefold  capacity  of  actor,  musician,  and  painter.  During  the  po- 
litical revolution  that  arose  shortly  after  at  Naples,  he  returned  and 
joined  the  insurgents;  after  whose  defeat  he  escaped  to  Florence, 
painted  awhile,  and  then  went  to  Rome  where  he  remained  till  his 
death.  His  conspiracy  of  Catiline  is  a  specimen  of  his  design  in 
historical    subjects;    the    figures    being    Neapolitan    revolutionary 


CHARACTEEISTICS   OF   THE   GERMAN   SCHOOL.  659 

leaders  in  ancient  Roman  costume;  while  his  head  of  a  warrior, 
fearfully  gloomy,  is  a  specimen  of  his  power  in  dark  portraiture. 
Salvator's  landscapes,  however,  are  the  true  works  of  his  originality 
and  power.  Most  of  them  are  dark,  dismal  mountain  ravines  and 
forests,  with  a  lonely  hermit  or. a  robber  band  in  the  gloom,  appear- 
ing as  the  sole  tenants. 

The  progress  of  Art  is  much  the  same  in  all  lands  and  ages. 
Beginning  with  the  childhood  effort  at  imitation,  its  teacher,  instead 
of  nature,  soon  becomes  its  model.  Breaking  in  youth  from  the 
bonds  of  authority  it  discards  too  far  the  need  of  laws  and  of 
studious  conformity  to  them.  Brought  back  in  manhood  to  system 
again,  it  works  too  much  like  the  man  of  settled  and  driving  busi- 
ness, ever  in  the  same  rut;  until  a  son  attempts  to  follow  his  father's 
method  in  a  pathway  not  his  own,  and  decline  and  failure  is  the 
result.  So  is  it  in  the  progress  of  art  in  the  nation  and  the  indi- 
vidual. The  natural  style  is  the  offspring  of  genius  in  its  early 
vigorous  but  rude  aspirings ;  but  it  is  only  the  first  stage  in  the  true 
artist's  progress.  Appearing  as  in  Giotto,  in  the  commencement  of 
Italian  progress  in  art,  it  was  legitimate  as  a  model  for  study  and  imi- 
tation. Revived,  however,  at  the  close  of  a  long  line  of  comprehen- 
sive and  cultured  artists  it  was  illegitimate.  The  School  of  the 
Naturalists,  though  in  some  respects  noble  in  its  aspiring,  was  com- 
posed of  men  like  Byron  and  Shelley  in  poetry ;  whose  fiery  spirits 
burnt  rapidly  to  the  socket  the  candle  of  their  existence ;  and  then 
left  the  world,  upon  which  they  had  gleamed  an  hour  with  a  dazzling 
but  unsteady  and  temporary  light,  all  the  darker  for  their  having 
shone  in  it. 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

THE  ADVANCE  OF  MODERN  PAINTING  IN  CENTRAL  EUROPE ;  INCLUD- 
ING GERMANY,  THE  NETHERLANDS,  HOLLAND,  AND  FRANCE ;  EMI- 
NENTLY SECULAR  IN  SUBJECTS,  NATURAL  IN  STYLE  AND  CHARAC- 
TERIZED BY  PERFECTION  OF  SHADES  IN  COLORING. 

"We  have  already  observed  that  commerce,  awakening  the  zest  for 
foreign  improvements,  and  affording  the  means  for  gratifying  that  as- 
piration, seemed  in  Italy  to  give  the  first  impulse  in  the  revival  of  true 


660  ART   CRITICISM. 

art,  alike  in  sculpture,  architecture,  and  painting.  The  same  causes 
operated  in  the  rise  of  art  in  Germany.  A  century  before  the  time 
of  Giotto  mercantile  associations  existed  between  German  and  Vene- 
tian merchants ;  as  early  as  the  days  of  Cimabue  the  Hanse  towns 
of  the  lowlands  were  leagued  for  mutual  protection  of  the  trade  that 
came  from  the  Mediterranean  to  the  Baltic,  having  Venice  in  the 
South  and  Oleron  in  the  North  as  its  chief  entrepots ;  and  when 
Albrecht  Diirer  the  founder  of  the  true  German  School  was  on  his 
visit  to  Venice  it  was  for  an  association  of  German  merchants  that 
he  painted  his  St.  Bartholomew. 

As  the  old  German  Empire  virtually  embraced  the  entire  region 
now  included  in  the  German  States,  together  with  the  Netherlands, 
or  Holland  and  Belgium,  and  also  a  part  of  France,  they  were 
closely  associated  in  the  history  of  art.  It  was  at  Cologne  on  the 
borders  of  France  that  the  first  school  really  known  to  history  arose ; 
while  at  the  same  time  there  existed  schools  not  less  advanced  though 
less  noted  at  Nuremburg  in  the  heart  of  modern  Germany  and  also 
in  Westphalia  in  the  lowlands.  The  order  of  location  mainly,  but 
in  part  also  the  order  of  time,  leads  to  the  notice,  first,  of  the  Schools 
of  Germany ;  then  of  the  Netherlands  or  of  the  Flemish  race ;  next 
of  tlie  Dutch  in  modern  Holland;  and  finally  of  the  Schools  of 
France. 

The  rise  of  art  in  Italy  was  the  revival  of  an  ancient  spirit,  awa- 
kened and  guided  by  ancient  models ;  so  that  nature  in  the  ideals  of 
former  masters  controlled  its  development.  The  Germans  had  no 
ancient  glory  in  art  to  revive,  and  no  model  but  unanalyzed  nature; 
and  the  style  developed  among  them  was  the  natural,  as  opposed  to 
instead  of  associated  with  the  classic.  The  Italians  again  lived  un- 
der the  very  overshadowing  of  the  wings  of  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction; 
and  the  reformation  which  struck  at  the  formal  past  and  sought 
primitive  simplicity  in  religious  symbols,  historic  scenes  and  person- 
ages, had  only  a  temporary  effect  to  modify  art  in  Italy ;  and  hence 
Italian  painting  remained  from  first  to  last  eminently  religious  in  its 
subjects.  The  Germans,  however,  descendants  of  a  stock  noted  in 
all  time  for  their  spirit  of  direct  antagonism  to  foreign  domination, 
remote  from  the  central  bond  of  ecclesiastical  attachment,  receiving 
the  doctrines  of  the  Reformation  from  a  secular  spirit  of  indepen- 
dence as  truly  as  from  a  yearning  for  a  more  spiritual  faith,  became 
at  once  eminently  natural  in  their  treatment  even  of  religious  themes 
and  specially  devoted  to  the  delineating  of  scenes  of  secular  life. 
Yet  again  the  Germans,  even  in  the  heart  of  their  country  at  Nurem- 


EARLY   GERMAN   PAINTERS.  661 

burg,  much  more  amid  the  fogs  of  their  seaboard,  had  a  sky  that 
never  was  free  from  the  dark  shadows  cast  by  watery  clouds ;  and  it 
was  impossible  that  they  should  conceive  such  a  sky  as  that  of  Italy, 
till  their  own  great  master  Albrecht  Diirer  roved  in  rapture  through 
what  seemed  to  the  northern  artist  enchanted  ground.  In  addition 
therefore  to  the  eminently  secular  instead  of  religious  themes,  of  the 
German  as  compared  with  the  Italian  artists,  and  their  independent 
and  natural  style  of  design  as  contrasted  with  the  artificial  and 
formal  classic,  the  German  artist  in  place  of  the  clear,  open  trans- 
parence of  an  Italian  day-light  and  the  gorgeous  glare  and  curtained 
purple  of  Venetian  night-shades,  exhibit  almost  uniformly  a  darkness 
of  gray  shade  which  belongs  even  to  the  summer  day  of  a  Northern 
sea-girt  land. 

Sect.  1.  The  Eudimentary  history  of  Painting  in  Germany  to  the 
Sixteenth  Century. 

There  is  evidence  that  in  the  middle  ages,  by  means  of  commerce 
through  Venice  with  the  East,  Byzantine  painters  penetrated  to  Ger- 
many. The  earliest  native  paintings  partake  the  traits  both  of  the 
Byzantine  and  of  the  old  Komanesque  or  Gothic  styles,  having  the 
stiff  angular  drawing  of  the  Komanesque  rather  than  the  rounded  con- 
tour of  the  Byzantine,  and  the  cold  gray  tints  of  the  West  instead  of 
the  warm  hues  and  glittering  gold  pigment  of  the  East.  Prior  however 
to  the  opening  of  the  fifteenth  century  only  one  name  of  any  note 
has  come  down  to  us  to  indicate  the  condition  of  German  art  in  those 
early  periods. 

More  than  half  a  century  after  Giotto,  an  artist  appeared  on  the 
Lower  Rhine  of  whom  this  mention  is  made  in  the  "Annals  of  the 
Dominican  Monks  at  Frankfort."  "  In  that  time.  Anno  Domini  1380, 
there  was  at  Cologne  a  most  excellent  painter;  to  whom  there  was 
not  the  like  in  his  art.  His  name  was  Wilhelm ;  and  he  made  pic- 
tures of  men  that  seemed  almost  to  be  alive,"  William  of  Cologne, 
or  de  Herre  as  he  is  called  by  old  German  authorities  probably  from 
a  small  town  of  that  name  where  he  originated,  executed  pictures 
which  are  still  treasured  for  their  merit  as  well  as  their  antiquity. 
Four  of  these  are  at  Cologne ;  two  altar  pieces,  one  in  the  Cathedral 
and  one  in  a  Church;  and  two  others,  a  Madonna  and  a  Crucifixion 
in  the  Museum  of  the  town.  At  Munich  four  paintings  are  known 
to  be  his;  each  consisting  of  a  group  of  four  saints  and  apostles 
painted  in  Gothic  niches ;  three  of  which  are  executed  upon  a  golden 
ground  after  the  Byzantine  style,  and  the  fourth  on  a  dark  back- 

56 


662  ART   CRITICISM. 

ground,  indicating  the  knowledge  of  varied  styles  in  the  artist's  day 
and  clime.  Wilhelm  established  a  school  of  art  in  which  some 
pupils  of  merit  were  developed.  The  name  of  only  Stephan,  however, 
has  been  preserved ;  called  Meister  Stephan  probably  as  a  teacher  in 
the  school  succeeding  Wilhelm ;  while  the  works  attributed  to  him 
show  true  merit.  These  are  fine  altar-pieces  executed  A.  D.  1410  in 
the  Dombild  or  Cathedral  of  Cologne;  and  a  picture  of  St.  Veronica 
receiving  the  imprint  of  Jesus'  face  on  her  handkerchief,  which  is 
preserved  in  the  Pinacothek,  or  Picture  Gallery  of  Munich ;  and  is 
regarded  one  of  the  finest  relics  of  ancient  art.  The  head  of  Jesus 
is  seen  in  black  outline  on  the  white  handkerchief;  and  the  compo- 
sition, as  well  as  the  drawing  and  coloring,  shows  a  knowledge  of 
some  of  the  higher  principles  of  art.  The  place  which,  the  German 
people  themselves  assign  to  Wilhelm  of  Cologne  and  his  school  in 
the  history  of  their  native  artists  is  indicated  in  the  series  of  historic 
frescoes  with  which  the  walls  of  the  Munich  Gallery  were  adorned 
during  the  years  1830  to  1835.  The  first  three  compartments  repre- 
sent, ^irsi,  the  connection  of  Art  with  Religion;  seco??,o^,  the  civil  estab- 
lishment and  the  religious  conversion  of  the  German  nations ;  third, 
the  triumph  of  German  architecture  in  the  erection  of  the  Cathedral 
of  Cologne;  while  the  fourth,  embodying  the  history  of  German  paint- 
ing, pictures  Wilhelm  of  Cologne  painting  a  Madonna  and  child  on 
his  knees,  and  then  dying  in  poverty ;  while  after  him  follow  A.  Diirer 
and  other  great  German  painters.  Wilhelm's  school  was  celebrated 
for  a  century. 

As  early  as  the  opening  of  the  fifteenth  century  schools  of  art  ex- 
isted, one  in  Westphalia  and  another  in  Nuremburg.  Of  that  in  West- 
phalia few  historic  memorials  are  preserved ;  and  it  is  chiefiy  inter- 
esting as  the  precursor  of  the  Flemish  Schools,  which  soon  after 
arose  in  the  Netherlands.  That  of  Nuremburg  has  a  history  more 
cherished ;  since  out  of  it  came  Albrecht  Diirer,  while  even  at  this 
day  it  has  a  new  youth  in  the  school  just  south  of  it,  at  Munich  in 
Bavaria.  One  of  the  eminent  names  in  the  line  of  Nuremburg 
painters,  who  must  have  lived  more  than  half  a  century  before 
Diirer,  was  Martin,  called  Schongauer  from  the  beauty  of  his  style. 
The  names  and  works  of  two  or  three  others  are  preserved ;  their 
style  showing  the  German  element  of  patient  and  persevering  labor. 
The  family  of  Schongauer  must  have  been  a  numerous  one  and  long 
given  to  art ;  for  in  1492  Diirer  went  to  put  himself  as  his  last 
teacher  under  three  of  this  name  at  the  town  of  Colmac.  Perhaps 
the  most  eminent  before  Diirer  was  Michael  Wohlgemuth.     The 


ESTABLISHED   GERMAN   SCHOOL   UNDER   A.    DURER.  663 

high  estimation  in  which  Diirer  held  him,  as  his  early  and  most  effi- 
cient teacher,  as  well  as  his  preserved  works,  indicate  that  he  was  an 
artist  of  ability.  A  series  of  four  of  his  pictures  are  in  the  Munich 
Gallery ;  a  Nativity,  a  Crucifixion,  a  Deposition  from  the  Cross,  and 
a  Eesurrection.  Of  these  Lord  Lindsay  remarks,  that  though  un- 
couth in  general  design,  attitude  and  drapery,  there  is  a  heavenly 
expression  about  the  countenance  of  Jesus  that  betrays  great  power 
in  the  artist.  Wohlgemuth  was  born  A.  D.  1434,  and  died  A.  D. 
1519;  and  the  sixteenth  century  opens  with  the  full  establishment  of 
a  German  character  in  the  Art  under  Diirer. 

Sect.  2.  The   establishment  of   the   Native   German   School  under 

AlBRECHT   DlJRER   AND   HaNS   HoLBEIN. 

As  we  have  seen  in  the  history  of  the  rise  and  progress  of  art 
both  in  ancient  Greece  and  in  modern  Italy,  the  greatest  genius  is 
dependent  on  instructors,  and  on  the  accumulating  collections  of 
skill  that  men  and  their  works  preceding  him  have  furnished  to 
guide  his  course.  The  independent  beginner,  though  he  be  a  prince 
in  natural  gifts,  cannot  originate  everything  and  at  once ;  just  prin- 
ciples in  design,  in  drawing  and  coloring,  the  best  materials  for  his 
work,  and  the  most  skilful  methods  of  employing  them.  In  the 
early  history  of  art  in  Germany,  as  in  Greece  and  Italy,  it  was  again 
illustrated  that  from  the  necessity  of  man's  nature  progress  must  be 
gradual,  even  among  a  people  eminent  for  those  qualities  which 
secure  ultimate  perfection.  It  was  a  full  century  from  the  time 
that  William  of  Cologne  had  reached  the  zenith  of  his  original  and 
native  excellence,  before  even  the  dawn  of  the  day  when  the  old 
Gothic  drawing  and  Byzantine  coloring  was  triumphed  over,  and  a 
style  deserving  to  be  called  the  native  German  was  heralded  by  the 
birth  of  its  acknowledged  head. 

Albrecht  Durer,  commonly  known  in  English  etymology  as  Al- 
bert Durer,  was  born  at  Nuremburg  A.  D.  1471.  His  father,  a 
goldsmith,  reluctantly  yielded  to  his  son's  bent ;  allowing  him  at  the 
age  of  fifteen  years  to  enter  the  studio  first  of  Hugo  Martin,  then  of 
Michael  Wohlgemuth.  After  four  years  under  this  able  master,  at 
the  age  of  twenty-one  he  spent  three  years  in  visiting  diflTerent  parts 
of  Germany  and  the  Netherlands,  making  the  acquaintance  of  artists, 
and  studying  for  a  time  under  the  Schongauers.  Keturning  home 
at  the  age  of  twenty-four  years  to  Nuremburg,  he  married  and  com- 
menced practice  as  an  artist.  Almost  immediately  he  came  into 
public  notoriety,  first  as  an  engraver,  then  as  a  painter.     His  new 


664  ART  CRITICISM. 

and  greatly  improved  method  of  engraving  brought  him  to  the 
notice  of  the  Emperor  Maximilian  I. ;  and  soon  after,  his  bold  inven- 
tion, and  the  energy  thrown  into  his  drawing,  won  the  special  applause 
of  the  Court.  One  day  as  Diirer  mounted  on  a  ladder  leaning 
against  the  wall  of  a  saloon  in  the  imperial  palace,  was  tracing  the 
outline  of  one  of  his  fine  designs,  the  Emperor  and  some  of  his  cour- 
tiers entered.  As  the  artist  was  reaching  to  one  side  at  his  work  the 
ladder  seemed  likely  to  slide ;  when  the  Emperor  beckoned  one  of 
his  suite  to  hold  it.  He  hesitating,  and  calling  for  a  servant,  the 
Emperor  stepped  himself  to  the  ladder  and  held  it  till  the  drawing 
was  completed.  When  the  artist  descended,  the  Emperor,  in  pre- 
sence of  his  courtiers,  conferred  on  Diirer  the  rank  and  immunities 
of  a  nobleman,  that  he  might  never  again  be  deemed  an  inferior ; 
saying  as  he  proclaimed  the  artist's  new  title ;  "  Know  that  this 
painter  is  already  more  than  a  noble  by  his  talent.  I  can  easily 
make  a  peasant  a  nobleman ;  but  with  all  my  power  I  should  never^ 
be  able  to  make  a  nobleman  such  an  artist  as  Albrecht  Durer." 

In  1506,  when  thirty-five  years  of  age,  Dtirer  went  by  the  aid  of 
his  warm  friend,  Pirkheimer,  a  Senator  of  Nuremburg,  to  visit 
Italy.  Received  with  high  honor  at  Venice,  he  painted  for  his  coun- 
trymen, who  were  merchants  there,  a  St.  Bartholomew;  thence  he  went 
to  Bologna  to  study  perspective ;  at  Florence  he  made  the  acquaintance 
of  Raphael,  for  whose  early  genius  he  conceived  a  high  esteem ;  but 
though  enraptured  with  the  climate  and  the  art  spirit  of  Italy,  he 
returned  the  next  year,  1507,  to  Nuremburg  with  none  of  his  char- 
acteristic features  of  style  essentially  modified.  Indeed  in  no  material 
respect  was  there  a  correction  of  his  acknowledged  faults,  which  were 
an  excess  of  the  dramatic  in  his  composition,  a  stiffness  in  the  bold 
outline  of  his  drawing,  a  lack  of  breadth  affecting  his  perspective, 
and  an  exuberance  of  fancy  both  in  the  execution  and  conception  of 
his  works.  He  was,  however,  a  true  master  in  art ;  as  such  he  was 
courted  by  Charles  V.  and  Maximilian;  he  was  the  favorite  espe- 
cially of  men  of  letters;  and  his  works  were  sought  in  almost- 
every  large  German  city.  Always  religious  in  his  inclinations, 
making  most  of  his  studies  Scripture  themes,  he  became  an  adherent 
of  the  doctrines  of  the  Reformation,  and  had  as  his  special  and  con- 
genial friends  such  men  as  Melancthon  and  Erasmus ;  he  painted 
the  portraits  of  the  great  leaders  in  religious  reform ;  and  in  his 
Christian  themes  chose  instead  of  the  ideal  and  classic  conceptions 
of  Italian  artists,  original  and  sometimes  perhaps  too  independent 
creations  of  his  own  imagination.     In  1520  Diirer  made  a  second 


) 


INFLUENCE  OF  REFORMATION  ON  DURER  AND  CRANACH.        665 

visit  of  four  years  to  the  Netherlands ;  spending  some  time  in  con- 
genial professional  interchange  with  Lucas  of  Leyden,  and  being 
f^ted  as  a  prince  at  Antwerp,  Aix  La  Chapelle  and  Cologne.  On 
his  return  a  marked  change  appeared  in  his  style  from  the  dramatic 
to  sober  simplicity ;  Melancthon  the  great  scholar  of  the  Keforma- 
tion,  stating  that  Diirer  confessed  to  him  he  had  fallen  short  of  his 
present  conception  of  the  simple  spiritual  majesty  belonging  to 
sacred  themes;  a  confession  common  to  men  of  true  genius,  who 
grow  in  spirituality  as  they  mature  in  power.  Though  honored  by 
men  of  the  highest  intellectual  attainments,  Diirer  seems  to  have 
been  specially  unfortunate  in  his  female  associations.  His  marriage, 
urged  by  his  father,  was  uncongenial ;  the  daughter  of  Maximilian 
treated  him  with  arrogance,  rejecting  his  noble  present  of  a  por- 
trait of  her  father  and  of  others  of  his  works ;  and  the  wife  of  the 
Senator  of  Nuremburg,  who  sought  his  advancement,  openly  opposed 
her  husband  in  his  generous  patronage.  These  trying  obstacles  seem 
to  have  worn  upon  his  sensitive  spirit.  He  died  at  the  age  of  fifty- 
seven  years,  A.  D.  1528;  universally  acknowledged,  both  during 
and  since  his  day,  the  establisher  of  the  Native  German  School  in 
Painting. 

Contemporary  with  Diirer,  born  one  year  later,  A.  D.  1472,  was 
Lucas  Cranach,  the  great  Saxon  painter.  He  was  court  painter  to 
three  successive  electors  of  Saxony ;  accompanying  the  first  of  the 
three  on  a  visit  to  Palestine.  He  was  more  devoted  to  the 'reformed 
doctrines  than  even  Diirer ;  being  the  intimate  friend  of  Luther,  Me- 
lancthon and  others.  His  style  had  less  of  the  bold  grandeur  of 
Diirer,  and  more  of  grace  and  simplicity.  He  had  the  fault  of 
excess  in  fancy ;  and  delighted  in  the  anachronism  of  introducing 
Luther  and  his  associates  in  scenes  such  as  the  Crucifixion  and  the 
Last  Supper;  a  fault  less  excusable  than  the  earlier  custom  of 
bringing  monks  into  kindred  scenes,  since  it  was  directly  opposed  to  the 
professed  spirit  of  the  Keformation,  and  was  designed  to  exalt  Luther 
in  a  merely  controversial  aspect.  Cranach  was  an  able  artist,  and 
the  virtual  founder  of  a  Saxon  School. 

After  these  two  artists  Altdorfer,  a  pupil  of  Diirer,  deserves  men- 
tion ;  who  perverted  his  master's  style  by  giving  too  loose  a  rein  to 
his  fancy.  He  is  noted  for  the  romantic  scenery,  and  other  associa- 
tions, made  to  cluster  about  both  his  secular  and  his  sacred  themes ; 
as  is  seen  in  his  "  Victory  of  Darius  over  Alexander,"  and  in  his 
"  Birth  of  Christ.  The  next  great  master  of  Germany  prior  to  the 
modern  period  was  Hans  Holbein,  born  1495,  whose  history  belongs 
bd^  4  1 


666  ART   CRITICISM. 

to  English  as  well  as  German  art.  The  son  of  a  painter,  he  early 
showed  the  ability  of  his  later  years  in  portrait  and  historical  paint- 
ing. When  about  thirty  years  of  age  he  made  the  acquaintance  of 
Erasmus ;  and  as  an  artist  fostered  by  this  reformer  went  at  his  sug- 
gestion to  England ;  from  which  country  Italian  artists  were  then 
virtually  excluded  by  the  position  of  Henry  VIII.  towards  the  Pope. 
Holbein's  excellence  was  the  fine  relief  he  gave  to  heads  in  portraits, 
together  with  an  air  of  ease  and  animation  in  expression. 

The  Native  German  School  was  a  witness  to  the  fact  that  while 
art  is  ever  the  courted  handmaid  of  religion,  spiritual  Christianity 
has  proved  its  higher  inspirer,  giving  shape  to  its  conceptions  and 
making  its  productions  subservient  to  its  high  ends.  The  lives  of 
Diirer  and  of  Holbein  showed  that  while  a  national  prejudice,  espe- 
cially when  it  has  a  foundation  in  religious  differences,  may  alienate 
monarchs  and  people,  it  cannot  break  up  the  brotherhood  of  lovers 
of  art,  nor  make  artists  to  be  everywhere,  as  citizens  of  the  world, 
courted  guests  in  every  form  of  civil  government. 

Sect.  3.  The  Revivai.,  at  the  close  of  the  Eighteenth  Century,  of 
the  formaii  and  ]mystic  style  by  overbeck ;  of  the  ideal  historic 
BY  Cornelius  ;  and  the  restoration  of  the  natural  style  by  the 

DUSSELDORF   SCHOOL. 

In  all  progress  there  is  a  tendency  to  extremes  which  leads  to  re- 
action ;  a  reaction,  however,  only  temporary,  from  which  there  is  a 
speedy  recovery,  and  the  gathering  of  a  new  impulse  for  a  yet  more 
decided  onward  move.  All  natural  growth  is  by  stages ;  the  rapid 
development  of  the  days  of  showers  being  succeeded  by  the  check 
of  drought ;  and  the  increase  of  summer  being  followed  by  the  com- 
plete arrest  and  even  loss  which  ice-bound  winter  entails.  Even 
religious  reforms,  in  the  spread  of  genuine  Christianity,  are  not  exempt 
from  this  law.  The  reformation  of  the  fifteenth  century,  in  Germany 
as  in  other  lands,  had  men  of  extreme  views  as  its  leaders ;  it  was 
continued  by  men  of  more  sober  and  less  revolutionary  ideas ;  while 
many,  opposed  to  its  end  and  spirit  were  led  to  a  reactionary  reli- 
gious course.  The  progress  of  art  in  Germany  was  subjected  to  the 
same  irregularity  of  progress.  That  reaction  showed,  as  ordinarily, 
three  tendencies ;  first  the  latitudinarian,  based  on  extreme  indepen- 
dence of  thought  and  rationalistic  foundations  of  religious  theories ; 
second  the  conservative,  leading  to  a  return  to  old  ecclesiastical 
statutes ;  third  the  medium,  retaining  all  tliat  was  valuable  in  the 
past,  and  adapting  it  to  the  new  spirit  of  progress  pervading  the  ages. 


REACTION   IN   THE   REFORMATION.  667 

Albert  Diirer  and  Lewis  Cranach  had  so  rigidly  adhered  to  the 
spirit  of  the  reformers  in  the  style  of  art  established  by  them  that 
Diirer's  visit  to  Italy  and  even  his  intimate  personal  acquaintance 
with  Raphael  had  wrought  no  softening  change  in  the  naturally  vigor- 
ous, yet  directly  unclassic  manner  of  drawing  which  was  peculiarly  his 
own  and  which  became  the  German  type;  and  yet  age  and  Melanc- 
thon's  mild  criticisms  chastened  his  method.  Towards  the  close  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  German  scholarship  began  to  show  that  fond- 
ness for  philological  criticism  which  has  culminated  in  the  nine- 
teenth century.  The  impulse  in  this  direction  given  to  general 
thought  in  Germany  by  Niebuhr,  and  especially  by  the  two  Schlegels, 
was  naturally  communicated  to  artists.  This  general  return  to  an- 
cient authority  took  two  features  in  two  diiferent  classes  of  minds ;  the 
one  resting  in  the  approximate  ancient  of  ecclesiastical  Roman  art, 
and  the  other  in  the  remoter  ancient  of  the  classic  Grecian.  An 
eminent  leader  of  this  reaction  was  the  Sculptor  Schadow;  who, hav- 
ing studied  and  adopted  the  antique  style  at  Rome,fixedhis  residence 
in  1788  at  Vienna  where  he  attracted  the  notice  of  aspiring  young 
German  artists  and  aided  in  giving  development  to  the  revived  style 
in  painting  originating  with  his  own  son,  and  yet  more  with  Cornelius 
and  Overbeck;  three  artists  born  within  two  years  of  each  other. 
In  opposition  to  this  tendency  to  both  the  Roman  and  the  Grecian 
antique,  at  a  later  period  Lessing  and  others  established  a  school 
of  the  real  in  contrast  with  the  ideal  natural,  and  allied  to  the  Re- 
formed rather  than  the  Roman  Church. 

The  decided  Roman  tendency  found  its  eminent  representative  in 
Friederich  Overbeck.  Born  A.  D.  1789  at  Ltibeck,  at  the  age  of 
seventeen  he  went  to  Vienna,  then  at  twenty-one  to  Rome,  as  a 
student  of  art;  imbibing  the  spirit  of  the  revival  of  the  ancient  style. 
The  next  year  after  his  arrival  at  Rome  he  showed  himself  a  leader 
among  his  associates,  Cornelius,  Schadow  and  others,  by  a  painting 
of  a  Madonna  which  at  once  gave  him  the  rank  of  a  master.  Going 
beyond  his  teachers,  however,  led  by  his  peculiarly  devout  nature 
and  sustained  by  his  ability  as  an  artist,  he  became  at  twenty-five 
years  a  member  of  the  Roman  Church  and  devoted  himself  to  reli- 
gious themes.  His  style  assumed  the  dreamy  mystic  cast  peculiar  to 
his  own  spirit;  and  for  more  than  fifty  years  Rome  has  been  the  cen- 
tre of  his  labors.  For  a  time  Overbeck  had  many  pupils  and  imi- 
tators; but  these  were  mostly  attracted  to  the  school  with  which 
Overbeck  at  first  had  been  associated. 

The  leader  who  steadily  pursued  the  path  marked  out  for  the  new 


668  ART   CRITICISM. 

developement,  was  Cornelius.  Born  in  1787  at  Dusseldorf,  his  boy- 
hood spent  in  the  Dusseldorf  Gallery  of  which  his  father  was  in- 
spector, he  early  caught  the  spirit  of  the  great  Flemish  master 
Eubens.  Trained  in  the  Dusseldorf  Academy,  at  the  age  of  nineteen 
years  he  received  a  public  commission  which  revealed  his  fondness 
for  the  style  of  fresco  perfected  by  Raphael ;  and,  throwing  off  the  tram- 
mels which  the  restrictions  of  easel  painting  imposed,  he  assumed  the 
bold,  free,  open  method  of  drawing  which  fresco  painting  encourages. 
Going  to  Eome  in  1810,  the  same  year  with  Overbeck  and  others  of 
kindred  taste,  an  artistic  German  brotherhood  was  gathered  at  an  old 
Convent  which  became  a  wonder  to  the  artists  at  Rome.  After  Over- 
beck's  virtual  withdrawal  Cornelius  was  the  acknowledged  leader  in 
the  newly  adopted  style.  He  remained  at  Rome  nine  years;  during 
w^hich  he  established  a  European  reputation  as  the  restorer  of  fresco- 
painting.  Invited  in  1819  to  take  charge  of  the  Dusseldorf  Gallery 
in  Lower  Prussia,  Cornelius  infused  the  spirit  of  the  new  developement 
into  that  old  and  illustrious  institution.  After  ten  years  at  Dussel- 
dorf Cornelius  was  invited  to  attempt  at  Munich  what  he  had  accom- 
plished at  Dusseldorf  so  fully  that  the  prosecution  of  his  work  could 
be  entrusted  to  his  pupil.  At  Munich  he  remained  four  years  and  en- 
tirely reorganized  its  efficient  Academy.  Returning  again  to  Rome  he 
remained  eight  years;  when  he  was  drawn  to  Berlin  by  the  king  of 
Prussia.  A  Catholic  in  his  Church  relations  Cornelius  has  a  religious 
spirit  everywhere  acceptable.  Thoroughly  imbued  with  the  love  of 
the  classic,  his  illustrations  of  the  Nibelungen  Lied,  the  Iliad  of  Ger- 
many, are  so  thoroughly  national  that  they  are  the  delight  of  the 
common  people.  His  largest,  and  in  some  respects  most  noble  work, 
is  the  "Judgment"  at  Munich,  occupying  a  space  sixty-four  by  thirty 
feet.  As  the  restorer  of  the  ideal  historic  in  fresco  Cornelius  is  the 
great  master  of  Modern  Germany ;  about  whom  a  galaxy  of  names 
of  almost  equal  lustre  gather. 

Here  the  most  appropriate  mention  is  perhaps  made  of  Raphael 
Mengs;  cosmopolitan  in  nationality,  encyclopedic  in  learning,  and 
eclectic  in  art  methods;  a  critical  writer  of  worth,  and  a  genuine  in- 
spirer  of  young  artists.  Born  A.  D.  1728  in  Bohemia,  early  promoted 
to  be  royal  professor  in  his  native  country,  he  was  appointed  painter 
to  the  king  of  Spain  in  1761  and  head  of  the  Academy  of  Florence 
in  1769.  As  the  special  friend  of  Winckelmann,  as  well  as  by  his 
own  prominence  as  a  royal  protege,  he  acquired  extended  reputation. 
His  written  treatises,  more  than  his  works,  give  him  rank  as  a  leader 
in  German  painting. 


R.    MENGS;   DUSSELDORF   SCHOOL;    FLEMISH   SCHOOL.        669 

Within  the  last  half  century  quite  a  different  tendency  has  ap- 
peared in  the  yet  developing  spirit  of  German  art;  the  revived  inde- 
pendent German  style  of  Albert  Diirer,  with  its  decided  Protestant 
characteristic  in  themes  and  its  bold  naturalness  and  nationality  in 
drawing  and  accessories;  as  a  leader  in  which  style  Lessing  has  been 
prominent.  Born  in  1808,  his  father,  a  Prussian  officer,  allowed 
Karl  at  the  age  of  sixteen  to  enter  the  architectural  school  at  Berlin. 
His  taste,  however,  was  for  painting ;  and  after  studying  under  two 
masters  at  Berlin,  he  entered  the  Dusseldorf  Academy,  then  under 
Schadow,  who  had  succeeded  Cornelius.  Lessing  caught  the  ideal 
style,  and  painted  several  pieces  after  it  upon  classic  and  historic 
themes.  At  the  age,  however,  of  twenty-four  years  he  developed  a 
spirit  and  a  style  entirely  unlike  that  of  his  master ;  selecting  themes 
of  the  intensest  modern  interest,  throwing  into  them  an  energy  of 
passion  and  a  rich,  bold  imaginative  design  which  separated  him 
from  his  associates  at  the  Dusseldorf  school ;  of  which  he  became  the_ 
controlling  spirit.  His  themes  "Huss  before  the  Council  of  Con- 
stance" and  the  "Martyrdom  of  Huss"  indicate  his  religious  bias. 
The  methods  of  Lessing  are  characterized  by  the  faults  and  excel- 
lences, by  the  lack  of  grace  in  outline  and  the  mellowness  in  hues 
belonging  to  the  Dusseldorf  School  in  historic  themes ;  but  in  land- 
scape he  is  a  perfect  master  of  local  hues  and  shadows.  The  truth- 
ful reality  which  Bendemann,  of  Jewish  descent,  has  given  to  such 
themes  as  the  "Captives  of  Judah  on  the  Euphrates,"  shows  another 
fruit  of  the  new  direction  in  art  given  to  German  genius  at  the 
modern  Dusseldorf  Academy. 

Sect.  4.  The  Establishment  of  the  Flemish  School  by  H.  and  J.  Van 
Eyck  ;  Characterized  by  Lifelike  Naturalness  and  Labored  Color- 
ing. 

We  have  observed  both  in  Italy  and  in  Germany  the  influence  of 
commerce  in  opening  a  pathway  for  the  progress  of  art;  at  once 
giving  acquaintance  with  the  treasures  in  art  of  the  older  nations 
and  thus  awakening  a  taste  for  art,  and  also  at  the  same  time  furnish- 
ing the  means  for  the  gratification  of  that  taste.  In  the  low  country, 
on  the  inland  sea  which  was  in  the  Middle  Ages  the  centre  of  the 
trade  of  Northern  with  Southern  Europe,  in  the  towns  where  the 
Flemish  language  prevailed,  made  illustrious  once^by  the  Counts  of 
Flanders  and  now  absorbed  into  the  kingdom  of  Belgium,  the  spirit 
of  art  early  manifested  itself  and  hastened  to  an  independent  deve- 
lopment.    At  Bruges,  the  central  depot  among  the  Hanse  towns  of 


670  ART   CEITICISM. 

that  former  day  and  now  an  important  seaport  of  Belgium,  the 
Flemish  School  was  virtually  established  by  the  Van  Eycks,  during 
the  same  period,  shortly  after  Giotto's  age,  when  the  leading  Schools 
of  Northern  Italy  were  taking  their  characteristic  form. 

Hubert  Van  Eyck  was  born  A.  D.  1366;  and  John,  or  Jan,  his 
abler  brother,  about  A.  D.  1370.  They  had  breathed  from  child- 
hood the  atmosphere  of  a  painter's  studio;  their  father  being  a 
worthy  representative  of  the  reign  of  Byzantine  art.  Leaving  their 
obscure  native  town  when  young,  with  their  sister  Margaret  also  an 
artist,  the  brothers  went  to  practice  their  art  in  the  city  of  Bruges  as 
a  centre  promising  a  field  both  for  independent  study  and  for  patron- 
age. Called  to  Ghent  to  paint  a  large  altar  piece,  they  united  in  a 
design  of  extent  then  unattempted;  during  whose  execution  both 
Hubert  and  Margaret  fell  a  prey  to  fatal  disease.  The  theme  of  the 
piece  was  the  "Adoration  of  the  Lamb,"  which  embraced  more  than 
three  hundred  figures.  John's  fraternal  devotion  led  him  to  intro- 
duce his  brother  Hubert  among  the  redeemed,  as  a  finely-formed 
man,  clad  in  blue  velvet  trimmed  with  ermine  and  riding  on  a 
magnificent  horse ;  while  he  placed  his  own  plainer  portrait  in  the 
back-ground  clothed  in  a  simple  suit  of  black.  This  great  work, 
painted  in  sections,  is  now  divided  between  the  Berlin  Museum,  the 
Gallery  of  the  Louvre  at  Paris,  and  the  Cathedral  at  Ghent.  Two 
years  after  Hubert's  death,  which  occurred  in  1426,  Philip,  Duke  of 
Burgundy,  sent  John  as  one  whose  genius  in  art  made  him  a  most 
fit  representative  on  an  embassy  to  Portugal.  Returning  in  1432  he 
removed  again  to  Bruges  where  he  died  in  1445.  The  Van  Eycks 
were  originally  masters  in  landscape  painting;  John  especially 
excelling  in  aerial  perspective.  It  was  indeed  to  John's  persevering 
efforts  to  find  an  improved  method  of  giving  transparency  to  atmos- 
pheric effects  that  the  world  became  indebted  for  the  method  of  em- 
ploying oil  as  a  vehicle  in  mixing  pigments.  The  characteristic  of 
the  Flemish  School,  eminent  in  landscape,  is  a  dark  shading  admira- 
ble in  twilight  scenes,  the  natural  suggestion  of  the  murky  lowland  sky. 
John,  however,  in  the  grand  work  alluded  to  above,  has  caught  the 
tone  of  a  southern  clime ;  characterized  by  Humboldt  in  his  "  Cos- 
mos "  as  "  embellished  with  orange,  date,  and  cypress  trees,  fanned 
by  gentle  breezes,  which,  from  their  extreme  truth  to  nature,  impart 
a  solemn  and  imposing  character  to  the  other  dark  masses  in  the 
picture."  The  rank  held  by  this  artist  in  his  own  age,  is  indicated 
by  the  Latin  epitaph  on  his  tomb;  whose  translation  imports,  "He 
painted  breathing  forms,  and  covered  the  earth's  surface  with  flowery 


THE   VAN   EYCKS   AND   THEIR  SUCCESSORS.  671 

vegetation,  perfecting  every  work  to  very  life.  In  this  Phidias  and 
Apelles  must  give  place  to  him ;  and  Polycletus  be  considered  his 
inferior  in  art." 

The  style  of  J.  Van  Eyck  became  the  standard  in  the  Flemish 
School  for  more  than  a  century.  Eoger  of  Bruges,  a  pupil  of  Van 
Eyck,  was  noted  as  the  teacher  of  other  pupils  who  perpetuated  the 
school.  Among  these  Hans  Hemling  was  eminent;  born  about 
A.  D.  1430,  deceased  about  A.  D.  1500.  A  soldier  as  well  as  artist, 
his  choice  works,  which  he  painted  as  thank-offerings  for  his  recovery 
from  dangerous  wounds,  are  found  in  the  Hospital  of  St.  John  at 
Bruges.  Most  of  these  are  altar  pieces ;  and  they  are  gems  of  the 
Flemish  School.  A  later  eminent  artist  of  this  school  was  Jan 
Mabuse,  born  A.  D.  1499,  deceased  A.  D.  1562.  Less  pious  than 
most  of  the  school,  leading  a  vagrant  life,  his  themes  were  farther 
from  the  spirit  of  the  religious,  and  marked  with  a  fascinating 
naturalness.  Contemporary  with  A.  Durer,  partaking  the  spirit  of 
the  Reformation,  he  found  his  way  to  England  under  Henry  VIII. 
and  painted  portraits  of  Court  personages. 

The  spirit  of  the  native  Flemish  School,  thus  developed,  was  not 
confined  to  Bruges.  At  Antwerp  appeared  Quentin  Matsys;  a 
blacksmith  in  early  life,  whose  genius  in  art,  we  learn,  was  roused 
by  his  admiration  of  a  young  lady  whose  condition  in  life  was  above 
his  own,  and  whose  hand  he  determined  to  deserve.  In  Leyden, 
also,  the  art  of  painting  was  cultured;  and  Lucas,  called  Van 
Leyden,  became  so  eminent  for  sober  naturalness  of  style  as  to  have 
been  made  a  model  in  this  respect  by  A.  Durer,  even  when  personal 
acquaintance  with  Raphael  at  Florence  had  not  modified  his  vigorous 
native  method  of  drawing  after  nature. 

At  a  somewhat  later  period  Michael  Coxies,  a  promising  young 
Flemish  artist,  became  a  pupil  of  Raphael.  As  was  true  with  his 
Italian  pupils  so  with  this  Netherland  disciple,  Raphael  had  not  the 
human  power  to  teach  scientifically  what  he  had  reached  by  the  inspira- 
tion of  genius,  and  still  less  the  divine  power  to  create  his  own  gifts  in 
his  admirers.  The  Raphaelesque  style  was  too  much  in  contrast 
with  the  characteristics  which  had  given  an  attractive  charm  to  the 
early  Flemish  School;  its  glory  declined;  and  another  great  artist 
of  independent  genius  was  demanded  to  call  back  its  pristine  life  and 
to  develope  in  it  a  greater  perfection. 


672  ART   CRITICISM. 

Sect.  5.  The  Culminating  era  of  the  Flemish  School  under  Eubens; 
Distinguished  by  boldness  of  Invention  and  richness  of  Color- 
ing. 

The  style  of  coloring  introduced  among  the  lowland  painters  from 
Italy  could  not  be  made  to  harmonize  with  the  spirit  of  the  people 
or  the  character  of  their  climate,  when  united,  as  it  was,  to  an  affec- 
tation of  classic  correctness  in  drawing.  The  spirit  of  the  people, 
fond  of  rustic  and  even  rude  fetes,  preferred  the  most  indifferent 
scenic  paintings  that  breathed  the  life  they  loved  to  the  polished 
liveliness  of  imitators  of  Eaphael.  The  climate  of  the  lowlands 
made  the  brilliant  clearness  of  an  Italian  sky  seem  unnatural ;  unless 
the  peculiar  aspect  of  their  own  sunny  days  were  thrown  over  it.  A 
master  who  could  lead  the  popular  taste  so  as  to  improve  it,  must 
unite  a  boldness  of  invention  to  liveliness  thrown  even  into  dark 
coloring.     That  master  appeared  in  the  person  of  Rubens. 

Peter  Paul  Rubens  was  born  in  1577,  at  Cologne  on  the  Rhine, 
whither  his  parents  had  fled  during  the  distractions  of  their  native 
lowlands.  At  the  age  of  ten  years  he  was  carried  by  them  to  Antwerp 
on  their  return  home.  His  father  designed  him  for  the  law ;  but  at 
his  mother's  solicitation,  when  thirteen  years  of  age,  he  was  allowed 
to  study  painting.  Till  the  age  of  twenty-three  years  he  was  in  the 
studios  of  three  successive  Flemish  teachers;  when  the  latter,  Otto 
Van  Veen,  seeing  his  promise  advised  that  he  visit  Italy.  Then 
commenced  that  succession  of  rambling  sojourns  which  became  a 
feature  in  his  stirring  and  industrious  life.  He  first  visited  Venice 
and  studied  the  style  of  Paul  Veronese  and  Tintoretto ;  and  as  Fuseli 
intimates  "compounded  the  splendor  of  the  former  and  the  glow  of 
the  latter."  Going  thence  to  Mantua  the  duke  made  him  court- 
painter.  Soon  after,  sent  to  Spain  as  ambassador  by  the  duke,  he 
won  at  Madrid  royal  esteem  for  his  gorgeous  style  and  painted  por- 
traits of  the  king  and  of  many  of  his  courtiers.  Returning  to  Italy 
he  studied  the  works  of  Raphael  and  of  M.  Angelo.  Visiting  then 
Florence  and  Bologna  he  returned  again  to  Rome.  His  Flemish 
cast,  modified  by  his  varied  Italian  study,  became  popular  at  Rome, 
and  orders  began  to  flow  in  upon  him.  Subsequently  he  visited 
Northern  Italy,  copying  Lionardo's  Last  Supper  at  Milan,  and  exe- 
cuting at  Genoa  several  portraits  and  historical  pieces.  The  serious 
illness  of  his  mother,  after  eight  years  absence,  called  him  back  to 
Antwerp ;  and  the  flattering  proposal  of  the  archduke  to  make  him 
court-painter  determined  him  to  fix  his  residence  at  the  centre  of  his 
early  studies  and  young  aspirations,  and  to  make  a  national  reputa- 


RUBENS;    HIS   STYLE,    WORKS    AND    PUPILS.  673 

tion.  The  following  year,  A.  D.  1609,  he  married  his  first  wife;  to 
whom  he  was  tenderly  attached.  He  lived  in  an  elegant  mansion, 
his  bearing  was  courtly,  his  reputation  gathered  numerous  pupils  to 
him  from  Northern  Europe,  orders  flowed  in  upon  him,  and  for  ten 
years  of  uninterrupted  toil  his  best  productions  came  rapidly  from 
his  industrious  brush.  He  could  not  altogether  conquer  his  love  of 
travel;  in  1620  he  went  to  Paris  to  decorate  the  palace  of  the  Lux- 
emburg, in  1628  he  was  sent  as  ambassador  to  Spain,  and  in  1629  to 
England;  after  which  having  in  1626  lost  his  first  wife  he  married 
in  1630  a  beautiful  girl  of  sixteen  years,  and  for  another  ten  years 
till  his  death  in  1640  he  steadily  pursued  his  profession  at  home. 

The  characteristics  of  Rubens'  style  were  the  natural  life  in  his 
drawings  peculiar  to  the  Flemish  School,  added  to  the  gorgeous 
coloring  of  the  Venetian  School  modified  by  the  harmony  of  light 
and  shade  learned  from  the  three  great  masters  of  Italy.  His 
invention  was  boundless;  every  variety  of  scenes,  sacred,  histor- 
ical, domestic,  and  every  species  of  subjects,  landscape,  animal  and 
human  seeming  to  be  equally  comprehended  by  his  genius.  He  had 
great  personal  industry  and  system  in  his  work,  rising  early,  attend- 
ing morning  service  at  Church,  drawing  till  breakfast,  then  meeting 
his  pupils  for  his  day's  employ  in  instruction  and  supervision  of  their 
work.  The  more  skilful  of  his  pupils  he  employed  to  great  advan- 
tage for  his  own  purposes;  setting  them  to  work  up  the  parts  of  his 
own  ordered  works,  giving  to  those  skilled  in  the  separate  details 
animals  or  human  forms,  flowers  or  fruit,  landscape  or  sky ;  himself 
overseeing  and  directing  the  work  of  numerous  hands  thus  employed. 
The  works  that  bear  his  name  number  about  fourteen  hundred; 
many  of  which  were  executed  in  the  manner  mentioned,  at  second 
hand.  He  was  also  fond  of  collecting  as  well  as  executing  works 
of  art.  His  first  extended  personal  collection  he  sold  to  the  Duke 
of  Buckingham  to  be  taken  to  England.  In  making  up  a  large 
subsequent  collection  he  showed  particular  generosity  as  well  as  dis- 
crimination in  patronizing  promising  young  artists;  among  others 
purchasing  the  works  of  Vandyke  thus  giving  the  artist  both  the 
means  of  pursuing  his  art  and  a  reputation  as  a  master  in  it.  Though 
in  many  respects  objectionable  as  a  model  the  style  of  broad  and 
glowing  coloring  practiced  by  Rubens  has  made  him  a  favorite  artist, 
especially  in  the  galleries  of  his  native  land  and  of  Paris. 

Rubens  was  succeeded  by  two  eminent  pupils;  one  of  whom  Jor- 
daens  excelled  in  the  low  life  that  sometimes  entered  into  the  themes 
of  his  master;  the  other  of  whom,  Vandyke,  became  justly  famed 

57  4   K 


674  ART   CRITICISM. 

for  excellence  in  the  more  exalted  aims  of  the  Flemish  School. 
Jacob  Jordaens  born  at  Antwerp  A.  D.  1594  studied  for  a  time  un- 
der Kubens'  early  teacher;  but  when  Kubens  settled  in  his  native 
Flanders  the  skill  of  Jordaens  in  festive  scenes  drew  Rubens'  atten- 
tion, and  led  him  to  receive  and  employ  him  as  a  pupil  and  worker 
upon  many  of  his  smaller  pieces.  Becoming  successful  as  a  sketcher 
of  the  low  sportive  scenes  above  which  Rubens  sought  to  raise  the 
taste  of  his  countrymen,  he  entered  upon  an  independent  and  some- 
times antagonistic  career  as  an  artist.  He  lived  to  a  great  age, 
wrought  with  industry  and  rare  inventive  skill ;  tending  however  to 
an  exaggerated  fondness  for  gross  subjects. 

Anthony  Van  Dyck,  whose  English  title  as  Sir  Anthony  Vandyke, 
links  his  history  to  that  of  English  painting,  born  at  Antwerp,  A. 
D.  1599,  was  at  sixteen  years  of  age  a  pupil  of  Rubens.  His  genius 
is  said  to  have  been  first  brought  out  when  one  of  his  fellow-pupils  hav- 
ing accidentally  brushed  against  the  arm  of  a  figure  which  Rubens  had 
just  left  freshly  painted,  young  Anthony  relieved  the  anxiety  of  the 
unfortunate  boy  by  restoring  the  arm  so  perfectly,  that  their  master 
not  discovering  the  change,  called  his  pupil's  attention  next  day  to 
the  arm  as  a  happy  effort  of  his  own  brush.  At  the  age  of  twenty, 
in  1619,  Vandyke  went,  at  Rubens'  suggestion,  to  Italy ;  some  say 
jealousy  leading  the  master  to  seek  the  absence  of  a  rival,  though 
Rubens'  nature  seems  too  generous  to  allow  such  a  supposition.  At 
Venice  Vandyke  studied  with  admiration  the  coloring  of  Titian  and 
Paul  Veronese,  and  changed  his  Flemish  cold  hues  for  the  rich  and 
mellow  tints  of  Italian  masters.  Spending  some  time  subsequently 
at  Genoa  and  then  at  Milan,  he  returned  after  seven  years,  in  1626 
to  Antwerp,  where,  as  already  in  Italy,  orders  for  portraits  and  altar- 
pieces  poured  in  upon  him.  For  five  years  he  industriously  em- 
ployed his  brush ;  bringing  out  his  Flemish  master-pieces ;  among 
which  Reynolds  ranks  his  "Christ  Crucified  between  the  Two 
Thieves"  not  only  as  Vandyke's  best  Scripture  study,  but  "  one  of 
the  finest  pictures  in  the  world."  Invited  by  Charles  I.  to  England 
in  1632,  ten  years  of  anxious  though  eminently  successful  toil, 
attended  by  a  sumptuous  style  of  living,  undermined  the  artist's 
constitution  and  brought  him  to  an  untimely  grave.  His  latter  and 
most  brilliant  period  of  his  life  belongs  to  English  history :  but  his 
works  up  to  the  age  of  thirty-three  years  belonged  to  his  native 
Flemish  home,  and  are  among  the  master-pieces  of  the  Flemish 
School. 

The  incorporation  of  Flanders  and  of  the  Flemish  stock  into  the 


DUTCH   SCHOOLS;    REMBRANDT   THE   FIRST   MASTER.  675 

recently  established  kingdom  of  Belgium,  makes  Belgian  artists  to 
be  lineal  successors  to  the  Flemish  School.  Among  these  Wappers 
and  Gaillait  have  become  eminent  in  different  departments.  Gus- 
tave  Wappers,  born  1803,  receiving  an  early  art  training  in  the 
Academy  of  Brussels,  went  to  Paris  and  imbibed  a  taste  for  the 
romantic  style  prevalent  after  the  age  of  Napoleon.  Returning  to 
Belgium,  he  painted  historic  scenes  connected  with  the  knightly  con- 
flicts and  royal  tragedies  of  the  stirring  periods  of  French  and  Nether- 
land  annals,  winning  the  admiring  patronage  not  only  of  the  Belgian 
king  by  whom  he  has  been  made  a  baron,  but  also  of  Louis  Philippe 
of  France.  Louis  Gaillait,  born  1810,  a  student  of  painting  at 
Paris,  is  also  one  of  the  ablest  modern  historic  painters.  The  Bel- 
gian painters  are  in  style  more  allied  to  the  French  than  the  Flemish 
masters. 

Section   6.  The   Dutch   Schools;   the  exaggerated   natural   style 

ORIGINATING    WITH     KeMBRANDT  ;    THE    LOW    LIFE    OR     "gENRE"   STYLE 
WITH  THE    BrEUGHELS  ;   AND  THE   PASTORAL  LANDSCAPE  FAVORITE  WITH 

THE  Dutch  Masters, 

The  love  of  the  humorous,  implanted  in  man  for  a  wise  purpose, 
has  found  even  in  the  best  and  greatest  of  men,  from  Socrates  to 
men  of  modern  times,  a  field  for  growth,  a  garden  for  special  cul- 
ture. It  is  a  propensity  specially  liable  to  excess  and  abuse ;  as 
Cicero  and  other  writers  upon  Rhetoric  have  shown.  Artists  have 
been  among  its  most  devout  votaries ;  the  ancient  Egyptians  mingling 
the  sportive  in  the  tragic  battle-scenes  pictured  on  the  walls  of 
their  tombs ;  and  the  decline  of  Grecian  art  being  marked  by  the 
same  excess  which  made  Aristophanes  the  corrupter  of  the  Gre- 
cian drama.  The  effort  to  represent  the  ludicrous  and  grotesque  in 
art  springs  from  a  genuine  aspiration  to  copy  Nature  to  the  life  as 
seen  constantly  in  real  scenes  among  the  happy  though  uncouth 
laboring  people ;  an  aspiration  dignified  in  the  early  efforts  of  such 
artists  as  Apelles  and  Lionardo.  It  was  this  generous  yet  dangerous 
Yearning  of  young  artists  of  cheerful  spirit  which  became  the  per- 
vading genius  of  the  Dutch  masters. 

Until  the  rise  of  Rembrandt,  early  in  the  seventeenth  century,  the 
Dutch  painters  had  followed  the  Flemish  masters.  Born  on  the 
Rhine  near  Leyden,  A.  D.  1606,  Rembrandt  was  early  allowed  by 
his  father,  a  worthy  miller,  to  enter  on  the  study  of  art  at  Amster- 
dam. Returning  home  at  the  age  of  twenty,  he  made  his  father's 
mill  his  studio ;  and  it  has  been  suggested  that  his  peculiar  power  in 


67G  ART   CRITICISM. 

light  and  shade  came  from  tlie  practice  of  his  art  at  this  early  age 
in  the  lofty  garret  of  this  building  with  no  other  light  than  the  roof- 
window  which  served  as  a  ventilator.  Making  a  trip  to  the  Hague 
the  sale  of  one  of  his  pictures  for  one  hundred  florins,  gave  him  a 
consciousness  of  his  power.  Making  Amsterdam  his  residence,  he 
married  into  a  family  of  his  own  low  rank,  had  as  his  associates  the 
common  people  of  the  town,  and  spent  most  of  his  leisure  at  the 
neighboring  ale-house.  His  own  independent  bent  and  his  associa- 
tions, made  the  models  of  his  study  the  grotesque  attitudes  and  un- 
couth habiliments  of  the  jocose  companions  of  his  hours  of  recrea- 
tion. He  became  a  rapid  composer ;  executed  numerous  historical 
and  Scriptural  pieces  as  well  as  portraits ;  while  mirthful  scenes  of 
low  life  were  his  preference.  The  vulgarity  of  many  of  his  themes, 
and  his  introduction  even  into  sacred  themes  of  forms,  attitudes  and 
accessories  of  gross  conception,  would  have  placed  him  in  the  rank 
of  artists  long  since  forgotten,  were  it  not  for  that  almost  magical 
skill  in  Chiaroscuro  which  makes  Fuseli  call  him  "  a  meteor  in  art." 
In  portrait  this  fault  could  not  easily  enter.  Rembrandt's  style  as 
a  painter  was  fascinating  to  the  young  and  naturally  jovial  artists 
of  Holland ;  his  pictures  were  numerous  and  yielded  him  a  large 
income ;  his  etchings,  to  which  he  devoted  much  time,  were  master- 
pieces ;  and  he  became  thus  a  leader  in  a  new  school  of  art.  Among 
his  able  pupils  were  Gerard  Dow  and  Nicolas  Maas.  Dow  was  too 
labored  to  be  popular ;  in  portrait  spending  five  days  in  working 
upon  a  lady's  hand,  and  wearying  his  sitters  by  his  slowness ;  yet 
leaving  behind  him  a  large  list  of  finely  finished  paintings  of 
peculiar  excellence  in  light  and  shade;  painting  portraits  for 
the  profit  they  yielded,  but  delighting  in  domestic  scenes  where 
his  power  in  grouping  and  shading  could  be  displayed.  Rem- 
brandt had  also  numerous  direct  imitators ;  but  his  influence 
was  yet  greater  in  giving  direction  to  a  whole  class  of  Dutch 
artists;  leading  them  to  break  away  from  the  style  of  Rubens 
the  delineator  of  the  grand  in  high  life,  and  to  delight  in  the 
quiet  and  sw^eetness  of  rural  employ  and  pleasures.  The  degenerate 
tendency  of  this  style  was  developed  in  the  repulsive  scenes  and 
figures  favorite  with  the  Breughels ;  its  happier  development  filled 
up  the  long  life  of  Teniers  the  painter  of  the  common  people's  pas- 
times ;  while  its  highest  and  purest  aspirations  appear  in  the  charm- 
ing natural  landscape,  the  ideal  pastoral,  and  the  flower,  fruit,  fowl 
and  animal  pieces  to  which  the  best  artists  of  the  Dutch  School  have 
been  devoted. 


THE   DUTCH   BEEUGHELS   AND  TENIERS.  677 

Jan  Breughel,  the  father  of  two  more  eminent  sons,  born  A.  D. 
1510,  deceased  1570,  preceding  Kembrandt  by  several  years,  gave  a 
partial  tendency  to  the  style  fixed  by  Eembrandt ;  his  themes  being 
chiefly  village  festivals,  gipsy  scenes  and  bandit  exploits ;  but  he 
remained  associated  with  Flemish  artists.  His  two  sons,  Jan  and 
Peter,  born  the  one  A.  D.  1565  the  other  1569,  took  somewhat 
opposite  tendencies ;  though  both  tended  to  the  father's  peculiarity. 
The  elder,  called  "  Velvet  Breughel,"  from  his  soft  touches  in  color- 
ing, after  a  tour  in  Italy,  became  eminent  as  a  colorist  of  landscape 
back-grounds,  and  was  employed  in  this  special  department  by 
Rubens.  The  younger,  called  "  Hell  Breughel,"  from  the  demon- 
like pictures  of  which  he  was  fond,  seemed  to  dwell  among  witches, 
sorcerers,  robbers  and  devils.  The  influence  of  these  brothers,  par- 
ticularly of  the  latter,  gave  encouragement  to  an  extravagance  in 
picturing  the  darker  features  of  human  nature ;  which  though  in 
one  sense  natural  are  in  themselves  repulsive,  and  therefore  are  not 
only  shunned  by  the  truly  cultured,  but  seek  themselves  to  shun  the 
world's  gaze.  Growing  up  at  the  same  time  with  the  coarseness  in 
form  encouraged  by  Rembrandt,  this  picturing  of  extravagant  pas- 
sion became  an  added  feature  of  the  style  of  the  Dutch  School. 

A  happier  tendency  began  with  David  Teniers.  Born  A.  D. 
1610.  His  chief  art  training  seems  to  have  been  under  his  father, 
and  namesake;  who  delighted  in  humorous  and  sportive  themes, 
such  as  rural  festivals,  ale-house  comedy  and  grotesque  accessories ; 
but  who  was  skilled  in  lifelike  drawing  and  coloring.  The  son  early 
caught  the  spirit  of  his  father ;  and  was  fond  of  sketching  scenes  of 
peasants  and  artisans  at  their  recreations.  At  one  period  he  attempted 
the  graver  style  of  Rubens ;  but  failing  to  meet  in  it  his  own  aspira- 
tions, at  thirty  years  of  age  he  settled  upon  the  genre  or  home  scenes 
as  his  field.  This  he  pursued  till  he  was  eighty  years  old  with 
untiring  interest  and  industry.  His  methods  have  been  minutely 
described  by  students  of  his  style.  At  the  era  of  his  effort  to  assume 
a  graver  style,  he  made  his  ground  of  a  dark  brown ;  but  this  he 
afterwards  changed  to  a  silvery  light  gray,  and  in  later  life  when  his 
best  pictures  were  executed  to  a  tremulous  yellow  brown.  Upon  a 
ground  prepared  with  chalk  or  plaster  of  Paris,  he  scumbled  tints 
of  brown  or  pearly  gray ;  next  he  sketched  the  figures  and  chief 
accessories  in  bistre ;  next  he  added  the  principal  shadows  in  the 
same ;  next  he  worked  in  the  half  tones  with  delicacy  and  labored 
transparency ;  then  as  the  chief  work  he  added  the  coloring 
of  the  prominent  figures,  giving  them  a  thick  body  of  color  to 
57  * 


678  ART   CRITICISM. 

indicate  solidity ;  and  finally  throwing  in  skilfully  adjusted  spark- 
ling touches  and  glaring  tints  he  completed  his  work.  Teniers  was 
patronized  by  the  Spanish  and  Swedish  Courts ;  he  was  made  by  the 
Spanish  Viceroy  of  the  Netherlands  superintendent  of  his  gallery  of 
Spanish  and  Italian  paintings;  during  which  time  without  having 
his  own  style  affected  by  it  he  became  an  able  copyist  of  Tintoretto, 
Paul  Veronese  and  Rubens.  His  pictures  are  said  to  exceed  in  num- 
bers 1000 ;  and  many  are  of  large  size.  It  has  been  remarked  that 
"  it  would  require  a  gallery  ten  leagues  long  to  contain  all  Teniers' 
paintings."  Their  value,  varying  from  $1000  to  $10,000  each,  is 
almost  fabulous  in  amount.  Teniers  is  the  great  link  between  the 
Flemish  and  Dutch  Schools.  The  able  masters  in  the  style  which 
Teniers  ennobled  are  too  numerous  to  be  here  mentioned. 

While  thus  in  the  style  called  genre  or  home-like  the  Dutch  School 
reached  a  high  and  independent  excellence,  pastoral  landscape, 
with  the  accessories  of  animal,  bird,  fruit  and  flower  painting,  became 
a  no  less  distinctive  and  a  yet  more  permanent  and  advancing  char- 
acteristic of  this  same  School.  A't  first  the  spirit  of  Italian  ideal 
landscape  was  caught  by  Bril  and  followed  by  Both,  Cuyp  and 
others ;  their  native  wild  and  rough  landscape  scenery  was  attempted 
by  Ruysdael  and  ennobled  by  others ;  while  in  marine  views  W. 
Vander  Velde,  in  hunting  scenes  Wouvermanns,  in  animals  Snyders, 
in  fruit  and  flower-pieces  Van  Huysum,  and  the  female  artist  Kachel 
Ruisch  became  eminent.  This  prevailing  type  of  the  later  and  ablest 
Dutch  painters,  favorite  with  the  English  race,  has  made  the  works 
of  the  Dutch  School  a  special  study  with  English  critics  in  art. 

Sect.  7.  The  early  PIistory  or  the  native  French  School  ;  its  modi- 
fication UNDER  Giotto  and  Lionardo  ;  the  classic  style  of  Poussin 

AND  the  landscape  OF  ClAUDE  IN  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CeNTURY. 

The  French  people  from  the  days  of  Julius  Caesar  occupying  a 
middle  position  in  the  West  of  Europe  have  been  in  character  as  in 
location  a  connecting  link  between  the  North  and  the  South.  The 
face  of  their  country  and  their  climate  has  given  them  the  physical 
hardihood  of  the  English  people  and  at  the  same  time  the  passionate 
impulse  of  the  Italian  and  the  Spaniard.  From  the  days  of  Char- 
lemagne the  French  nation  have  aspired  by  neighboring  conquests  to 
increase  their  home  borders,  and  by  incursions  into  distant  regions  to 
acquire  renown  for  prowess  and  to  extend  their  commerce.  Borrow- 
ing much  from  intercourse  with  and  employment  of  the  artists  of 
other  countries,  in   every  era  of  their  history  the  French  have  had 


EARLY    FRENCH    MASTERS   AND   THEIR   STYLE.  679 

artists  of  great  independence  in  their  methods;  and  the  French 
School  has  never  lost  its  decided  native  character  from  the  influence 
of  the  very  ablest  artists  sent  among  them.  The  eras  of  their  civil  and 
commercial  advancement  mark  very  accurately  the  stages  of  transi- 
tion and  of  progress  in  the  history  of  French  painting. 

In  the  days  of  Charlemagne  and  his  immediate  successors  the  his- 
tory of  French  painting  is  associated  with  that  of  Germany.  The 
art  at  that  period  was  chiefly  missal  illumination ;  the  style  of  color- 
ing was  Byzantine ;  but  in  the  drawing  of  figures  in  the  picture  illus- 
trations the  mark  of  native  French  vivacity  was  apparent.  At  a 
later  day  Flemish  artists  wrought  in  the  North  of  France;  a  brief 
visit  of  Giotto  to  the  South  of  France  introduced  a  naturalness  in 
design  before  unknown ;  and  both  these  foreign  influences  tended  to 
give  a  new  impulse  to  the  native  independent  French  taste  in  paint- 
ing. This  movement  culminated  under  the  reign  of  Louis  XI., 
beginning  A.  D.  1461 ;  an  era  called  by  the  French  writers  on  Art 
the  "  Renaissance."  The  complete  triumph  of  the  royal  over  pro- 
vincial and  feudal  prerogatives,  the  consolidation  of  the  French 
nationality,  the  establishment  of  post  roads  and  the  enlargement  of 
French  commerce  gave  a  greater  comprehension  to  French  artists. 
Among  the  leaders  of  this  time  was  Jean  Fouquet,  court-painter  to 
Louis  XL ;  who  excelled  in  drawing  animal  and  human  figures  in 
repose,  though  less  skilful  in  adding  action  and  expression ;  and  who 
surpassed  his  contemporaries  in  perspective  and  chiaroscuro,  though 
his  coloring,  especially  in  countenances,  was  too  sombre  in  its  cast. 
Reve  of  Anjou  in  the  same  age  was  noted;  whose  style  partook 
much  of  the  manner  of  Van  Dyke.  Even  this  age  was  but  prelimi- 
nary in  the  progress  of  the  French  School. 

The  history  of  the  French  School  proper  opens  in  the  age  of 
Francis  L,  from  A.  D.  1515  to  1547;  whose  conquests  in  Italy 
brought  Lionardo  in  his  mature  age  and  other  Italian  artists  of 
ability  to  the  French  capital.  Francis  collected  from  Italy  casts  of 
the  antiques  and  invited  Italian  sculptors  as  well  as  painters  into  his 
dominion.  The  native  founder  of  the  then  established  French 
School,  usually  recognized  as  such,  was  J.  Cousin,  born  A.  D.  1462, 
whose  matured  powers  were  cultured  but  not  denationalized  by  Italian 
influence.  His  work  on  art  published  at  that  era  in  the  French 
language  proved  the  power  of  the  pen  to  awaken  any  people  to  love 
of  art;  while  his  "Last  Judgment,"  now  in  the  collection  of  the 
Louvre,  shows  that  the  genuine  spirit  of  the  French  people  is  not  one 
of  mere  frivolity.     After  him  Vouet,  born  A.  D.  1582;  who,  during 


680  ART  CRITICISM. 

fourteen  years  practice  of  his  art  in  Italy,  caught  something  of  the 
bold  and  even  rude  vigor  of  Caravaggio,  softened  somewhat  by  the 
gentle  sweetness  of  Guido,  and  thus  increased  the  tendency  in  art 
which  French  genius  was  naturally  taking. 

The  first  really  great  master  of  the  French  School  was  Nicolas 
Poussin.  Born  1594,  having  studied  under  different  French  masters, 
but  deriving  his  chief  idea  of  expression  and  grouping  from  engrav- 
ings of  Raphael  and  his  pupil  Romano,  Poussin  early  attracted  the 
notice  of  the  Italian  poet  Marino,  who  urged  him  to  visit  Rome. 
Foiled  for  years  by  want  of  means,  at  length  at  the  age  of  thirty  he 
reached  that  city;  where  Marino  is  said  to  have  introduced  him  to 
Cardinal  Barbarini  with  the  characteristic  announcement  "Vederete 
un  giovan  che  a  la  furia  del  diavolo,"  "  Behold  a  young  man  who  has 
the  furor  of  the  devil."  For  six  years  he  studied  the  works  of  Titian 
and  Raphael,  enjoyed  the  acquaintance  of  Domenico,  and  especially 
devoted  himself  to  drawing  from  antique  sculpture ;  taking  on  most 
influence  from  the  latter,  yet  retaining  his  native  independent  French 
style.  Invited  back  to  France  in  1630  by  Louis  XIII.  he  found 
Vouet  absorbing  court  patronage,  and,  impatient  of  rivalry,  after 
twelve  years  of  life  somewhat  harassed  by  envy  at  Paris,  he  returned 
in  1642  to  Rome,  where  he  peacefully  wrought  upon  those  great  works 
which  have  made  his  countrymen  proud  of  his  fame,  until  his  death 
in  1665.  His  themes  were  chiefly  historical,  both  civil  and  sacred; 
his  composition  showed  extended  and  accurate  learning;  his  concep- 
tions w^ere  sometimes  gross  as  in  his  "Martyrdom  of  Erasmus,"  but 
in  attitude  and  expression  his  designs  are  always  alive  with  French 
vivacity;  while  in  coloring  he  w^as  intermediate  between  the  dark^ 
Flemish  and  the  light  Italian  methods. 

The  German  critic  Waagen  traces  three  eras  in  his  style;  that  of 
his  early  works  at  Rome,  stifl"  in  outline  and  having  "  the  reddish 
brown  in  flesh  which  betrays  his  early  residence  at  Rome ;"  second, 
his  perfected  study  in  composition  and  expression,  and  third,  his  ex* 
cessive  study  of  the  antique.  Of  the  latter  characteristic  Fuseli  the 
Italian  critic  says,  "Poussin  painted  basso  relievo;"  but  to  him  as  a 
general  artist,  Reynolds  the  English  colorist  attributes  despite  his 
faults,  these  three  excellencies,  "  correct  drawing,  forcible  expression 
and  just  character." 

The  counterpart  of  Poussin  at  this  era  was  the  artist  sometimes 
classed  as  Flemish,  Claude  Lorraine;  though  he  was  French  in 
name,  native  place,  and  patronage.  Born  A.  D.  1600,  only  six  years 
after  Poussin,  Claude  at  twelve  years  of  age  was  left  an  orphan  and 


CLAUDE,  THE  MASTER  IN  FRENCH  LANDSCAPE.     681 

went  to  Freiburg  to  work  at  wood  carving  with  an  elder  brother. 
His  skill  with  his  pencil  led  a  relative,  a  lace-dealer,  to  take  him  to 
Kome.  Managing  to  support  himself  with  his  pencil,  his  indepen- 
dent genius  early  became  charmed  with  the  architectural  drawings  of 
Waal,  a  German  artist;  and  he  went  to  Naples  and  studied  with  him 
this  branch  of  art  for  two  years.  Conceiving  this  to  be  but  an  acces- 
sory of  true  art  he  sought  the  instruction  of  Tassi  the  Italian  land- 
scape painter  at  Rome.  At  the  age  of  twenty-five  he  made  a  tour 
Northward  through  Italy  and  the  Tyrol  into  Germany;  and  lingered 
a  year  at  Nantes,  in  his  native  Lorraine,  where  he  was  employed  by 
the  Duke.  Going  hence  to  Lyons  and  Marseilles  in  1627  he  returned 
to  Rome  where  he  spent  his  long  life  of  more  than  eighty  years,  ad- 
mired as  the  sweetest  of  landscape  painters.  His  favorite  themes 
were  landscapes,  pastoral  and  classic.  His  studies  were  styles  of 
architecture  of  every  age,  landscape  groupings,  natural  scenery  from 
the  towering  Alps  to  the  plains  of  the  Romagna,  and  especially  the 
changing  lights  and  shades  belonging  to  every  period  of  the  day  and 
night.  In  pursuing  this  study  he  visited  the  best  specimens  of  archi- 
tecture in  various  cities ;  spent  months  of  roaming  in  Northern  Italy ; 
and  often  sat  whole  days  and  even  nights  intently  watching  every 
change  in  the  aspect  of  the  sky  and  earth  till  they  were  engraven  as 
ever-varying  pictures  on  memory  to  be  drawn  from  at  will.  The 
hours  of  twilight,  morning  and  evening,  because  of  their  richness  of 
coloring,  were  favorites  with  him.  He  usually  made  his  ground  color 
a  light  gray,  laying  his  warm  colors  in  semi-transparent  thinness  on 
this  for  the  distant  half-tints,  and  giving  a  full  body  to  the  principal 
lights  and  the  prominent  figures.  So  bewitching  in  their  illusion 
were  the  atmospheric  efiects  he  thus  produced  that  no  one  has  in  this 
particular  ever  surpassed  him  in  universal  popular  favor.  In  the 
drawing  of  his  figures,  however,  despite  all  his  special  study  at  the 
Academy  of  Rome,  he  was  defective;  and  sensible  of  this  failure  he 
would  either  employ  another  artist  to  work  up  the  figures,  or  if 
wrought  by  himself  he  would  humorously  remark  to  purchasers  that 
he  charged  for  the  landscape  and  threw  in  the  figures  gratis. 

He  was  remarkable  for  suavity  of  temper  and  urbanity  of  man- 
ner; a  favorite,  as  a  gentleman  with  courtiers,  as  a  bachelor  w^ith  the 
ladies,  and  as  a  friend  with  the  people  at  large.  His  works  num- 
bered not  less  than  four  hundred  and  twenty-five  landscapes;  while, 
so  frequent  were  the  attempts  to  sell  pictures  not  his  under  his  name, 
that  he  resorted  to  the  expedient  of  copying  in  a  book  kept  for  pri- 
vate  reference   the   designs   of  all   his   finished   paintings.      With 

4L 


682 


ART   CRITICISM. 


Claude  the  French  School  had  reached  a  position  beside  that  of  any 
other  nation,  not  excepting  Italy. 

Sect.  8.  The  operatic  style  of  Le  Brun  under  Louis  XIV. ;  the  fete 

STYLE  OF  WatTEAU  UNDER  LOUIS  XV. ;  THE  TEMPORARY  REACTION  OF  THE 
NATURAL  STYLE  OF  J.  VeRNET,  GeuZE,   AND  OTHERS ;   THE  GROSS  TRAGIC 

STYLE  OF  David  during  the  Eevolution  ;  and  the  restoration  of  the 

NATURAL  style  UNDER  De  LA  EoCHE  AND  H.  VerNET. 

The  central  and  commanding  position  of  the  French  among  the 
nations  of  Europe,  made  available  for  advancement  and  aggrandize- 
ment by  their  hardy  energy  and  ambitious  aspirations,  must  have 
placed  them  foremost  in  steady  progress  in  art,  had  not  these  facilities 
been  offset  by  another  national  trait  of  character.  Mercurial  like 
the  Athenians,  who  worshipped  their  own  temperament  under  the 
name  of  that  god  devoted  to  art  in  its  low  sense  of  artifice,  and  who 
sacrificed  often  for  the  merely  novel  the  higher  idea  of  beauty,  the 
French  people  with  all  their  dignified  aspirings  have  often  lapsed  in 
their  high  career  through  an  unworthy  yearning  to  do  "  some  new 
thing."  In  the  history  of  French  art  this  counteracting  element  has 
had  an  influence  quite  as  marked  as  in  their  political  career. 

The  brilliant  era  of  Charlemagne  succeeded  by  many  alternations 
of  retrograde  and  recovery,  had  its  counterpart  in  the  age  of  Francis 
I.;  when,  during  the  life  of  the  three  great  Italian  masters,  the ^ 
French  School  reached  its  acme  of  progress.  The  royal  house  of 
Valois  had  culminated,  declined  and  been  succeeded  in  1589  by  the ; 
Bourbon  family ;  which  reached  its  highest  lustre  under  Louis  XIV., 
whose  long  reign  extended  from  1643  to  1715.  Under  this  monarch, 
who  at  the  age  of  sixteen  years  began  to  show  marked  ability  as  a 
ruler,  the  military  renown  of  France  was  exalted  by  conquests  in 
Spain  on  the  South  and  Flanders  on  the  North ;  its  commerce  was 
so  extended  as  to  lead  to  the  incorporation  of  a  French  East  India 
Company;  and  its  devotion  to  Science  and  Arts  was  witnessed  in  the 
establishment  of  the  Academy  of  Belles  Lettres  and  Inscriptions, 
and  of  the  since  w^orld-renowned  French  Academy  of  Science,  which 
dates  from  1648.  The  style  of  art,  especially  of  painting,  partly 
from  general  influences  surrounding,  took  a  character  in  keeping  with 
the  style  of  architecture  already  noticed  as  the  Louis  Quatorze. 

Among  the  painters  of  this  age,  whose  chief  employ  was  to  design 
and  execute,  as  they  were  called  for,  a  series  of  immense  paintings 
to  adorn  the  new  palace  of  Versailles,  was  Charles  Le  Brun,  a  pupil 
of  Vouet,  and  a  companion  of  Poussin  in  his  visit  to  Italy.     His 


LE   BRUN,    LA   SUEUR   AND   WATTEAU.  68§ 

first  great  work,  "  Horatius  Codes  defending  the  bridge,"  revealed 
his  style  as  a  man  of  genius;  like  Louis  himself,  forced  by  the 
spirit  of  his  age  to  an  artificial  style  of  grandeur  and  to  act  a  part 
on  a  stage  of  fictitious  elevation.  His  series  of  pictures  of  the  Life 
of  Alexander,  as  has  been  said,  are  after  the  style  of  Louis  Four- 
teenth's generalship,  riding  as  he  did  into  battle  in  a  coach  and  six. 
His  Scripture  themes,  as  his  Magdalen  and  Stoning  of  Stephen,  are 
natural  and  truly  expressive.  Schlegel  remarks  upon  an  admirable 
group  of  family  portraits  by  Le  Brun,  now  at  Berlin:  "A  painter, 
essentially  a  mannerist  though  really  a  man  of  genius,  may  in  single 
works  attain  the  highest  excellence,  if  he  be  only  forcibly  driven  from, 
his  ordinary  style ;"  a  remark  suggesting  a  most  important  principle 
of  criticism  both  in  literature  and  oratory.  A  fellow-pupil  with  Le 
Brun,  La  Sueur,  an  artist  of  less  pretence  yet  of  greater  solid  merit, 
for  a  time  divided  the  meed  of  fame;  but  the  popular  preference 
went  with  the  spirit  of  the  French  Court  in  extolling  Le  Brun  and 
his  operatic  style.  The  series  of  twenty-four  incidents  in  the  Life  of 
St.  Bruno  by  La  Sueur  now  in  the  Louvre  Collection  present  coun- 
tenances of  dignified  expression ;  La  Sueur  living  in  the  sphere  of 
natural  life  to  which  Le  Brun  only  occasionally  descended. 

The  age  of  Louis  XV.  was  if  possible  an  exaggeration  of  the 
spirit  prevailing  in  the  previous  reign.  Commerce  extended  beyond 
India  to  China;  the  Jesuits,  in  their  energy  as  missionaries  abroad 
and  as  propagandists  at  home,  awakened  the  learned  controversies 
with  other  orders  of  the  Catholic  Church  which  such  men  as  Vol- 
taire seized  upon  as  an  objection  to  Christianity  itself;  the  manufac- 
ture of  silk,  porcelain  and  of  tapestry  was  largely  introduced;  and 
a  gallery  of  art,  enriched  with  the  paintings  of  Italian  and  other 
masters,  was  fostered  by  Louis.  The  leading  spirit  in  art  during  this 
reign  was  Watteau,  born  1684,  deceased  at  an  early  age  in  1721.  In 
him  religious  themes  were  superseded  by  pictures  of  scenes  attendant 
on  religious  and  secular  festivals;  some  of  them  ideal,  others  real. 
Horace  Walpole  has  hinted  the  important  criticism  that  the  artificial 
style  of  Watteau  is  really  an  excessive  imitation  of  the  natural  around 
him;  the  figures  he  introduces  being  the  fac-similes  of  the  conven- 
tional society  in  which  the  artist  lived,  while  the  stiff  trees  and 
garden  walks  of  his  back-grounds  are  exact  copies  of  the  clipped  and 
mathematically  exact  realities  then  in  vogue  about  Paris.  Reynolds 
recommended  "  attention  to  the  works  of  Watteau  for  their  excel- 
lence in  the  florid  style  of  coloring."     Watteau  was  followed  by  a 


684 


ART   CRITICISM. 


numerous  school  of  imitators  whose  style  took  the  popular  designa- 
tion of  "  fetes  galantes." 

One  name  in  the  degenerating  school  of  this  age,  Boucher,'  calls 
for  mention;  if  it  were  only  that  the  judgment  of  a  man,  himself  not 
specially  refined,  may  be  cited  as  to  such  artists  and  their  works. 
Born  A.  D.  1704,  and  living  till  1768,  Boucher  as  an  artist  was  a  fit 
index  of  the  Court  of  Louis  XV.  Passing  his  days  among  men  of 
high  life,  corrupted  with  every  vice,  and  spending  his  nights  with 
courtesans,  having  as  his  subjects  the  nude  forms  of  the  lewdest  fe- 
males, Boucher's  themes  were  the  most  sensual  conceivable.  Keynolds 
who  visited  him  in  his  studio,  when,  advanced  in  life,  he  was  still 
picturing  obscene  figures  in  the  absence  of  a  model,  was  as  much 
oflfended  with  the  faulty  drawing  his  corruption  had  induced,  as  he 
was  shocked  by  the  conceptions  to  which  his  mind  had  sunk ;  pos- 
sessed, as  he  felt  him  to  be,  of  true  genius.  Of  this  artist,  even 
Diderot  writes:  "  I  know  not  what  to  say  of  this  man.  The  debase- 
ment of  taste,  of  color,  of  composition,  of  character,  of  expression, 
and  of  drawing  has  followed  step  by  step  on  that  of  morals.  ...  I 
am  bold  to  say  that  this  artist  in  reality  knows  not  what  grace  is; 
that  he  has  never  known  what  truth  is;  that  all  ideas  of  delicacy, 
purity,  innocence,  or  simplicity  have  become  entirely  strange  to  him. 
I  am  bold  to  say  that  he  has  never  for  one  moment  seen  nature ;  at 
least  not  that  nature  which  is  such  as  to  interest  my  feelings,  and 
yours,  or  the  feelings  of  any  decent  child  or  any  woman  of  sensi- 
bility." Though  Boucher  had  around  him  a  group  of  professed  ad- 
mirers, even  the  Court  of  Louis  could  not  give  dignity  or  influence 
to  open  vulgarity ;  and  he  had  no  imitators  of  any  genius,  as  he  had 
no  patrons  of  intellectual  refinement. 

The  era  of  Louis  XVL,  though  opening  with  a  forced  glare  of 
brilliance,  was  the  twilight  of  a  dismal  night ;  the  last  glimmer  of  a 
fainting  taper.  Shocked  by  the  moral  tendency  of  the  age,  and  dis- 
gusted with  its  culminating  degeneracy  in  art,  men  of  true  genius  in 
science,  philosophy  and  art,  retired  to  the  pure  retreat  of  quiet 
Academic  shades ;  and  when  the  terrific  tornado  of  the  Kevolution 
swept  over  France,  the  world  wondered  at  the  number  and  the  high 
worth  of  these  true  men,  as  much  as  they  were  astonished  at  their 
powerlessness  to  arrest  the  sweep  of  moral  degeneracy  when  emanat- 
ing from  the  places  of  power  among  a  people.  Among  the  artists  who 
rose  above  their  time  was  Claude  Joseph  Vernet,  born  1714,  at  Avig- 
non in  the  South  of  France ;  an  artist  worthy  of  his  great  name- 
sake.    The  second  in  the  line  of  a  family  of  painters  eminent  for 


C.   J.    VERNET,   GEEUZE  AND   DAVID.  685 

four  generations,  he  was  first  instructed  by  his  father  Antoine  Ver- 
net.  In  1732,  at  the  age  of  eighteen  years,  he  went  to  Rome;  where 
in  the  early  period  of  his  practice  he  was  reduced  almost  to  want  at 
times,  and  had  to  paint  a  picture  to  obtain  a  new  coat.  At  first  the 
style  of  Salvator  Rosa  attracted  him ;  but  soon  landscape,  especially 
the  marine  views  along  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean  in  the  soft 
light  of  an  Italian  sky  became  his  favorite  study.  At  the  end  of 
twenty  years  of  devoted  diligence  he  had  gained  the  reputation  of 
the  best  landscape  painter  of  his  age.  Invited  by  the  same  Louis 
XV.  who  was  patronizing  Watteau  to  return  home  and  enter  on 
public  employ,  on  his  voyage  from  Leghorn,  in  the  midst  of  a  terrific 
storm,  he  insisted  upon  being  lashed  to  the  mast,  where  he  watched 
and  studied  the  features  of  the  sea,  with  all  the  enthusiasm  of  the 
Grecian  Sculptor  forgetful  of  danger  as  he  studied  the  form  of  the 
lion  glaring  upon  him  from  his  den.  Arrived  in  Paris  he  received  a 
commission  to  paint  views  of  the  principal  ports  of  France ;  and  the 
fifteen  grand  master-pieces  now  in  the  Gallery  of  the  Louvre  occu- 
pied his  brush  for  ten  or  twelve  years.  Some  defects  are  found  in 
his  drawing  of  trees  and  shipping :  but  French  critics  are  enthusias- 
tic in  his  praise ;  Diderot  calling  him  "  a  magician"  who  "  creates  a 
country,  putting  mountains  and  vales  in  it,  and  then  peoples  it  at 
his  will ;"  while  the  general  admiration  of  his  skill  is  attested  by  the 
fact  that  nearly  every  one  of  his  two  hundred  or  more  landscape 
views  have  been  copied  in  engravings  and  published  in  different 
countries  of  Europe. 

Greuze,  a  native  of  Burgundy,  and  hence  sometimes  claimed 
as  a  Flemish  painter,  born  A.  D.  1726,  and  contemporary  many 
years  with  Vernet,  had  that  true  spirit  of  art  which  no  fashion 
of  a  day  can  afiect.  Studying  his  art  first  at  home,  then  in  Rome, 
he  soon  excelled  in  simple  home  scenes ;  but  ambitious  to  gain  ad- 
mission to  the  French  Academy,  the  requisite  for  which  was  the 
production  of  a  historical  painting,  he  strove  to  force  his  genius 
out  of  its  bent,  and  designed  and  executed  a  historical  piece,  "  Seve- 
rus  reproving  Caracalla."  The  efibrt  was  unnatural ;  it  proved  both 
in  itself  and  as  to  its  end  a  failure ;  but  the  sweet  grace  of  two  of 
his  early  domestic  scenes,  "  The  Father  explaining  the  Scriptures  to 
his  children "  and  "  The  Paralytic  Father,"  forced  the  Academy  to 
overlook  their  restricting  rule  and  to  admit  him  for  his  success  in 
"genre."  His  numerous  paintings  in  the  same  style,  about  one 
hundred  and  seventy-five  in  all,  executed  during  a  long  life  till  he 
died  in  1805  about  eighty  years  old,  sought  by  amateurs  with  the 

58 


686 


ART   CRITICISM. 


greatest  avidity,  are  a  mark  of  the  charm  by  which  he  holds  the 
common  heart.  The  German  Waagen  compares  him  to  Sterne,  the 
sentimental  writer  of  England,  and  adds  as  his  chief  power  this ; 
"  the  natural  characteristics  of  France  are  seized  by  Greuze  with  the 
same  isuccess  as  those  of  England  by  Wilkie." 

The  Kevolution  swept  like  a  tornado  over  France ;  about  five  thou- 
sand nobles  as  well  as  the  king  and  queen  falling  a  prey  to  its 
fury.     Before  its  commencement,  during  its  rage,  and  after  its  final 
force  was  expended,  the  versatile  painter  David  was  constantly  a 
favorite ;  an  artist  of  genius,  and  able  alike  to  please  Louis  XVI., 
Robespierre,  or  Napoleon  by  that  power  of  adaptation  so  peculiar  in 
French  character.     Born  in   1748,  having  studied  under  different 
French  masters,  and  at  the  age  of  twenty-seven  years  having  won  a 
prize  for  one  of  his  paintings,  he  went  in  1775  to  Rome,  where  he 
became  sharer  in  the  popular  fondness  for  the  antique,  rekindled  by 
the  labors  of  Winckelmann  and  the  excavations  at  Herculaneum  and 
Pompeii.     During  alternate  sojourns  at  Rome  and  Paris  he  devoted 
himself  to  classic  themes ;  his  "  Horatii"  especially  giving  him  fame 
in  Italy  and  France  alike,  and  making  him  a  favorite  with  Louis 
XVI.     When  the  Revolution  triumphed,  the  stern  virtues  of  Roman 
Republicanism  pictured  in  such  themes  as  "Tullia  driving  over  the! 
dead  body  of  her  father,"  commended  him  to  the  School  of  Robes- 1 
pierre ;  while  his  skill  as  a  chosen  manager  in  reconstructing  the 
classic  age  in  the  fete  pageants  of  the  day  made  him  the  idol  of  the] 
French  Parisian  democracy.     When  Napoleon  succeeded,  the  samej 
general  style  easily  adapted  itself  to  produce  Leonidas  at  Thermo- 1 
pylse,  the  Coronation  of  Napoleon  as  in  a  Roman  triumph,  the  Cross- 
ing of  the  Alps  after  the  example  of  Hannibal ;  whose  spirited  con- 
ception in  the  engraved  copy  is  familiar  to  Americans.     At  thej 
downfall  of  Napoleon,  allowed  to  become  an  exile  from  his  nativeJ 
France  and  in  retirement  at  Brussels,  David  still  showed  himself 
master  of  his  situation  by  the  power  of  adaptation  in  classic  art;  hiaj 
Wrath  of  Achilles"  and  his  ''Mars  discerned  by  Venus"  beings 
themes  for  the  times.     As  an  artist  David  has  found  admirers  andj 
censurers,  influenced  doubtless  by  political  predilections  and  moralj 
convictions.      All  acknowledge  his  power  in  expression;    and  his 
heads,  in  portraits  as  those  of  Marat  and  Pius  VII.,  as  well  as  inj 
his  ideal  pieces,  are  finely  conceived.     He  was  remarkable  for  win- 
ning young  artists  to  his  studio,  and  for  his  controlling  influence] 
over  a  large  class  of  able  painters  who  followed  his  teachings. 

The  quiet  that  succeeded  the  storm  of  the  French  Revolution! 


DE   LA   ROCHE   AND   H.   VERNET.  687 

nurtured  and  brought  out  choice  spirits  in  art ;  whose  success  in  styles 
ever  varying,  each  popular  in  its  day,  illustrates  the  powerof  novelty, 
ever  associated  with  the  higher  elements  of  art,  in  the  taste  of  the 
French  people.  Among  these  Gros,  a  pupil  of  David,  born  A.  D. 
1771  merely  modernized  his  severely  classic  style  by  employing  his 
method  on  themes  of  contemporaneous  history.  His  "Napoleon  on 
the  Bridge  of  Areola,"  executed  in  1801,  called  him  into  notice;  his 
"  Napoleon  visiting  the  sick  at  Jaffa,"  awakened  perfect  enthusiasm 
for  his  style;  while  his  " St.  Genevieve  protecting  the  French  Monar- 
chy," executed  in  the  interest  of  the  restored  Bourbons,  brought  him 
150,000  francs  and  the  title  of  Baron.  Another  school,  the  "Ko- 
mantic"  crowded  rapidly  aside  his  culminating  fame;  and  as  is  sup- 
posed in  chagrin,  he  drowned  himself  in  the  Seine  in  1835. 

A  prominent  leader  in  this  next  succeeding  school  was  De  la  Croix. 
Born  in  1799  he  did  not  reach  maturity  till  the  restoration  of  the 
Bourbons  and  the  decline  of  David's  fame.  His  first  pictures  were 
characterized  by  brilliance  of  color  unlike  the  sober  hues  of  the 
classic ;  his  employ  in  Morocco  where  he  sketched  every  variety  of 
gay  costume  gave  more  decided  cast  to  his  style;  and  his  employ  in 
decorating  the  Bourbon  Palace  at  Paris  brought  fully  out  his  power 
in  enthusiastic  action  and  gay  coloring  which  has  made  him  head 
of  the  Komantic  School.  The  head  of  quite  another  School  the 
"  Eclectic,"  was  De  la  Koche.  Born  1797,  a  pupil  of  Gros,  he  showed 
early  an  independent  judgment  and  remarkable  skill  in  realizing  his 
own  conception.  In  disingenuous  regard  to  the  supposed  interest  of 
an  elder  brother  who  had  devoted  himself  to  historical  painting  he 
sacrificed  his  preference  and  devoted  himself  to  landscape.  A 
thorough  student  of  the  science  of  art  as  well  as  a  master  in  drawing, 
design  and  coloring  he  came  to  excel  in  almost  every  department ; 
his  scenes  from  English  and  French  history  make  him  a  man  of  his 
day;  his  portraits  of  the  ablest  men  of  his  times,  Guizot,  Thiers, 
Lamartine,  and  of  his  father-in-law  Horace  Vernet  giving  him  patron- 
age in  the  lucrative  department  of  his  profession ;  his  sublime  sacred 
compositions,  such  as  his  head  of  Jesus,  giving  him  access  to  the  heart 
of  Christian  sentiment;  while  his  labored  master-piece,  the  "  Palais  des 
Beaux  Arts,"  or  Assembly  of  Arts  ancient  and  modern,  is  in  draw- 
ing and  grouping,  in  individual  expression  and  general  tone  worthy 
of  any  of  the  artists  pictured  in  it  from  Apelles  to  Lionardo. 

The  ablest  artist  of  this  age  in  the  French  School  probably  is 
Horace  Vernet.  The  fourth  of  the  line  of  artists  in  his  family,  in 
which  Claude  Joseph  had  already  been  a  leading  spirit,  born  1789 


k 


688 


ART  CRITICISM. 


he  had  early  instruction  from  his  father  who  had  successfully  painted 
several  of  the  battles  of  Napoleon.  Entering  the  army  at  eighteen, 
but  retiring  from  it  to  resume  his  pencil  after  two  years,  he  seems  to 
have  made  his  practical  acquaintance  with  military  details  to  contri- 
bute simply  to  his  art.  Devoting  himself  to  the  representation- of  the 
rapidly  succeeding  and  peculiarly  stirring  events  of  his  country's 
history,  especially  in  its  military  successes,  he  has  been  equally 
honored  by  Napoleon  I.,  the  Bourbons,  Charles  X.,  Louis  Philippe 
and  Napoleon  III.  Less  gorgeous  than  De  la  Croix,  less  dreamy 
than  De  la  Koche,  and  more  natural  in  every  way  than  either,  he 
makes  the  canvas  present  the  real  scene  of  exciting  conflict;  the  fas- 
cination of  his  style  being,  that  the  beholder  ceases  to  think  of  the 
drawing  or  color,  all  is  so  natural. 


( 


CHAPTEK    IX. 

THE  LATE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  MODERN  PAINTING  IN  ENGLAND  AND 
AMERICA;  COMPREHENSIVE  IN  SUBJECT  AND  AIM,  AS  WELL  AS 
IN  THE  NATIONALITY  OF  ITS  ARTISTS;  NATIVE  IN  CONCEPTIOIT 
BUT   CULTURED    IN   STYLE. 

Though  among  the  earliest  of  the  nations  of  modern  Europe  to 
attain  eminence  in  literature,  philosophy  and  science,  England  ha8 
been  late  in  developing  native  genius  in  art.  As,  however,  England 
boasted  her  Shakspeare,  her  Bacon  and  her  Newton,  before  men 
of  genius  arose  who  appreciated  art  as  an  exalted  employ,  so 
in  Greece  Homer,  Thales  and  Pythagoras  antedated  Phidias  and 
Apelles.  But,  still  more,  the  English  have  as  a  people  resem- 
bled the  Komans  rather  than  the  Greeks;  their  energies  turnings 
rather  to  the  sturdy  and  practical  pursuits  of  men  and  of  nations; 
contented  to  have  both  their  works  of  art,  and  their  artists,  as  an  in- 
terest secondary  in  importance,  imported  from  among  people  more 
given  to  such  pursuits.  The  Americans,  again,  besides  partaking  in 
their  early  history  of  the  national  traits  of  their  chief  mother  land, 
have  had  a  wide  area  to  subdue,  governments  and  institutions  of 
every  kind  to  originate;  and  this  employ  as  in  the  youth  of  other 
nations  has  deferred  the  period  of  art  culture.  For  this  very  reason 
however  foreign  artists  of  culture  have  found  a  most  inviting  field 
among  the  English  and  American  people ;  developing  a  style  that 


ITALIAN   AND    FLEMISH   PAINTERS   IN   ENGLAND.  689 

has  united  the  culture  of  their  foreign  education  and  the  comprehen- 
siveness in  design  naturally  caught  from  meeting  a  new  world  of 
ideas.  Meanwhile  native  artists,  both  in  England  and  America, 
stimulated  by  foreign  rivalry,  have  risen  to  eminence  by  the  force  of 
native*skill  and  energy,  often  chastened  by  a  thorough  art  education, 
finished  if  not  originated  in  European  studios. 

Sect.  1.  The  early  English  taste  in  Painting  as  developed  first  by 
Italian  and  later  by  Flemish  artists. 

The  progress  of  the  arts  of  sculpture,  architecture  and  painting  is 
usually  an  associated  advance.  We  have  already  observed  in  the 
history  of  improved  architecture  in  England  how  in  early  times  the 
old  Roman  vied  with  Saxon  taste,  and  how  in  later  times  Italian 
artists  from  religious  congeniality  as  well  as  other  causes  were  drawn 
to  England  to  find  employ,  until  the  spirit  of  the  Reformation  gave 
German  and  Flemish  artists  more  access  to  English  patronage ;  while 
all  the  time  an  influence  was  at  work  gradually  bringing  forward  na- 
tive architects,  among  whom  finally  great  masters  arose,  superior  to 
their  foreign  teachers  and  originators  of  national  methods.  The  same 
steps  of  progress  are  observable  in  the  history  of  painting. 

The  oldest  portraits  preserved  of  English  kings,  as  of  Richard 
and  John  of  Gaunt,  also  the  paintings  in  the  ancient  churches,  are 
on  wood  instead  of  canvas,  and  in  the  same  stiff  method  of  drawing 
and  coloring  found  in  Lombardy.  Giotto  did  not  extend  his  journey 
northward  further  than  the  South  of  France;  and  the  leaven  of  his 
spirit  was  not  infused  into  native  English  as  into  French  art.  At  a 
later  period,  however,  Italian  art  was  appreciated ;  for,  while  Francis 
I.  had  succeeded  in  drawing  Lionardo  to  Paris,  Plenry  VIII.  was 
trying,  though  unsuccessfully,  to  negotiate  with  both  Raphael  and 
Titian  to  visit  London.  At  this  period,  as  indeed  prior  to  it,  the 
names  of  Italian  artists,  usually  however  of  secondary  ability,  are 
mentioned  in  the  current  history  of  the  times. 

Under  this  monarch,  mainly  from  religious  reasons,  the  supply  of 
artists  began  to  be  looked  for  from  another  quarter  than  Italy.  At 
an  early  period  of  his  reign,  which  began  1509,  John  of  Mabuse  a 
Flemish  artist,  when  quite  a  youth  came  to  England  and  became 
eminent  as  a  portrait  painter  for  the  court  and  nobility.  He  also  ex- 
ecuted Scripture  pieces ;  one  of  which  the  "Descent  from  the  Cross," 
painted  for  the  Cathedral  of  Middleburg,  since  destroyed  by  fire,  had 
such  a  fame  as  to  lead  Albert  Diirer  when  on  his  second  tour  in  the 
Netherlands,  about  1520,  to  visit  England  in  order  to  examine  it. 
58  *  4  M 


690 


ART   CRITICISM. 


At  a  somewhat  later  period,  about  1527,  Holbein,  who  had  becomei 
intimate  with  Erasmus  the  earnest  Dutch  leader  of  the  Reformation, 
popular  in  England  as  well  as  on  the  Continent,  went  to  England 
introduced  by  Erasmus  to  Sir  Thomas  More.     Though  still  claimed^j 
from  his  nationality,  as  one  of  the  great  masters  of  the  Flemisl 
School,  Holbein  became  a  precursor  of  the  English  School  proper; 
which  w^as  not  fully  established  till  two  centuries  later.     After  th< 
age  of  Henry  VIII.,  Holbein  was  honored  and  influential  as  an  artist^ 
through  the  short  reign  of  Edward  VI.  to  the  second  of   Mary's  ■ 
four  years'  reign,  leaving  several  pupils  and  imitators,  among  whom 
Sir  Anthony  More  was  eminent.     Holbein's  chief  success  was  in  por- 
trait; in  which  as  already  mentioned  the  color,  the  expression  of 
features  and  the  prominent  relief  given  by  his  shades  are  chief  ex- 
cellences.    His  few  historical  pieces,  in  distemper  as  well  as  in  oil, 
show  that  had  his  engagements  allowed  he  might  have  excelled  in, 
this  department.     Above  all,  his  exquisite  skill   in   engraving,  of| 
which  his  "Dance  of  Death"  is  an  immortal  monument,  planted  ii 
England  a  germ  of  native  art  afterwards  to  be  matured. 

The  long  reign  of  Elizabeth  was  more  noted  for  improvement  ii 
architecture  than  in  painting;  but  the  reigns  of  James  I.  and  Charles 
I.  were  an  era  in  the  history  of  English  painting.  Under  James  th< 
Duke  of  Buckingham  became  a  munificent  patron  of  art;  making  large^ 
collections  for  his  own  established  gallery ;  purchasing  among  others , 
the  entire  collection  of  Rubens,  whom  he  met  in  Paris  about  1622,  neai 
the  close  of  the  reign  of  James.  Charles  I.  seems  to  have  imbibec 
an  early  taste  for  art;  himself  taking  lessons  in  drawing  and  oi 
painting.  In  the  fourth  year  of  his  reign,  1629,  according  to  the 
sagacious  policy  of  the  little  power  of  Flanders,  Rubens,  w'ho  hac 
been  a  welcome  and  hence  successful  ambassador  to  other  courts,  wag 
sent  to  England.  Charles  received  the  great  painter  with  enthusi- 
asm; and  as  a  recompense  for  his  fine  painting  of  "Peace  and  War'^j 
conferred  on  the  artist  the  order  of  knighthood.  Shortly  aftei 
Rubens'  return  to  Flanders,  in  1632,  Charles  invited  Vandyke  to  his 
Court,  soon  knighted  him,  and  appointed  him  Court  Painter  with 
pension  for  life.  The  touching  emotion  which  he  threw  into  hii 
Scripture  themes  was  tempered  into  a  fascinating  animation  in  th( 
portraits  which  formed  his  chief  labor  for  about  nine  years  in  Eng- 
land until  his  death  in  1641. 

The  domicil  of  three  of  the  great  Flemish  masters  so  long  a  tim< 
in  England  naturally  gave  a  turn  to  national  taste  in  art;  while  tool 
their  common  sky,  habits  and  cast  of  mind  made  the  English  andj 


EAKI.Y    ENGLISH    PAINTERS;    HOGARTH    AND    HIS   STYLE.    691 

Flemish  taste  in  art  specially  to  correspond.  Meanwhile  the  collec- 
tion of  the  Duke  of  Buckingham,  and  specially  the  gallery  of  Charles 
I.,  including  among  others  the  valuable  collection  of  the  Duke  of 
Mantua  purchased  at  great  cost,  kept  alive  a  love  for  Italian  art. 
The  Vandalism  of  the  Kevolution  under  Cromwell  scattered  these 
treasures;  and  a  decline  in  the  progress  of  art  in  England  followed, 
from  which  the  nation  did  not  fully  recover  during  the  reign  of  four 
successive  sovereigns  of  the  House  of  Stuart. 

Sect.  » 2.  The  early  Native  English  Masters,  beginning  with  Ho- 
garth ;  the  first  English  Schools  originating  with  Sir  J.  Eey- 
NOLDS  in  Portrait  and  Gainsborough  in  Landscape. 

During  all  the  long  period  of  tutelage  under  Italian  and  Flemish 
masters,  no  single  native  artist  of  eminent  merit  and  independent 
spirit  arose  in  England ;  and  it  was  truly  a  native  and  spontaneous 
germination  and  growth  when  the  first  masters  of  the  English  School 
appeared.  Among  the  occasional  names  of  English  painters  found 
in  critical  works,  like  that  of  Walpole,  the  following  are  most  note- 
worthy. Nicolas  Hilliard,  born  A.  D.  1547,  deceased  1619,  was 
both  limner  and  jeweler  to  her  majesty.  Queen  Elizabeth,  and  ex- 
celled in  miniature  portraits ;  of  whom  an  English  work  on  painting 
published  A.  D.  1598,  says,  "  Limnings  were  much  used  in  former 
times  in  Church  Books ;  as  also  in  drawing  by  the  life  in  small 
models  of  late  years  by  some  of  our  countrymen  as  Shoote,  Betts 
and  others ;  but  brought  to  the  rare  perfection  we  now  see  by  the 
most  ingenious,  painful  and  skilful  master,  Nicolas  Hilliard,  and  his 
well  profiting  scholar."  In  the  same  age  Isaac  Oliver,  and  a  genera- 
tion later,  A.  D.  1594  to  1654,  Peter  Oliver,  his  son,  were  eminent; 
the  former  as  a  miniature  painter  in  oil  and  water,  the  latter  as  a 
copyist,  chiefly  in  water,  of  larger  paintings.  Wm.  Dobson,  born 
A.  D.  1610,  deceased  1646,  who  educated  himself  in  art  by  copying 
Vandyke  and  Titian,  and  whom  Vandyke  meeting  by  chance  and 
appreciating  his  merit  commended  to  Charles  I.,  was  made  Court 
painter  after  Vandyke's  death.  His  short  life  of  self-culture,  won 
for  him  the  name  of  the  Tintoret  of  England ;  and  had  he  lived  the 
English  School  might  now  rank  Dobson  as  its  head. 

To  Wm.  Hogarth  is  due  the  honor  of  giving  a  decided  spring  and 
an  original  cast  to  native  English  genius  for  painting.  Born  A.  D. 
1697,  when  a  boy  his  school-books  became  noted  for  his  original 
illustrations.  He  was  apprenticed  to  a  silver-smith  who  employed 
him  as  an  engraver,  and  he  saved  leisure  hours  for  drawing  from 


692  ART   CRITICISM. 

nature  ;  both  arts  preparing  him  for  his  future  career.  When  in 
1718,  at  twenty-one  years  of  age,  his  apprenticeship  ended,  he  at- 
tended lectures  on  art  by  Sir  John  Thornhill  then  Court  painter, 
and  drew  from  life  at  the  London  Academy.  Devoting  himself  for 
some  years  to  portrait  painting,  in  1730,  he  privately  married,  much 
to  the  offence  of  the  family,  the  daughter  of  Sir  John  Thornhill ; 
but  soon  was  able  to  make  them  proud  of  the  alliance.  In  1734  he 
first  painted,  then  engraved  his  six  pictures  of  the  Harlot's  Progress ;" 
which  gave  him  at  once  a  renown  as  the  first  genius  in  English 
painting.  His  following  works,  in  a  mingled  satirical  and  Iragic 
style,  gained  him  a  popularity  with  the  common  people  which  pre- 
vented many  intelligent  critics  of  his  own  and  later  days  from  over- 
coming the  natural  prejudice  that  his  foibles  as  well  as  his  lack  of 
higher  refinement  awakened.  Hence  Walpole  deems  him  "  no  pain- 
ter ;"  while  Charles  Lamb  regards  him  the  true  type  of  an  original 
and  decidedly  English  artist ;  remarking,  "  Other  pictures  we  look  at, 
Hogarth's  prints  we  read."  His  prints,  or  engravings,  were  in  fact  a 
greater  success  than  his  paintings ;  his  "  Marriage  h  la  Mode,"  sell- 
ing in  his  lifetime  for  £19.  6s.,  though  fifty  years  later  it  sold  for 
£1,381.  His  work  entitled  "  Analysis  of  Beauty,"  published  A.  D. 
1753,  has  many  practical  suggestions  of  value;  though  faulty  in  its 
leading  principle,  that  the  curved  line,  a  term  verily  indefinitely 
analyzed,  is  in  itself  a  line  of  beauty.  Hogarth  died  in  1764.  His 
familiar  portrait,  a  hale,  jovial,  somewhat  haughty  English  face, 
with  his  favorite  dog  perched  by  his  side,  is  suggestive  of  his  place 
in  English  art ;  the  rude  but  powerful  genius  that  broke  down  with 
scorn  the  trammels  which  had  bound  his  aspiring  young  countrymen 
to  the  rank  of  mere  copyists  of  the  Flemish  and  Italian  artists,  and 
by  his  pen  and  brush  originated  an  English  School. 

The  recognized  founders  of  the  English  School  of  Painting,  Key- 
nolds  in  portrait  and  Gainsborough  in  landscape,  had  reached  the 
maturity  of  their  powers,  though  not  of  their  fame,  while  Hogarth 
was  still  living.  Joshua,  afterwards  Sir  Joshua  Keynolds,  the  son 
of  a  clergyman,  born  1723,  .educated  in  a  school  kept  by  his  father, 
was  at  eighteen  years  allowed  his  bent  and  placed  in  the  studio  of 
Hudson  a  portrait  painter.  After  two  years'  study,  followed  by  six 
years'  practice  of  his  profession,  he  went  to  Italy  and  spent  three  and 
a-half  years.  His  studies  here  led  him  to  seek  the  rich  coloring  of 
the  Venetians  with  the  transparence  of  Correggio.  In  1752,  at  the 
age  of  thirty-one  years,  he  returned  and  settled  in  London,  securing 
at  once  the  reputation  of  the  best  of  English  colorists ;  though  the 


REYNOLDS  IN  PORTRAIT  ;    GAINSBOROUGH  IN  LANDSCAPE.     693 

neglect  of  his  early  education  left  an  abiding  defect  in  his  drawing 
which  no  after  effort  could  fully  overcome.  Being  of  a  social  dis- 
position, literary  in  education  and  tastes,  he  became  one  of  the 
founders  and  chief  ornaments  of  the  Literary  Club  in  which  shone 
the  galaxy  of  Johnson,  Burke,  Goldsmith,  Garrick  and  others ;  illus- 
trating again  the  fact  already  established  in  ancient  Greece  and 
modern  Italy  that  only  an  age  of  high  literary  culture,  and  one 
that  reaches  artists  with  its  refining  influences,  can  give  genius  in 
art  a  direction  which  will  lead  it  to  immortality.  His  fame  over- 
burdened him  with  applicants  for  portraits ;  he  remained  unmarried, 
wedded  only  to  his  profession  and  literary  companions ;  his  income 
became  enormous ;  and  his  press  of  business  compelled  him  to  employ 
other  artists  to  put  in  the  draperies  and  costumes  of  his  figures.  De- 
voted chiefly  to  portrait,  he  found  time  for  historical  and  devotional 
themes;  and  his  "Ugolino"  and  "Hercules"  are  chief  historic  gems 
in  London  and  St.  Petersburg,  while  his  "  Holy  Family"  and  his 
"Kneeling  Samuel"  are  familiar  in  the  Bible  prints  and  mantle 
statuettes  of  thousands  of  Christian  households.  Reynolds  himself 
lamented  the  defect  of  his  early  training  in  drawing;  while,  too,  his 
extraordinary  success  in  coloring  is  offset  by  a  now  revealed  lack 
in  chemical  knowledge,  which  has  caused  some  of  his  newly  tried 
pigments  and  vehicles  to  fail  in  permanence.  Moreover,  masterly  as 
were  the  effects  he  sometimes  produced,  his  own  statement  was,  that 
there  was  no  science  of  coloring ;  at  least  he  had  found  none ;  for  his 
finest  successes  had  been  chance  results,  and  he  could  not  repeat 
them.     He  died  A.  D.  1792,  in  his  sixty-ninth  year. 

While  Reynolds  became  the  acknowledged  founder  of  the  English 
School  in  portraiture,  an  artist  of  no  less  genius,  though  less  popular 
and  genial  in  nature,  took  the  first  rank  in  landscape.  Thomas 
Gainsborough,  born  A.  D.  1727,  at  ten  years  of  age  was  remarkable 
for  capacity  in  drawing,  and  at  twelve  years  had  learned  coloring. 
At  fifteen  years  he  commenced  his  art  education  and  soon  obtained 
proficiency  in  portraiture;  though  landscape  was  congenial  to  him, 
being  in  harmony  with  his  retiring  nature.  At  the  age  of  nineteen 
he  married  a  lady  of  be.auty  and  fortune;  which  contributed  greatly 
to  his  advancement.  He  was  honored  by  the  London  Academy  to 
which  he  contributed  often ;  though  alienated  for  a  time  by  a  sup- 
posed rivalship  in  Reynolds,  Their  departments  however  were  too 
diverse  for  rivalry ;  and  Gainsborough  is  the  recognized  head  of  the 
English  School  in  landscape.  He  died  at  London  in  1788  aged 
sixty-one  years. 


694  AET   CRITICISM. 

Contemporary  with  the  leaders  in  the  English  School  were  other 
aspirants,  injuriously  sensitive  because  not  first  in  fame;  but  for 
whom  it  was  a  sufficient  praise  to  be  second  to  such  primates. 
Among  these  Richard  Wilson  is  prominent  in  landscape.  Born 
A.  D.  1713,  painting  portraits  for  a  time  with  limited  training,  in 
1749  he  visited  Italy  where  by  accident  his  power  in  depicting  land- 
scape was  revealed;  and  painters  like  Mengs  and  J.  Vernet  bought 
his  pictures.  Returning  to  London  in  1755  his  "Niobe"  gave  him 
the  first  rank  among  landscape  painters.  In  him,  however,  as  often, 
an  unfortunate  harshness  and  fretful ness  of  manner  lost  him  the 
esteem  of  brother  artists  and  the  patronage  of  the  public.  For 
twenty -five  years  he  prosecuted  his  toil,  selling  his  works  for  the  one- 
hundredth  part  of  the  sums  they  have  since  brought.  In  portrait 
and  historic  painting  John  Opie  had  merit.  Born  in  Cornwall 
A.  D.  1761,  the  son  of  a  carpenter,  opposed  in  his  early  fondness  for 
art,  by  self-culture  he  gained  such  facility  in  portrait  painting  that 
Dr.  Wolcott  brought  him  to  London  as  the  "  Cornish  wonder."  For 
a  year  his  studio  was  thronged  with  the  elite  of  London ;  whose  por- 
traits he  executed  with  vigor  and  truth  though  with  lack  of  finish 
and  delicacy.  Losing  his  popularity  as  suddenly  as  it  was  gained, 
he  devoted  himself  to  the  study  of  literature  and  science  as  sub- 
sidiary to  his  art;  and,  aided  by  the  scholarship  of  his  wife,  the 
popular  authoress,  he  turned  his  efforts  to  historical  painting.  His 
subjects  show  his  early  characteristic  homely  truth  and  vigor  in 
design  and  drawing,  with  the  added  excellence  of  great  purity  in 
color.  Fuseli  regarded  his  "  Murder  of  James  I."  equal  in  coloring 
to  Titian.  At  a  somewhat  later  period  James  Northcote,  an  author 
as  well  as  painter,  after  studying  some  years  in  Italy  and  then  prac- 
tising for  a  time  portrait  painting,  executed  for  the  Shaksperian 
Gallery  scenes  in  English  history  which  won  for  him  a  reputation. 
Apparently  outrun,  however,  by  rising  competitors  he  made  the  mis- 
take of  repining  rather  than  of  generously  breasting  the  fluctuating 
tide.  His  Lives  of  Reynolds  and  Titian  are  his  enduring  monu- 
ment. 

The  diversity  of  nationality  observed  among  the  English  painters 
of  this  era,  as  well  as  the  scope  and  originality  of  their  themes  and 
styles,  is  a  note-worthy  characteristic  of  the  English  School.  Barry 
of  Cork,  Ireland,  who  at  fifteen  was  marked  for  his  genius  in  draw- 
ing, and  who  at  twenty-three  had  executed  a  historic  painting  which 
led  Burke  to  take  him  to  London  and  afterwards  to  aid  in  support- 
ing him  in  Italy,  was  generously  received  by  Reynolds  and  other 


RECENT   ENGLISH   ARTISTS   AND   ART   CRITICS.  695' 

English  artists ;  and  but  for  his  native  sensitiveness,  which  grew  into 
censoriousness,  his  able  designs,  classic  and  historical,  would  have 
brought  him  liberal  patronage  during  his  lifetime,  as  they  have 
gained  him  fame  since  his  death.  Canova  said  of  Barry's  "  Victors 
at  Olympia,"  he  would  not  have  grudged  a  journey  to  England  to 
see  it ;  but  the  artist  lived  in  a  filthy  tenement  never  swept,  and  died 
on  a  rickety  bedstead  with  nothing  upon  it  but  an  old  blanket  nailed 
to  one  side.  Fuseli,  a  native  of  Switzerland,  encouraged  by  Rey- 
nolds, spent  eight  years  studying  art  in  Italy ;  and  though  failing  as 
an  artist  because  his  boldness  of  imagination  surpassed  his  skill  in 
execution  he  became  eminent,  though  not  always  judicious,  as  a 
writer  and  critic  upon  art.  The  two  early  and  able  American 
artists,  Copley  and  West,  as  we  shall  see,  were  made  and  treated  as 
native  in  the  comprehensive  policy  of  the  English  School. 

Sect.  3.  The  English  Schools,  Masters  and  Critics  in  Painting  in  the 
Nineteenth  Century. 

It  is  impossible  that  contemporaneous  history  should  be  either 
comprehensive  or  impartial.  It  is  in  time  as  in  space :  the  aspect  of 
an  age  like  the  face  of  a  country  must  be  seen  from  a  very  distant 
point,  in  order  that  its  entire  range,  with  its  marked  features,  may  be 
understood ;  and  hence  no  contemporaneous  history  can  be  comprehen- 
sive. It  is,  yet  more,  in  the  brotherhood  of  art  as  in  domestic  con- 
nections ;  no  one  can  allow  that  any  child  ever  came  into  the  world 
quite  equal  to  the  darling  of  one's  own  maternity.  In  the  rapid 
spring  given  to  art  during  the  last  half-century  in  England,  the  ideas 
of  different  ages  and  schools  have  been  revived  and  given  a  national 
cast;  the  extreme  natural  of  the  Pre-Raphaelite  Schools  of  Italy, 
and  the  value  of  oil  as  a  vehicle,  have  been  theoretically  and  practi- 
cally reconsidered  and  tested  again;  portrait,  low-life,  history,  and 
especially  landscape  have  given  variety  of  themes  and  comprehen- 
siveness of  study ;  while  artists  and  amateurs  have  employed  the  pen 
equally  with  the  pencil  to  advance  the  progress  and  widen  the  field 
of  national  art. 

In  portrait  Lawrence  in  England  and  Raeburn  in  Scotland,  early 
in  the  century,  gained  the  highest  repute,  and  the  insignia  of  knight- 
hood as  its  courtly  badge.  Sir  Thomas  Lawrence,  having  at  six 
years  drawn  pencil  portraits  with  admirable  skill,  having  at  ten 
years  painted  Scripture  themes  and  at  thirteen  years  won  the  prize 
from  the  Society  of  Arts  at  Bristol  for  a  copy  in  crayon  of  Raphael's 
Transfiguration,  began  at  eighteen  his  career  of  forty  years  as  por- 


696 


ART   CRITICISM. 


trait-painter  at  London.  George  III.  appointed  him  Court-painter 
to  succeed  Keynolds ;  at  Napoleon's  Fall  the  Princes  of  Europe  en- 
ployed  him  on  the  great  work  of  his  life  the  taking  of  the  portraits 
of  the  generals,  British  and  Continental,  who  were  prominent  at  the 
Battle  of  Waterloo ;  but  while  flattered  by  courtly  attentions  he  was 
generous  to  his  brother  artists,  and  generally  beloved  as  a  man  while 
popular  as  an  artist.  Sir  Henry  Kaeburn,  born  at  Edinburgh,  having 
early  gained  note  as  a  portrait-painter  at  home,  visited  Italy  at  the 
suggestion  of  Reynolds;  and  returning  to  the  Scottish  capital,  be- 
came for  thirty  years  the  leading  portrait-painter  in  the  North.  His 
portraits  of  Sir  Walter  Scott  and  most  of  the  leading  men  of  Scotland 
in  literature,  philosophy  and  politics  are  treasures  in  history  as  they 
are  gems  in  art.  Contemporary  with  these  artists,  though  born  some 
years  later,  was  John  Jackson,  next  to  Lawrence  in  popularity,  and 
eminent  for  the  vigor  he  threw  into  countenances.  This  energy, 
accompanied,  as  was  natural,  by  rapidity  of  execution,  betrayed  him 
into  an  excess  leading  to  carelessness  in  finish.  He  is  said  to  have 
once  painted  on  a  wager  five  portraits  in  a  day ;  for  each  of  which 
he  received  twenty-five  guineas;  making  the  product  of  a  single 
day's  work  more  than  $600. 

In  history,  fiction  and  low-life  eminent  English  genius  has  been 
developed  during  the  present  century.  Haydon,  devoted  through  a 
life  of  disappointment  to  an  ideal  of  "  high  art,"  struggling  with  debt, 
alienating  friends  by  his  impetuous  temper,  and  finally  committing 
suicide  at  sixty  years  of  age,  deserves  mention  as  an  able  designer, 
especially  in  his  Scripture  themes.  Etty,  disheartened  by  early  fail- 
ure as  an  applicant  for  Academic  honors,  encouraged  by  Lawrence, 
became  one  of  the  best  of  English  colorists ;  his  reputation  as  a  his- 
torical painter  beginning  with  his  glowing  picture  of  Cleopatra,  radi- 
ant in  her  nude  loveliness  heightened  by  the  contrast  of  the  gorgeous 
equipage  around  her.  Wilkie,  knighted  as  Sir  David  Wilkie,  a  na- 
tive of  Scotland,  is  the  leading  artist  of  the  age  in  "genre"  or  low- 
life.  Among  the  numerous  works  in  his  early  and  best,  because 
natural  style,  which  English  and  European  princes  have  sought,  his 
familiar  "Sir  Walter  Scott  and  his  Family"  and  his  painting  for  the 
Duke  of  Wellington  "Chelsea  Pensioners  listening  to  the  News  of 
Waterloo,"  are  monuments  of  true  genius  in  their  department  of  art. 
Stothard,  in  an  humbler  but  exhaustless  field  has  enriched  the  works 
6f  the  best  English  poets  by  his  expressive  designs ;  no  less  than  five 
thousand  specimens  having  come  from  his  pencil.  The  richness  and 
fertility  of  invention  which  was  essential  for  such  exhaustless  variety 


LANDSCAPES   OF   TURNER,    LANDSEER    AND   OTHERS.         697 

is  illustrated  by  his  habit  of  constant  rambling  in  the  fields,  not  only 
with  his  pencil  to  sketch  the  form  of  every  striking  grace  in  the  bend 
of  stalk  or  tendril,  but  also  with  his  box  of  colors  to  copy  every  new 
variety  of  rich  hue  in  insect  or  flower.  One  day  painting  a  sylph 
he  was  trying  to  shape  the  wings ;  when,  a  friend  suggesting  a  butter- 
fly's as  the  model,  forth  into  the  fields  hied  the  artist  and  rested  not 
till  he  brought  back  to  his  studio  a  rare  collection  from  which  to 
choose. 

It  is  in  landscape,  however,  that  the  truest  native  English  genius 
for  painting  has  been  brought  out.  The  name  of  Turner  stands  de- 
servedly at  the  head  of  this  list.  Born  1775,  at  five  years  of  age  his 
genius  was  discovered  and  encouraged  by  his  parents.  For  many 
years  his  talent  was  limited  to  drawing,  painting  in  water-colors,  and 
sketching  for  book  illustrations.  His  skill  in  the  management  of  his 
lights  was  remarked  by  critics,  and  his  future  success  in  landscape 
was  predicted.  Made  a  member  of  the  Royal  Academy  in  1802  he 
attempted  higher  studies,  making  first  the  English  landscape  painters 
Wilson  and  Gainsborough,  and  afterwards  Claude  his  model.  At  a 
later  period,  as  a  student  of  nature  and  art  he  visited  France  and 
Switzerland,  roaming  alone  and  on  foot  and  sketching  the  wildest  as 
well  as  brightest  scenery.  His  truth  to  nature  in  sky  and  cloud,  in 
foliage  and  in  water  views,  without  panegyric,  surpass  perhaps  the 
attainment  of  any  other  artist  ancient  or  modern.  His  later  style  is 
founded  on  the  idea  of  sketching  in  a  picture  only  narrow  ranges  of 
view  immediately  before  the  eye  without  turning  it,  giving  vivid  dis- 
tinctness to  a  narrow  tunnel-like  vista,  encircling  this  clear  sight  with 
the  cloudy  rim  of  indistinct  surroundings  really  belonging  to  fixed 
vision,  and  leaving  the  corners  of  his  canvas,  outside  of  this  ellipse 
of  cloud  and  centre  of  fascinating  light,  a  perfect  blank.  This  later 
style  of  Turner,  though  eulogized  by  his  panegyrist  Ruskin,  is  re- 
garded by  many  critics  as  a  degeneracy  from  the  true  ideal  of  his 
prime  as  a  painter.  His  paintings,  drawings  and  designs,  amounting 
to  thousands  in  number,  are  justly  treasured  as  a  rich  legacy  by  the 
English  people. 

After  Turner  followed  many  less  comprehensive  landscape  painters. 
Constable,  whose  early  bent  in  art  was  exhibited  when,  to  Sir  George 
Beaumont  who  asked,  "  "What  style  he  proposed  to  adopt,"  he  replied 
"  None  but  God  Almighty's  style,"  excelled  in  rural  scenes.  He  was 
especially  successful  in  those  transient  aspects  of  landscape,  dew  on 
foliage,  falling  rain,  etc.,  which  few  in  ancient  or  modern  times  have 
attempted.     Morland,  whose  father,  an  artist,  availed  himself  of  his 

59  4  N 


698 


ART  CRITICISM. 


son's  early  genius  from  the  time  he  was  fourteen  to  twenty-one  years, 
painted  without  any  regular  training  the  simple  and  quiet  aspect  of 
English  farms  with  hedges  and  pools;  excelling  in  portraying 
domestic  animals,  especially  the  pig.  The  unnatural  restraint  of  his 
youth  seems  to  have  been  followed  by  a  reaction  to  unrestrained 
license;  he  gave  himself  up  at  the  age  of  twenty-seven  to  drinking; 
and  though  he  lived  to  the  age  of  forty-three  years,  never  took  his 
brush  except  when  compelled  by  want.  Collins,  having  imbibed  his 
ideas  of  art  from  watching  Morland  at  his  work,  when  compelled 
on  occasion  to  raise  money  to  pay  his  landlord,  painted,  without  in- 
struction, a  picture  that  revealed  genius.  He  afterwards  practiced 
at  the  London  Academy  and  was  eminent  for  coast  views  of  fisher- 
men and  their  families.  Among  the  most  thoroughly  cultured  of 
English  artists  of  the  present  day  is  probably  Charles  L.  Eastlake. 
Educated  first  in  London  then  in  France  and  Italy,  and  having 
extended  his  researches  into  Greece,  his  Scripture  and  ideal  themes, 
have  made  him  an  able  master  as  well  as  critic,  and  have  won  for 
him  an  order  of  knighthood. 

The  most  admired  of  English  landscape  painters,  following  Tur- 
ner, however,  is  probably  Landseer.  Edwin,  afterwards  Sir  Edwin 
Landseer  is  of  a  family  devoted  to  art;  his  father  and  two  of  his 
elder  brothers  being  distinguished  as  painters.  When  a  mere  child 
he  drew  animals  with  a  peculiar  expressiveness;  his  father  encour- 
aged and  directed  his  gift,  leading  him  into  the  pastures  to  copy  the 
form  and  study  the  color  of  dijfferent  animals  in  varied  positions; 
and  at  fourteen  years  he  had  a  great  collection  of  spirited  sketches 
of  domestic  animals,  including  dogs  and  cats,  as  well  as  horses  and 
the  nobler  animals.  At  sixteen  he  executed  the  famous  St.  Bernard 
dogs  rescuing  a  traveler  from  the  snow;  which  his  father  engraved, 
and  made  his  very  best  work  in  that  line  of  art.  From  the  first 
Landseer  continued  to  be  self-educated;  his  only  foreign  education 
consisting  of  a  sketching  tour  through  the  Highlands  of  Scotland. 
At  the  age  of  twenty-four  he  was  made  a  member  of  the  Royal 
Academy;  having  already  begun  that  succession  of  landscape  sketches 
relating  to  the  chase  and  the  habits  of  wild  animals,  like  the  deer, 
which  have  made  him  the  most  popular  because  the  most  life-like  of 
delineators. 

The  English  School  in  "  Water  Colors "  has  won  to  itself  much 
attention  and  esteem.  It  was  established  about  1750  by  Sandby  and 
others.  When  about  fifteen  years  of  age  Turner  was  drawn  into  its 
circle  by  a  friend  of  the  school;  and  his  first  picture  exhibited  at 


SCOTCH   AND   ENGLISH   ART   CRITICS.  699 

the  Royal  Academy  was  an  architectural  view  in  water  colors.  His 
success  in  this  attempt  led  him  for  ten  years  to  devote  himself  to 
this  branch  of  art,  till  he  was  drawn  to  the  higher  department  of 
landscape  in  oil.  Among  those  who  have  become  noted  in  this 
school  are  Prout  in  architectural  views,  and  Fielding  in  wooded 
scenery ;  a  peculiar  freshness  and  clearness  of  hues  being  afforded  by 
water  as  a  vehicle,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  led  M.  Angelo  to  prefer 
the  freedom  of  fresco  to  the  constraint  of  oil  coloring.  A  movement 
towards  a  new,  or  revival  of  an  old  style  of  art,  has  more  recently 
been  made  by  W.  H.  Hunt,  born  A.  D.  1827,  and  yet  young,  and  by 
an  association  of  kindred  spirit,  who  have  taken  the  name  "  Pre- 
Raphaelite  Brotherhood."  The  movement  proposes  a  return  to  the 
themes  as  well  as  the  styles  introduced  by  Giotto;  the  subjects  being 
either  religious  or  exhibitions  of  passions  promotive  of  the  higher 
virtues;  and  the  method  of  drawing  and  coloring  discarding  the 
rules  fixed  by  the  experience  of  the  schools  and  depending  on  an 
immediate  study  of  nature.  Virtually  a  revival  of  the  impassioned 
style,  this  movement  seems  as  in  ancient  Grecian  and  modern  Italian 
art  to  be  the  natural  tendency  of  a  class  of  human  sensibilities, 
found  both  among  artists  and  their  patrons. 

The  rise  and  progress  of  the  art  of  painting  in  the  native  English 
School  has  been  as  much  marked  by  its  original  critics  as  its  artists. 
The  Scotch  metaphysicians  have  had  their  share  of  influence  in 
giving  tone  to  the  progress  of  English  art.  The  "Elements  of 
Criticism,"  by  Henry  Home,  Lord  Kames,  which  appeared  in  1762, 
though  only  indirect  in  its  bearing  on  art  criticism,  suggested  im- 
portant principles  to  guide  both  the  artist  and  his  patron.  Burke 
turned  aside  from  his  forensic  disputations  not  only  to  enjoy  the 
literary  luxuries  of  the  club  of  which  Reynolds  was  an  active 
founder,  but  to  discuss  in  an  elaborate  treatise  the  principles  of  the 
"Beautiful  and  the  Sublime."  Alison,  the  cultured  and  eloquent 
Scotch  divine,  published,  first  in  1790  and  again  in  a  revised  form  in 
1811,  his  "Essays  on  Taste;"  advocating  the  idea  that  beauty  is  not 
a  quality  in  objects  so  much  as  a  moral  or  sesthetic  association  of 
human  sensibilities.  The  two  former  works  were  the  natural  fruit 
of  the  opinions  of  Locke  and  Reid  and  the  latter  of  Berkeley  in 
their  metaphysical  treatises. 

As  a  peculiar  consequence  of  the  literary  spirit  and  taste  of  the 
English  people  nearly  all  English  artists  have  been  theoretical  as 
well  as  practical,  writers  as  well  as  painters;  and  some  have  suc- 
ceeded better  with  the  pen  than  the  brush.     Of  this  fact  Hogarth's 


k 


700  ART   CRITICISM. 

Analysis  of  Beauty,  Fuseli's  Lectures  on  Painting,  Reynolds'  Mis- 
cellaneous Writings,  Hay's  admirable  treatises,  and  Eastlake's 
scholarly  History  of  Oil  Painting  are  but  specimens.  The  rapidly 
succeeding  volumes  of  Ruskin  are  at  once  an  indication  of  the  new 
and  native  field  for  criticism  now  open  in  England  and  America;  as 
well  as  the  popular  demand  for  information  in  this  department  of 
liberal  study.  Even  the  works  of  female  authors,  such  as  Mrs. 
Jamieson  and  Lady  Eastlake,  have  been  fevourably  received  by  both 
the  British  and  American  public. 

Sect.  4.  The  History  of  American  Painting  prior  to  the  War  op 
American  Independence;  with  its  chief  Masters,  West  and  Copley. 

If  the  rise  of  a  native  school  of  painting  in  England  was  delayed 
even  till  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  century  it  cannot  be  sur- 
prising that  in  the  American  colonies  the  demands  of  a  new  country 
should  exclude  the  patronage  requisite  to  the  rise  of  native  artists. 
It  is  remarkable,  however,  that  at  the  very  era  of  the  rise  of  the  first 
native  school  in  the  mother  country  there  should  have  sprung  to 
view  in  the  dependent  colonies  two  men  whose  genius  in  art  would 
shine  as  two  of  the  brightest  stars  in  the  British  Galaxy.  These  two 
native  American  artists  were  Copley  and  West;  one  born  in  Boston 
A.  D.  1737,  the  other  in  the  heart  of  Pennsylvania  A.  D.  1738;  the 
former  rising  to  light  amid  the  unpropitious  shades  of  Puritan  sim- 
plicity; the  latter  struggling  into  day  from  under  the  more  oppres- 
sive clouds  of  Quaker  scruples,  and  in  a  wilderness  remote  from  any 
surroundings  calculated  to  direct  the  mind  towards  art. 

Among  the  earliest  painters  who  came  from  the  old  country  to 
practice  their  art  in  the  new  world  was  John  Smibert;  who,  in  1728, 
accompanied  Dean,  afterwards  Bishop  Berkeley  to  Rhode  Island  on 
his  errand  of  establishing  a  Missionary  College  in  the  colonies. 
Smibert  seemed  to  partake  of  the  enthusiasm  which  drew  from 
Berkeley  the  famous  stanzas  beginning,  "  Westward  the  star  of  Em- 
pire takes  its  flight."  After  the  failure  of  Berkeley's  scheme, 
Smibert  went  to  Boston,  where  he  was  eminent  as  a  portrait  painter 
till  his  death,  in  1751.  He  left  a  historical  painting,  prized  in  its 
day,  now  at  Yale  College,  giving  the  group  of  Berkeley's  family  at 
Newport,  Rhode  Island.  Smibert's  influence  gave  a  spring  to  a 
native  taste  which  long  exerted  an  influence  at  Newport  and  Boston, 
and  which  was  seen  in  the  developem en t  of  Wollaston  and  Blackburn, 
and  especially  of  Copley,  Trumbull  and  other  later  American  artists. 
Amonyj  others  who  are  remembered  in  the  annals  of  the  time  are  M. 


EARLY   AMERICAN   PAINTERS;   WEST.  701 

clii  Cimitiere,  a  Genevan,  who  settled  in  Philadelphia  about  1760; 
Robert  Treat  Payne  who  came  to  America  immediately  on  the  close 
of  the  war  in  1783,  sporting  the  title,  "Painter  to  His  Majesty," 
and  obtained  pupils  in  Philadelphia ;  and  a  painter  by  the  name  of 
Wright  who  settled  in  New  Jersey. 

The  influence  of  the  mother  country  had  caused  native  artists  to 
be  undervalued  and  thus  to  be  depressed.  Hence,  when  after  the 
establishment  of  the  American  nationality  a  great  desire  was 
naturally  awakened  to  obtain  the  likenesses  of  the  patriots  of  the 
Revolutionary  struggle,  and  Washington  and  others  were  besieged 
by  artists  requesting  sittings,  no  single  native  painter  of  merit  equal 
to  the  demand  appeared.  When  in  1785  Hopkinson,  himself  an 
artist  as  well  as  politician,  wrote  to  Washington  recommending  to 
his  patronage  Robert  Edge  Pyne,  Washington  thus  responded  to 
his  humorous  friend:  "I  am  so  hackneyed  to  the  touches  of  the 
painter's  pencil  that  I  am  now  altogether  at  their  beck;  and  I  sit 
like  'Patience  on  a  monument'  while  they  are  delineating  the  lines 
of  my  face.  It  is  a  proof,  among  many  others,  of  what  habit  and 
custom  may  accomplish:  at  first  I  was  as  impatient  at  the  request, 
and  as  restive  under  the  operation  as  a  colt  is  under  the  saddle ;  the 
next  time  I  submitted  very  reluctantly,  but  with  some  flouncing; 
now  no  dray-horse  moves  more  readily  to  his  thills  than  I  to  the 
painter's  chair."  Not  only  Pyne,  but  M.  du  Cimitiere  just  men- 
tioned, took  also  portraits  of  Washington,  Gates  and  Steuben,  which 
were  regarded  as  excellent,  and  were  engraved  afterwards  at  Paris. 
Portraits  of  Washington  were  also  executed  immediately  after  the 
war  by  Joseph  Wright  of  New  Jersey,  by  Wm.  Dunlop  who  after- 
wards became  more  noted  as  a  writer  than  an  artist ;  and  by  Rob't 
Fulton,  then  less  than  twenty  years  of  age;  who  began  his  fame  as  a 
miniature  painter  at  Philadelphia.  The  indifferent  character  of 
these  works,  which  would  naturally  invite  the  best  talent  in  the  art, 
indicates  how  little  progress  had  been  made;  while  at  the  same  time 
the  number  and  youth  of  the  aspirants  for  distinction  as  painters 
gave  early  promise  for  a  national  school  of  American  artists.  Copley 
and  West,  from  their  tastes,  and  their  life-long  domicile,  rank  with 
English  as  well  as  American  artists. 

Benjamin  West,  born  in  Springfield,  Penn.,  A.  D.  1738,  of  Qua- 
ker parentage,  was,  when  a  mere  child,  fond  of  drawing  and  paint- 
ing birds,  flowers,  and  other  objects;  his  brush  being  of  his  own 
manufacture  from  the  hair  of  a  cat,  and  his  colors  some  red  and 
yellow  ochre  obtained  of  the  neighboring  Indians,  and  indigo  given 

59  * 


702  ART   CRITICISM. 

him  by  his  motlier.  At  seven  years  old  his  mother  was  surprised  to 
find  that  when  left  awhile  with  the  babe,  he  had  drawn  a  very  good 
likeness  of  the  infant;  and  he  afterwards  often  said  that  his  mother's 
pride  in  that  picture  made  him  an  artist.  A  friend  in  Philadelphia 
sent  him  a  box  of  water  colors ;  and  in  his  ninth  year  he  executed 
a  painting  which  he  always  insisted  contained  as  fine  touches  as  he 
ever  executed.  He  soon  went  to  Philadelphia  to  study  the  art;  and 
returning  home  at  sixteen  the  question  of  the  propriety  of  fellow- 
shiping  in  a  community  of  Friends  an  avowed  artist  was  discussed. 
His  subsequent  volunteering  at  eighteen  years  to  go  in  a  force  sent 
to  aid  the  retreat  of  Braddock's  army  from  the  West  of  his  native 
colony  separated  him  permanently  from  his  early  religious  connec- 
tions. After  a  brief  practice  in  Philadelphia  and  then  in  New  York, 
at  the  age  of  twenty-two  years,  through  the  liberality  of  some  New 
York  merchants,  he  w^as  permitted  to  visit  Italy.  His  youth  and  his 
origin  in  the  American  wilds,  together  with  his  marked  genius,  made 
him  popular  with  artists,  especially  with  Raphael  Mengs;  and 
during  his  stay  of  about  three  years  in  Italy  he  was  elected  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Art  Academies  of  Florence,  Bologna,  and  Parma.  Visit- 
ing England  in  1763,  on  his  way  home  several  commissions  from 
noble  families  induced  him  to  take  his  abode  in  London;  where  in 
1765  he  married  a  young  American  woman  to  whom  he  had  for- 
merly been  attached  and  who  went  out  to  join  him  in  England. 
George  III.  became  soon  his  attached  friend  and  permanent  patron. 
For  fifty-five  years,  until  his  death  in  1820,  West  practiced  his  art  at 
London ;  leaving  about  four  hundred  finished  works,  many  of  large 
size,  at  his  death.  His  themes  were  at  first  ancient,  then  modern, 
finally  Scripture  history.  His  "  Agrippina  with  the  ashes  of  Regulus" 
early  introduced  him  to  George  III.;  his  "Death  of  Wolfe,"  in 
which  breaking  over  the  scruples  of  the  schools  and  even  of  Rey- 
nolds, he  pictured  English  heroes  in  their  national  costume,  formed 
an  era  in  British  art;  and  his  "Christ  Healing  the  Sick,"  and  es- 
pecially his  "Death  on  the  Pale  Horse,"  executed  when  he  was 
about  seventy -five  years  old,  are  truly  original  conceptions  of  Sacred 
Scenes.  West's  color  by  the  side  of  the  best  English  colorists,  is 
faulty,  being  of  a  monotonous  reddish  brown  hue;  but  his  correct 
drawing,  his  chastened  and  manly  design,  and  his  admirable  group- 
ing have  ranked  him  as  a  master.  Though  English  in  his  predilec- 
tions. West  showed  his  respect  for  the  opinions  of  his  countrymen  by 
declining  the  order  of  knighthood  oflTered  to  him  when  in  1792  he 
succeeded  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  as  President  of  the  Royal  Academy. 


COPLEY;   PAINTERS   OF   THE   AMERICAN   REVOLUTION.      703 

John  Singleton  Copley,  born  at  Boston,  Massachusetts,  in  1737,  with- 
out instruction  began  his  practice  as  a  painter  at  seventeen  years  of 
age ;  and  at  twenty-two  years  he  sent  to  the  Royal  Academy  at  London 
his  "Boy  and  Tame  Squirrel,"  whose  coloring  attracted  special  notice. 
In  1774  he  visited  Italy  and  studied  the  styles  of  Correggio  and 
Titian.  Returning  by  way  of  England  in  1776,  the  American  War 
led  him  to  send  for  his  family  to  meet  him.  Devoting  himself  to 
English  history,  his  great  work,  "  The  Death  of  Chatham,"  in  which 
the  portraits  of  the  most  eminent  of  the  English  lords  are  intro- 
duced, won  him  esteem  with  the  British  public ;  while  it  also  bespoke 
attachment  to  his  country  in  his  respect  for  its  great  defender.  Cop- 
ley had  West's  excellence  of  correct  drawing ;  he  fell  short  of  him 
in  design  but  excelled  him  in  brilliance  of  coloring.  Born  one  year 
earlier  than  West,  he  died  at  London  five  years  earlier  in  1815. 
With  these  two  great  leaders  closes  the  history  of  what  may  perhaps 
be  called  "  American  Colonial  Painting." 

Sect.  5.  The  American  Painters  of  the  half  century  succeeding 

THE  ERA  of  NATIONAL  INDEPENDENCE. 

Immediately  after  the  American  War  of  Independence  so  numer- 
ous were  the  youth  of  genius  that  pressed  into  the  profession  of 
artist  that  it  became  manifest  a  National  School  must  soon  be  estab- 
lished. These  indications  appeared  alike  in  the  Southern,  Middle 
and  Northern  States ;  the  spirit  of  the  South  being  ardent  and  char- 
acterized by  refined  sensibility,  that  of  the  North  bold  and  inventive 
in  its  cast,  and  that  of  the  Middle  regions  more  staid  and  allied  to 
the  past.  In  history  and  landscape,  as  well  as  in  low  life  and  do- 
mestic scenes,  a  style  truly  original  and  national  was  established ; 
the  American  habits  and  character  making  the  simple  modern  cos- 
tume introduced  by  West  into  historic  painting  in  England  a  neces- 
sary passport  to  popular  favor ;  while  the  forest  scenery  of  the  wild 
lands  of  the  New  Continent,  especially  in  the  gorgeous  dress  of  a 
bright  Autumn,  opened  an  entirely  new  field  in  Nature  for  the 
artist's  study. 

In  the  North  Stuart,  Trumbull,  Malbone,  Fisher  and  Newton 
brought  honor  to  the  States  of  Rhode  Island,  Connecticut  and 
Massachusetts. 

Gilbert  Charles  Stuart,  born  at  Narragansett,  Rhode  Island,  in 
1756,  having  received  early  instruction  from  a  Scotch  painter  named 
Alexander,  visited  Edinburgh  at  the  age  of  eighteen  years;  but, 
having  returned  home  shortly  after  on  account  of  the  death  of  his 


704  ART  CRITICISM. 

patron,  he  went  to  London  in  1778,  during  the  war,  where  West 
became  his  attached  friend  and  teacher.  In  1781  he  commenced 
practice  as  a  portrait  painter,  when  he  at  once  developed  such  power 
as  to  rival  the  best  of  English  artists.  Among  his  sitters  were  George 
III.,  the  Prince  of  Wales,  Sir  Joshua  Keynolds  and  others ;  and  not 
long  after  on  a  visit  to  Paris  Louis  XVI.  sat  for  him.  Returning  to 
America  in  1793  he  proceeded  to  Philadelphia  and  painted  that 
master  work  the  head  of  Washington,  of  which  he  afterwards  made 
several  copies ;  the  original  belonging  now  to  the  Boston  Athen^um. 
Till  his  death  in  1828  he  continued  his  vocation  ;  and  the  great  men 
of  the  second  as  well  as  of  the  first  generation  of  the  American  Re- 
public are  preserved  in  memory  by  his  art.  Stuart  excelled  in  seiz- 
ing the  characteristic  expression,  and  in  the  life-like  freshness  and 
glow  of  his  flesh  color.  The  head  was  always  his  chief  study :  the 
drapery  he  often  left  unfinished,  or  threw  it  into  deep  shade  to  give 
greater  prominence  to  the  strong  light  on  the  features. 

John  Trumbull,  son  of  Governor  Jonathan  Trumbull,  whose  fami- 
liar designation  by  Washington  as  "  Brother  Jonathan"  has  origi- 
nated a  soubriquet  for  the  people  in  whose  cause  he  was  a  pillar  of 
strength,  was  born  at  Lebanon,  Connecticut,  in  1756.  AVhile  at  Har- 
vard College  the  paintings  of  Smibert  and  Copley  at  Boston  led  him 
to  devote  himself  to  art.  He  had  executed  two  pictures  on  Classic 
themes,  "  The  Battle  of  CannsG"  and  "  The  Judgment  of  Brutus," 
when  the  conflict  at  Lexington  in  April  1775  drew  him  at  the  age 
of  nineteen  years  to  enter  the  American  army.  His  skill  in  drawing 
led  Washington  when  he  reached  Boston  to  employ  him  to  make  a 
plan  of  the  enemy's  works ;  and  immediately  after  he  was  appointed 
as  one  of  his  aids.  He  served  afterwards  under  Gates  and  Arnold. 
In  the  spring  of  1777  the  action  of  Congress  as  to  the  date  of  his 
commission  led  him  to  resign  and  return  to  his  art.  In  May  1780 
he  sailed  for  France,  went  thence  to  London  and  became  a  pupil  of 
West.  The  execution  of  Andr6  led  to  his  arrest  and  imprisonment ; 
but  by  the  influence  of  West  with  George  III.  after  eight  months 
confinement  he  was  released.  Shortly  after  the  war  he  painted  "The 
Battle  of  Bunker  Hill"  and  "  The  Death  of  Montgomery,"  which 
were  engraved,  the  one  by  a  German  and  the  other  by  a  Dane,  and 
distributed  in  prints  over  Europe.  These  subjects  chosen  by  the 
bold  young  American  not  altogether  suiting  the  English  taste,  he 
painted  "The  Sortie  at  Gibraltar;"  whose  exhibition  gave  him  a  wide 
reputation  as  excelling  in  Battle  Scenes.  Returning  to  America  in 
1789  he  spent  his  life  chiefly  in  his  native  country,  laboriously  fol- 


TRUMBULL,    MALBON-E   AND   OTHER   N.  ENG.  PAINTERS.    705 

lowing  his  art  till  his  death  at  New  York  in  1843  in  his  eighty-eighth 
year.  After  painting  numerous  portraits  of  his  eminent  countrymen, 
Congress  employed  him  at  an  expense  of  $32,000,  in  1817,  to  fill  four 
of  the  panels  in  the  rotunda  of  the  National  Capitol,  then  newly 
erected,  with  historical  pictures ;  which  occupied  him  seven  years, 
and  have  given  him  his  chief  fame.  The  Trumbull  gallery  of 
Yale  College  now  contains  fifty-seven  pictures  of  his,  including 
portraits,  historical  and  Scripture  themes.  The  figures  in  Trumbull's 
pictures  have  more  merit  than  the  back-grounds ;  but  their  chief 
value  is  their  correctness  as  portraits  of  the  men  with  whom  as  an 
officer  of  the  American  army  he  had  been  familiar. 

Edward  G.  Malbone,  born  at  Newport,  Rhode  Island,  in  1777,  the 
eminent  miniature  painter,  died  at  Savannah,  Georgia,  1807 ;  his 
early  death  cutting  off  the  promise  of  his  rapidly  growing  power. 
When  a  boy  he  watched  the  w^ork  of  scene  painters,  until  he  himself 
attempted  a  landscape  for  stage  scenery,  whose  superior  execution 
marked  him  as  a  genius.  Devoting  himself  now  to  painting  he  ac- 
quired by  his  own  efforts  such  skill  in  miniature  heads  as  to  com- 
mence practice  at  seventeen  years  in  Providence;  whence  in  1796  he 
removed  to  Boston.  Renewing  here  his  early  acquaintance  with 
Washington  Allston,  the  two  young  artists  went  in  1800  to  Charles- 
ton, South  Carolina,  and  thence  to  London.  Though  kindly  received 
by  Benjamin  West,  and  urged  to  settle  in  London,  Malbone  returned 
the  next  year  to  Charleston.  Failing  health  discouraged  his  purpose 
to  attempt  larger  works  ;  and  he  devoted  himself  to  miniature  por- 
traits; visiting  several  cities  of  the  United  States.  Allston,  his 
admirer,  speaks  of  him  as  remarkable  in  his  portraits  of  different 
persons,  for  "  elevating  the  character  without  impairing  the  likeness." 

Among  other  New  England  artists  of  this  period  Morse,  Harding, 
Fisher  and  Newton  deserve  mention.  Samuel  Finley  Breese  Morse, 
afterwards  famous  as  the"  inventor  of  the  Electric  Telegraph,  the  son 
of  an  eminent  clergyman,  born  at  Charlestown,  Massachusetts,  A.  D. 
1791,  after  graduating  in  1810  at  Yale  College,  went  to  London  with 
Newton  to  study  art  under  West.  Giving  attention  to  sculpture  as 
well  as  to  painting,  he  modelled  a  dying  Hercules  which  won  the  gold 
medal  at  the  Adelphi  Exhibition  at  London  in  1813.  Returning  in 
1815  he  gave  but  indirect  devotion  to  art.  In  1824  he  aided  at 
New  York  in  the  organization  of  an  association  which  grew  into  the 
"  National  Academy  of  Design,"  of  which  in  1826  he  became  Presi- 
dent. In  1829  he  revisited  Europe  to  resume  the  study  of  art ;  and 
after  three  years  spent  in   the  chief  cities  of  the  continent  he  re- 

40 


706  ART   CRITICISM. 

turned  to  contribute  ratlier  to  the  literature  than  to  the  practice  of 
his  profession  as  a  Professor  in  the  University  of  New  York.  His 
project  as  an  inventor  soon  turned  his  studies  into  another  channel ; 
where  the  most  eminent  success  attended  his  efforts.  As  a  specimen 
of  erratic  American  fortune  leading  on  to  art,  Chester  Harding 
deserves  mention.  Born  in  Conway,  Massachusetts,  in  1792,  exiled 
westward  when  eight  years  old  by  the  poverty  of  his  parents,  then 
farther  still  at  fourteen,  he  was  a  self-taught  artist.  Emerging  by  his 
inventive  skill  from  obscurity  though  struggling  for  years  to  sustain 
a  helpless  family,  drawn  from  place  to  place  by  necessity,  he  made 
himself  an  artist  of  such  ability  that  the  leading  men  of  the  nation 
sat  willingly  while  he  took  their  portraits.  Alvan  Fisher,  born  in 
Needham,  Massachusetts,  1792,  at  eighteen  years  devoted  himself  to 
painting,  and  gained  note  in  portrait  and  familiar  domestic  and  rural 
scenes ;  succeeding  well  in  animal  sketches.  Gilbert  Stuart  Newton, 
nephew  of  the  artist  after  whom  he  was  named,  was  born  1795  at 
Halifax,  Nova  Scotia.  His  parents  removed  to  Boston  when  he  was 
eight  years  old,  and  he  early  studied  art  under  his  uncle.  At  the 
age  of  twenty-one  he  went  to  Italy,  and  thence  the  next  year  to  Eng- 
land, where  a  strong  friendship  was  formed  between  him  and  Wash- 
ington Irving.  He  early  adopted  the  operatic  style,  much  like  that  of 
Watteau  ;  which  soon  became  chastened  and  subdued.  His  themes 
were  chiefly  studies  from  Shakspeare,  Goldsmith  and  other  classic  Eng- 
lish authors ;  his  "  Cordelia"  in  King  Lear,  "  Olivia"  from  the  Vicar 
of  Wakefield,  and  "  Abelard  in  his  study"  being  his  master-pieces. 
After  visiting  Boston  and  marrying,  he  returned  to  England;  where 
shortly  after,  in  1833,  he  manifested  signs  of  mental  derangement  and 
died  in  the  Insane  Asylum  at  Chelsea  at  the  age  of  forty  years.  An 
unpleasantness  of  temper  made  him  generally  misunderstood ;  but 
the  strong  friendship  of  Irving,  and  of  Leslie  his  brother  artist, 
attested  his  personal  worth  ;  while  of  his  ability  as  an  artist  Irving 
says,  that  he  exhibited  "  a  coloring  almost  unrivalled,  added  to  a 
liveliness  of  fancy  a  quickness  of  conception  and  a  facility  and  grace 
of  execution  that  spread  a  magic  charm  over  his  productions." 

In  the  Middle  States  the  Peale  family  led  the  van  in  the  progress 
of  art  in  the  age  after  the-  Eevolution.  Charles  Wilson  Peale,  born 
in  Chester,  Maryland,  in  1741,  devoted  in  early  life  to  various  me- 
chanic arts,  having  received  some  instruction  from  Hesselius,  a  Ger- 
man painter  in  Philadelphia,  afterwards  from  Copley  in  Boston, 
went  in  1770  to  England.  Eeturning  prior  to  the  war  he  for  some 
years  painted  portraits  first  at  Annapolis,  Maryland,  then  in  Philadel- 


THE   PEALES,   AND   PAINTERS   OF   THE    MIDDLE  STATES.     707 

pliia ;  having  such  a  reputation  that  he  had  applicants  from  Canada 
and  the  West  Indies.  During  the  war  he  was  a  captain  in  the  army ; 
and  afterwards  painted  several  portraits  of  eminent  military  and 
civil  leaders,  which  he  made  the  nucleus  of  a  Gallery  of  Art.  Peale 
contributed  indirectly  also  to  the  advancement  of  art  by  the  estab- 
lishment of  his  Museum  and  by  his  efforts  for  the  founding  of  the 
Pennsylvania  Academy  of  the  Fine  Arts.  He  died  in  1827.  Kem- 
brandt  Peale,  son  of  the  former,  born  1778,  at  eight  years  was  skilled 
in  drawing,  and  at  eighteen  years  was  engaged  in  portrait  painting 
at  Charleston,  South  Carolina.  In  1801  he  went  to  London  and 
studied  under  West  till  1804,  when  he  went  to  Paris  and  executed 
several  portraits  of  eminent  men  for  his  father's  gallery.  In  1809 
he  returned,  and  settled,  in  Philadelphia.  Two  large  paintings,  one 
classic  the  other  allegoric,  "  The  Roman  Daughter"  and  the  "  Court 
of  Death,"  had  a  large  reputation ;  but  portrait  was  his  chief  field. 
Other  members  of  the  Peale  family,  as  Sarah  and  Ann,  sisters  of 
Rembrandt,  painted  portraits  with  success. 

New  York  has  proved  a  prolific  nursery  of  art  talent.  John  Van- 
derlyn,  born  at  Kingston,  New  York,  1776,  at  sixteen  years,  began 
study  under  Stuart,  and  in  1796  under  the  patronage  of  Aaron  Burr 
went  to  Paris.  He  returned  in  1801,  but  went  back  in  1803  and 
remained  till  1815.  During  this  latter  period  he  executed  his 
American  historical  scene  "  The  Murder  of  Jane  McCrea  by  the  In- 
dians," his  mythological  master-piece  "Ariadne,"  and  his  classic  theme 
"  Marius  among  the  Ruins  of  Carthage,"  which  won  the  gold  medal 
at  the  Paris  exhibition  in  1808,  and  an  encomium  from  Napoleon. 
After  1815  Vanderlyn  took  up  his  residence  in  New  York,  where 
he  engaged  in  an  enterprise  for  pictorial  exhibitions  which  proved 
unsuccessful.  His  later  years  were  chiefly  devoted  to  portrait  paint- 
ing. His  "Landing  of  Columbus"  in  one  of  the  panels  of  the 
United  States  Capitol  at  Washington  is  one  of  his  ablest  works.  He 
died  at  New  York  in  1852.  Asher  Brown  Durand,  born  in  Jefferson, 
New  Jersey,  in  1796,  began  his  career  as  an  engraver,  which  he 
learned  first  in  the  shop  of  his  father  a  jeweler,  and  afterwards 
studied  for  three  years  under  Peter  Naverich.  His  success  in  en- 
graving Trumbull's  Declaration  of  Independence  brought  him  into 
public  notice.  Dissatisfied  with  being  in  a  profession  which  made 
him  a  mere  copyist,  he  practiced  painting  in  his  leisure  for  about  ten 
years ;  when  in  1835  he  abandoned  engraving  for  this  higher  art. 
For  some  years  he  painted  portraits,  practicing  landscape  only  as  a 
pastime;   then   devoted    himself  wholly  to   historic   themes,   ideal 


708  ART  CRITICISM. 

scenes  and  native  landscape  which  have  given  him  his  chief  fame. 
As  a  designer  he  excels  in  idyllic  expression  of  poetic  conception,  as 
well  as  in  natural  and  simple  scenes ;  and  his  execution  is  character- 
ized by  great  truth  in  color  and  tone. 

Charles  Eobart  Leslie,  whose  father  was  a  citizen  of  Philadelphia 
and  friend  of  Franklin,  was  born  at  London  in  1794  during  a  brief 
residence  of  his  parents  in  that  city.  At  the  age  of  six  years,  on 
their  return  to  Philadelphia,  he  already  displayed  a  taste  for  art. 
At  the  age  of  nineteen  he  visited  England  and  studied  under  West 
and  Allston.  After  some  attempts  in  grave  historical  style,  the 
humorous  writers  of  England  and  the  Continent  became  his  study 
for  favorite  themes ;  and  the  merry  scenes  depicted  by  Shakspeare 
and  Sterne,  by  Cervantes  and  Moliere,  became  the  subject  of  his  hap- 
piest efforts.  Among  other  works  his  "  Anne  Page  and  Slender"  and 
"  May  Day  under  Queen  Bess,"  brought  out  between  1820  and  1825, 
made  him  eminently  popular  in  England.  In  1833  he  became  Pro- 
fessor of  Drawing  in  the  Military  Academy  at  West  Point ;  but  soon 
resigning  the  position  he  returned  to  England  and  practiced  his  art 
till  his  death  in  London  in  1859.  His  early  productions  were  in 
design  characterized  by  rare  humor,  his  composition  was  expressive, 
and  his  execution  elaborate  in  finish.  His  "  Hand-book  for  Young 
Painters "  is  a  contribution  to  the  literature  of  art.  Henry  Inman, 
born  in  Utica,  New  York,  A.  D.  1801,  from  early  childhood  mani- 
fested a  taste  for  art,  which  was  stimulated  by  the  removal  of  his 
parents,  when  he  was  eleven  years  old,  to  New  York.  In  1814  he 
entered  the  studio  of  Jarvis,  the  portrait  painter,  with  whom  he  re- 
mained seven  years,  accompanying  him  to  New  Orleans  and  aiding 
him  in  his  work.  For  several  years  after  his  majority  he  practiced  por- 
trait painting  in  New  York,  having  many  eminent  men  as  his  sitters. 
In  1844  infirm  health  led  him  to  England,  where  he  was  as  success- 
ful as  at  home ;  painting  the  portraits  of  Macaulay,  Chalmers,  Words- 
worth and  others,  also  in  landscape,  Wordsworth's  favorite  haunt, 
"  Eydal  Water."  Keturning  in  1845  to  New  York  he  commenced 
a  series  of  historical  works  ordered  by  Congress  for  the  United 
States  Capitol.  He  was  engaged  upon  the  first,  "Daniel  Boone's 
Kentucky  Cabin,"  when,  in  1846,  he  deceased. 

In  the  Southern  States,  South  Carolina  has  been  the  special  mother 
of  artists.  Washington  Allston,  son  of  Governor  Allston,  born  at 
Waccamaw,  South  Carolina,  in  1779,  in  childhood  displayed  a  love 
for  art,  which  was  called  out  by  a  portrait  painter  named  Bembridge. 
His  early  bent  was  shown  in  his  effort  to  convert  fern  stalks,  by  tying 


ALLSTON   AND   PAINTERS   OF   THE  SOUTHERN   STATES.     709 

them  up  with  colored  yarn,  into  the  forms  of  men  and  women  and 
making  them  hold  forth  pitcher-shaped  flowers  of  pomegranate.  At 
the  age  of  seven  years  on  account  of  his  delicate  constitution  he 
was  taken  to  Rhode  Island;  and  while  at  school  here  and  at  Har- 
vard College  Mai  bone  directed  his  genius,  and  he  spent  his  leisure  in 
drawing  from  engravings.  At  his  graduation  in  1800  Malbone 
accompanied  him  to  South  Carolina.  Allston  now  gave  himself  up 
to  his  bent,  sketching  comic  and  tragic  scenes,  especially  pictures  of 
bandits  in  wild  caves.  Going  with  Malbone  to  London  in  1801,  he 
studied  three  years  under  West ;  went  thence  in  1804  to  Paris,  met 
Vauderlyn,  and  spent  some  months  in  the  Louvre  galleries;  and 
thence  again  repaired  to  Rome,  where  he  made  the  intimate  acquaint- 
ance of  Coleridge  the  poet,  and  Thorwaldsen  the  sculptor,  and  re- 
mained four  years.  Visiting  America  in  1809  he  married  the  sister 
of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Channing  then  eminent  as  a  preacher  at  Boston ; 
when  returning  to  London  he  brought  out  in  succession  those  early 
works  "  The  Dead  Man  Revived,"  "  Peter  Released  from  Prison,'* 
"  Uriel  in  the  Sun,"  and  "  Jacob's  Dream,"  which  procured  him  the 
wealthiest  and  most  princely  patronage  in  England  and  stamped  his 
genius  as  eminent  for  exalted  imagination  and  boldness  in  execution. 
Having  lost  his  wife  he  returned,  in  1818,  to  Boston,  where  he 
resided  for  twelve  years,  working  at  intervals,  bringing  out  his 
"  Prophet  Jeremiah,"  "  Saul  and  the  Witch  of  Endor,"  and  "  Miriam 
Singing  in  Triumph ;"  all  in  keeping  with  earlier  eflbrts  and  subdued 
by  his  riper  experience  and  personal  trial.  In  1830  he  married  a 
daughter  of  Chief  Justic  Dana  of  Cambridge ;  and  in  the  retirement 
of  his  quiet  studio  at  that  seat  of  refinement  spent  his  last  days  till 
his  death,  in  1843.  Here  he  executed  some  minor  works;  but  gave 
his  thoughts  up  to  the  one  great  study  of  his  life,  conceived  in  his 
youth,  described  to  Washington  Irving  in  1817  and  matured  for 
years  at  Boston,  his  "  Belshazzar's  Feast."  That  he  might  give  his 
whole  time  to  this  he  declined  even  the  flattering  invitation  of  the 
United  States  Congress  to  fill  one  of  the  panels  of  the  Capitol 
rotunda  with  a  historic  piece.  On  Saturday  night,  July  9th,  1843, 
after  a  week  of  constant  toil  ofa  this  work,  in  pleasant  converse  with 
his  family  and  friends  he  was  seized  by  an  affection  of  the  heart  and 
gently  fell  asleep  in  death.  The  unfinished  picture,  now  in  the  Bos- 
ton Athenaeum,  is  a  grand  monument,  symbolic  of  its  author's  life ; 
glowing  with  unearthly  loftiness  of  sentiment,  the  effort  at  whose 
utterance  exhausted  the  panting  breath  that  sought  to  give  it  form. 
After  Allston,  Sully  and  Eraser  brought  credit  to  their  native 

60 


710 


ART  CRITICISM. 


South  Carolina.  Thomas  Sully,  a  native  of  England,  born  A.  D. 
1783,  at  the  age  of  nine  years  was  brought  by  his  parents  to  Charles- 
ton, S.  C.  At  fifteen  he  began  the  study  of  painting ;  at  twenty 
settled  in  Richmond,  Va.,  as  a  portrait  painter;  and  six  years  later, 
in  1809,  removed  to  Philadelphia.  Devoted  chiefly  to  portrait, 
he  occasionally  attempted  history;  his  "Washington  Crossing  the 
Delaware  "  being  a  most  spirited  design.  Eminently  popular  at  home, 
on  a  visit  to  England  he  was  permitted  to  take  a  likeness  of  Queen 
Victoria.  Charles  Eraser,  a  native  of  Charleston,  S.  C,  born  1782, 
manifested  when  a  boy  a  taste  for  drawing;  spending  many  hours  in 
taking  sketches  of  the  environs  of  his  native  town.  Entering  how- 
ever the  profession  of  the  law,  though  at  intervals  returning  to  art, 
he  was  able  about  1818,  at  thirty  years  of  age  to  retire  on  a  compe- 
tency and  availed  himself  of  its  exemption  to  give  himself  to  his 
favorite  pursuit.  He  has  had  a  high  reputation  as  a  man  of  finished 
culture  and  an  artist  of  general  ability. 

The  West  meanwhile  produced  able  artists ;  among  others,  Thomas 
Cole,  born  in  England  in  1801,  who  came  with  his  father  to  America 
in  1819  and  settled  in  Steubenville,  Ohio.  While  employed  in  de- 
signing prints  in  a  cloth  factory,  an  acquaintance  with  a  traveling 
portrait  painter  named  Stein  determined  him  to  study  painting. 
With  colors  and  implements  of  his  own  manufacture  he  began  to 
paint  landscapes,  rural  scenes  and  portraits.  At  the  age  of  twenty- 
one,  and  only  after  a  few  months  of  self-taught  practice  he  began  a 
tour  on  foot  as  portrait  painter ;  reached  Pittsburg  in  the  Spring  of 
1823,  where  he  studied  with  intense  care  and  interest  its  bold  sur- 
rounding scenery ;  and  came  to  Philadelphia  in  the  autumn  where  he 
established  himself  as  a  landscape  painter.  Proceeding  to  New  York 
in  the  spring  of  1825,  Trumbull  and  other  artists  recognized  him  as 
one  of  nature's  great  masters.  His  next  four  years  originated  the 
American  School  in  landscape.  He  rambled  for  weeks  among  the 
highlands  of  the  Hudson  when  the  forests  were  robed  in  their  gau- 
diest and  most  variegated  hues;  and  the  sketches  which  he  made  had 
a  simplicity,  truth  and  Living  expressiveness,  added  to  an  inimitable 
naturalness  of  color,  that  captivated  'every  beholder.  Commissions 
flowed  in  upon  him ;  he  extended  his  tours  to  Niagara  at  the  West 
and  the  White  Mountains  on  the  North ;  and  thus  brought  a  widened 
range  of  features  into  his  landscape  views.  Not  satisfied  with  the 
copying  of  natural  scenery  he  attempted  ideal  themes;  in  the  study 
of  which  the  whole  scene,  with  every  touch  of  the  brush,  was  thought 
through  and  sometimes  even  written  out  before  he  put  his  pencil  to 


COLE   AND   PAINTERS   OF  THE   WESTERN  STATES.  711 

the  canvas.  His  "Garden  of  Eden"  and  "Expulsion  from  Eden" 
with  their  contrast  in  ideal  landscape,  exhibited  in  1828,  bespoke  the 
power  of  the  artist ;  though  they  failed  to  please  the  public  as  had 
his  home  scenes.  In  June,  1829,  Cole  visited  London  and  painted 
there  two  years ;  but  ignorant  of  the  features  of  American  scenery 
professed  judges  characterized  his  productions  as  exaggerated.  In 
1831  he  visited  Italy,  and  studied,  till  it  was  photographed  on  his 
memory,  the  magic  clime  of  this  storied  land.  Returning  to  New  York 
in  1832  he  was  engaged  by  Luman  Reed,  a  merchant  prince,  to  exe- 
cute paintings  to  fill  a  small  private  gallery;  and  several  years  were 
spent  on  the  five  large  pictures  styled  "The  Course  of  Empire"  rep- 
resenting the  effect  of  progressive  civilization  in  changing  the  face 
of  the  landscape.  His  "Dream  of  Arcadia" and  "Voyage  of  Life" 
followed;  whose  fame  is  now  world-wide  in  engraved  copies.  In 
1841  he  again  visited  Italy,  spending  some  time  in  Sicily;  and  on  his 
return  next  year  brought  out  a  rich  succession  of  views,  including 
one  of  Etna.  His  excessive  labor  probably  hastened  his  death  in 
1848;  his  last  works  having  assumed  a  religious  turn,  as  appears  in 
his  "II  Penseroso,"  his  "Cross  in  the  Wilderness"  and  his  unfinished 
"  Cross  and  the  World."  In  him  was  embodied  most  strikingly  the 
qualities  which  as  a  class  have  characterized  American  artists;  love 
of  nature  in  her  forms  of  homely  loveliness;  remarkable  purity  of 
private  life;  and  at  the  close  of  his  career,  a  deep-seated  and  unos- 
tentatious religious  sentiment.  Each  of  these,  but  preeminently  the 
latter,  peculiar  not  only  to  the  artists  but  to  the  men  of  science  and 
statesmen  of  America,  is  doubtless  the  result  of  that  individual  re- 
sponsibility, naturally  felt  where  no  second  party  is  expected  to  inter- 
pose either  to  assume  authority  or  to  relieve  obligation  in  determining 
and  perfoi-ming  personal  duty  to  the  Divine  Creator. 

Sect.  6.  The  characteristics  of  American  Nationality  and  Chris- 
tianity, AS  developing  a  comprehensive  type  and  elevated  style 
of  Native  Art  in  Painting.. 

Made  up  as  the  early  colonists  of  America  were  of  the  more  enter- 
prising classes  emigrating  from  several  countries  of  Western  Europe, 
it  was  natural  that  they  should  take,  as  did  the  Carthaginian  colo- 
nists from  Phoenicia  and  the  Asiatic  colonists  from  diflferent  sections 
of  Greece,  a  peculiarly  comprehensive  type  and  elevated  style  of 
nationality.  The  first  immigrants  from  Spain,  France,  Germany, 
Holland  and  Great  Britain  were  the  more  energetic,  if  not  the  more 
intelligent  and  pious,  of  the  middle  or  civilizing,  and  of  the  noble  or 


712  ART   CRITICISM. 

ruling  classes  in  European  Society.  The  descendants  of  all  of  these 
original  stocks,  and  fresh  emigrants  from  each  of  these  countries, 
meeting  in  the  formation  of  a  new  Society,  have  naturally  assumed 
an  independence  yet  courteousness  of  bearing  which  in  the  truly 
cultured  American  has  ripened  into  a  courtly  if  not  princely  car- 
riage, remarked  at  home  and  abroad;  something  like  that  of  the 
Grecian  adventurers  and  of  the  Venetian  merchants.  Their  chosen 
civil  government,  in  keeping  with  this  character  and  growing  out  of 
the  varied  elements  from  which  it  has  sprung,  has  taken  the  form  of 
an  elective  representative  Republic.  Their  Christianity,  renouncing 
all  claim  to  State  patronage,  and  deeming  it  unworthy  to  build  itself 
on  any  other  authority  than  its  conformity  to  the  teachings  and 
manifested  spirit  of  its  divine  author,  has  so  compelled  individual 
investigation  and  awakened  personal  responsibility  that  its  theoretic 
faith,  its  ritual  and  its  ceremonial  service  have  taken  the  cast  of  varied 
individual  conviction,  while  its  acts  of  consecration  and  deeds  of  devo- 
tion have  glowed  with  the  fervor  of  a  personal  hope  and  love.  It 
could  not  be  that  these  native  characteristics  should  not  shoAv  a 
marked  development  in  the  advance  of  American  art. 

The  artists  of  America,  in  the  present  as  in  the  past  generations, 
are  of  every  nationality ;  among  which  German  and  Italian  have 
next  to  those  of  native-birth  been  most  numerous.  In  political 
views  the  German  has  been  extreme  in  his  theory  of  individual  inde- 
pendence, fully  keeping  alive  the  hereditary  spirit  of  his  nationality ; 
while  the  English  tendency  may  have  been  to  the  opposite  extreme. 
In  religion  the  German  has  cast  off  all  the  restraints  of  ancestral 
faith,  forgetting  that  individual  minds  must  trust  in  every  depart- 
ment of  knowledge  to  the  experience  of  the  past,  and  not  altogether 
to  the  slowly-reached  deductions  of  personal  reason;  while  the 
Italian  has  rested  too  entirely  in  a  faith  that  is  so  purely  hereditary 
as  to  be  ignorant  of  its  own  foundation.  In  the  mass  of  intelligent 
American  scholars  and  artists,  however,  there  has  been  a  decided 
and  strong  tendency  to  comprehensive  views,  and  a  conservative 
course  in  both  politics  and  religion ;  the  reflex  of  which  spirit  is 
taking  form  in  their  works  of  art. 

In  mentioning  different  branches  of  the  art  of  painting  in  which 
American  genius  is  developing  itself,  it  would  be  invidious  to  regard 
the  few  artists  named  as  any  other  than  examples  of  classes ;  a  Text- 
Book  requiring  some  names  as  illustrations,  but  forbidding  the  men- 
tion of  the  many  reserved  for  future  and  complete  enumeration. 
As  copies  from  old  masters,  an  important  field  of  art  both  as  a  study 


CHARACTEKISTICS  OF  AMERICAN  PAINTING  WITH  EXAMPLES.  713 

and  a  reproduction,  Paul  Baize's  " School  of  Athens"  and  some  of  J. 
K.  Fisher's  later  Venetian  masters,  have  long  been  admired.  In  por- 
trait every  leading  city  has  its  one  or  more  favorite  artists ;  some  of 
whom  are  destined  to  shine  in  this  and  other  departments.  Historic 
portraiture,  in  the  field  of  aboriginal  Indian  subjects,  has  found  in 
Stanley  an  enthusiastic  devotee.  History  proper  is  worthily  repre- 
sented by  Walker  in  his  Battle  of  Chapultepec,  and  by  Weir  in  his 
"•Embarkation  of  the  Pilgrims."  In  genre,  or  the  lower  order  of 
sentiment  presented  in  home  life,  Huntington,  a  pupil  of  Morse,  has 
w^on  praise.  In  the  higher  order  of  passion,  Eothermel  is  showing 
decided  genius ;  his  "  Paul  before  Agrippa"  exhibiting  a  creditable 
departure  from  the  ideal  of  Raphael  in  his  Cartoon  of  "  Paul  at 
Athens,"  in  which  the  apostle  is  tall  and  commanding  in  person, 
while  Rothermel's  conception  is  according  to  the  historic  tradition 
of  the  Roman  Lucian,  as  to  "the  bald-headed  Galilean  with  a 
hooked  nose,"  and  of  Nicephorus  and  others,  who  described  him  as 
small  of  stature,  with  aquiline  nose,  high  forehead  and  sparkling 
eyes ;  while  his  "  Christian  Martyrs  in  the  Coliseum"  is  a  master- work 
in  architectural  back-ground,  in  the  grouping  of  the  action  of  the 
picture,  in  the  expression  of  the  chief  figures,  and  in  the  shade  and 
aerial  eflTects  thrown  over  the  whole.  Fresco  has  just  reached  a 
w^orthy  American  character  in  the  works  of  Brumidi  in  the  Roman 
Cathedral  at  Philadelphia,  and  in  the  United  States  Capitol  at 
Washington  City. 

It  is,  however,  in  the  field  of  extended  landscape,  and  especially 
in  distant  aerial  effects,  that  American  artists  have  won  the  meed  of 
leadership  in  a  distinct  School.  While  Leutze  has  recast  admirably 
Italian  and  especially  Venetian  sky,  a  class  of  artists  have  caught 
the  mantle  of  Cole  in  American  scenery.  The  twilight  landscapes 
of  Weber  are  fairy-like  in  the  management  of  aerial  and  ground 
tints ;  the  sky  of  Church's  "  Cotapaxi,"  "  Heart  of  the  Andes  "  and  "  Nia- 
gara" IS  as  rare  in  art  as  the  subjects  of  his  sketches  are  in  nature; 
and  Bierstadt's  master-works,  uniting  both  these  fields,  have  estab- 
lished a  new  school  in  the  history  of  coloring. 

The  lack  of  the  religious  element  in  the  designs  of  American 
artists  is  calling  forth  frequent  comment.  Allston,  drawn  by  his 
early  affliction  to  religious  studies,  and  sacrificing  public  patronage 
and  popular  fame,  always  called  out  by  historic  master-pieces,  that  he 
might  give  himself  to  one  great  sacred  theme,  is  an  exception  in 
American  art.  The  devotion,  however,  of  West  and  Cole  in  their 
advanced  and  declining  'days  to  these  themes,  in  the  light  of  the 

60  *  4  P 


714  ART   CRITICISM. 

fact  that  such  minds  as  Newton  and  Grotius  and  great  numbers  of 
the  ablest  French,  English  and  American  statesmen  and  scholars 
have  given  their  ripest  powers  and  yielded  their  deepest  convictions 
first  to  the  investigation  then  to  the  unfolding  of  Christian  truth, 
indicates  that  when  American  genius  is  directed  to  this  field  it  will 
show  a  depth  of  conviction,  an  intelligence  of  faith,  an  inspira- 
tion of  hope,  and  a  zeal  of  love  entirely  new  in  the  history  of  Chris- 
tian art.  As  American  scholars,  aside  from  the  prejudice  of  national 
ecclesiastical  predilections,  have  analyzed  Christian  traditions,  local 
and  historical,  with  an  independence  and  candor  of  judgment  impos- 
sible in  men  of  old  European  national  prejudices,  so,  with  their 
superior  skill  in  natural  landscape  and  their  personal  intelligence  in 
Christian  truth,  the  climactic  field  of  art,  the  union  of  a  lofty  ideal 
of  the  Divine  "  Word  made  flesh,"  with  the  perfect  transcript  of  the 
scenes  of  his  actual  life,  may  be  realized  by  American  painters. 


BOOK   VI. 

LANDSCAPE  GARDENING;  THE  GROUPING  OF  NATURAL  OBJECTS 
TO  SECURE  ARTISTIC  EFFECTS  OF  FORM,  COLOR,  RELATION, 
AND   MOTION. 

The  double  designation  "Landscape  Gardening,"  suggests  two 
ends  as  proposed  by  this  Art.  A  garden  is  designed  primarily  to 
subserve  an  end  of  utility ;  furnishing  provision  for  the  table.  A 
landscape  on  the  other  hand  cannot  be  thought  of  otherwise  than  as 
an  assemblage  of  objects  producing  the  impression  of  beauty.  This 
same  designation  also  suggests  the  two  classes  of  means  by  which  the 
ends  of  the  art  are  attained.  The  landscape  is  an  artistic  work  con- 
ceived and  finished  by  the  Creator's  hand ;  a  garden  is  a  work  whose 
order  and  ornament  are  designed  and  executed  by  human  hands.  A 
landscape  garden  is  a  composite  creation ;  in  which  the  artist  availing 
himself  carefully  of  the  grand  outline  already  furnished  by  the  Di- 
vine skill  only  adds  the  touches  necessary  to  remove  the  blemishes 
which  Nature's  derangement  has  introduced,  and  to  adapt  for  human 
dwelling-places  what  had  been  made  beautiful  when  only  the  abode 
of  a  lower  order  of  beings.  As  Lord  Kames  has  said,  "  Gardening 
is  not  an  inventive  art,  but  an  imitation  of  nature,  or  rather  nature 
itself  adorned."  In  two  respects  therefore  Landscape  Gardening  is 
a  comprehensive  art. 

Landscape  gardening  is  comprehensive  in  the  address  it  makes  to 
man's  nature  as  a  being  designed  for  happiness.  It  appeals  pri- 
marily to  the  eye;  uniting  the  four  impressions  by  which  this  organ 
has  power  to  please  the  mind,  the  beauties  of  form,  of  color,  of  rela- 
tion, and  of  motion.  At  the  same  time  it  appeals  to  the  mind  indi- 
rectly through  the  other  senses ;  adding  the  odor  of  flowers,  the  flavor 
of  fruits,  the  refreshing  of  shade,  and  the  charm  of  the  insects'  hum 
and  the  birds'  warble  to  all  the  delights  of  the  eye.  Yet  again  it  is 
an  art  open  in  its  treasures  to  all.  The  poor  man's  garden  is  the 
select  spot  separate  from  his  fields,  whose  vegetable  products  are  the 
luxuries  of  his  table ;  the  trimming  of  whose  borders  is  the  recrea- 

715 


716  ART   CRITICISM. 

tion  of  his  brief  moments  of  leisure;  and  whose  few  fruit  trees  and 
narrow  flower  bed  are  the  delight  of  his  children.  The  rich  man's 
broad  estate,  converted  by  the  hand  of  art  into  one  far-stretching 
landscape,  all  blooming  as  a  garden,  may  be  to  him  a  pride  though 
it  is  a  care;  but  it  is  in  reality  his  grand  contribution,  willingly  or 
unwillingly  provided,  to  feed  the  eye  and  culture  of  a  whole  commu- 
nity living  around;  whose  privilege  it  is  to  enjoy  and  improve  upon 
its  delights  equally  with  the  possessor,  while  exempt  also  from  his 
care. 

Landscape  Gardening  is  as  to  time  a  comprehensive  art;  being  the 
earliest  and  most  universally  appreciated.  The  abode  of  man  in  his 
purity  and  perfection  of  nature  was  a  garden;  whose  delight  spoke 
to  the  eye  before  sculpture  and  architecture  could  have  existed; 
while  too  poets  are  eloquent  on  the  charms  of  landscape  enjoyed  by 
the  savage  before  other  arts  are  known  to  him.  As  the  garden  is 
the  first  so  it  is  the  last  of  human  delights;  all  men  picturing  the 
happy  abodes  of  the  future  life  as  gardens  of  delight;  the  Greek  in 
the  gardens  of  the  Hesperides,  the  Roman  in  the  Elysian  fields, 
Muhammed  in  the  luxuries  of  the  Turkish  garden,  and  Jesus  him- 
self in  the  Persian  Paradise. 

Not  only  the  passive  delight  of  enjoyment  in  the  garden  as  a  work 
of  art  already  prepared,  but  the  purest  active  employ  of  perfect  man, 
it  is  intimated  in  the  sacred  record,  was  the  study  of  new  forms  of 
adornment  for  the  landscape  garden  already  so  matchless.  The  de- 
lightful toil  of  the  sinless  pair  in  Eden  was  to  "  dress  and  keep"  the 
garden.  This  exalted  employ  in  man's  primitive  estate  may  be 
traced  in  the  Asiatic  and  the  European  family  alike  from  the  earliest 
to  the  latest  times.  In  all  cultured  ages  and  nations  it  has  been  the 
art  earliest  practiced  because  of  its  utility,  yet  last  perfected  as  a 
work  of  beauty ;  according  to  Lord  Bacon's  philosophic  statement, 
"  Man  came  to  build  stately  sooner  that  garden  finely ;  as  if  garden- 
ing were  the  greater  perfection." 


CHAPTER   I. 

THE  EFFECTS  TO  BE  SOUGHT  IN  LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 

Landscape  Gardening,  broad  in  its  sensual  appeals,  is  restricted  in 
its   spiritual    addresses.     All   the  varied   impressions  of  the  mind 


ORDER    AND   SYMMETRY   IN   GARDENING.  717 

made  through  the  eye,  the  beautiful,  the  grand,  the  picturesque,  the 
novel,  the  grotesque,  the  tragic  and  the  comic  belong  to  this  art. 
Moreover  in  Landscape  Gardening  other  organs  than  the  eye  are 
made  the  medium  of  appeal;  the  garden  being  designed  to  delight 
by  its  fragrant  odors,  its  luscious  flavors,  its  refreshing  coolness,  and 
its  grateful  murmurs  and  warbles;  while  even  the  exhilaration  of 
muscular  action  is  sought  in  the  gymnastic  provisions  of  the  plea- 
sure garden,  and  in  the  hunting  park.  The  range  of  moral  impres- 
sions sought,  however,  in  this  wider  range  of  addresses  to  man's  nature 
is  restricted  in  Landscape  Gardening.  Its  delights  are  more  adapted 
to  the  physical  nature  than  those  of  the  other  arts ;  and,  while  its 
higher  and  intellectual  appeals  are  here  associated  with  the  lower, 
their  range  is  limited  and  their  address  is  but  indirect.  Thus  none 
of  the  emotions  awakened  by  human  associations  are  called  forth  by 
Landscape  Gardening;  and  none  of  the  higher  social  and  religious 
affections  are  but  indirectly  subject  to  its  culture. 

Sect.  1.  The  general  end  of  Order  and  Symmetry,  coinciding  with 
Utility,  in  Landscape  Gardening. 

The  main  end  of  gardening  as  ordinarily  practiced  is  utility.  Yet 
even  in  a  market  garden  regularity  of  arrangement  not  only  tends 
to  profit  by  promoting  convenience  of  culture,  but  well-disposed  beds 
and  well-kept  paths,  attractive  to  the  eye,  win  a  patronage  which 
slovenly  neglect  of  order  and  beauty  could  not  secure.  So  far  from 
being  inconsistent  with  utility,  beauty  of  form  is  an  element  conspir- 
ing to  promote  profit. 

The  first  step  in  the  effort  to  give  beauty  to  a  garden  is,  as  Kames 
and  other  critics  agree,  to  seek  simple  order  in  the  arrangement  and 
symmetry  in  the  proportion  of  parts.  This  even  in  a  vegetable  gar- 
den, where  not  a  flower  or  ornamental  shrub  is  introduced,  may  be 
sought  as  a  charm.  Order,  for  instance,  demands  that  in  the  laying 
out  of  the  paths  there  be  a  central  division  which  will  allow  an  equal 
number  of  subdivisions  on  either  hand ;  and  it  also  requires  that  in 
the  selection  of  plants  to  occupy  the  different  ranges  of  beds  those 
of  less  stature  be  placed  along  the  central  avenue,  and  that  a  grada- 
tion of  height  be  secured  as  the  different  products  are  seen  from  the 
central  point  of  view.  Symmetry  again,  demands  that  in  the  simple 
rectangular  bed  there  be  a  fixed  measure  controlling  the  length  and 
breadth,  so  that  each  shall  have  the  same  or  multiple  proportions. 
In  the  simplest  gardening  the  elements  of  form,  order  and  symmetry 
claim  attention ;  and  the  rudest  husbandman  regards  their  demands. 


718  ART   CRITICISM. 

In  the  broader  and  truly  artistic  work  of  the  landscape  gardener, 
in  tlie  laying  out  of  a  public  garden,  park  or  cemetery,  or  the 
grounds  of  a  princely  mansion,  the  primary  principles  of  beauty  in 
form  must  be  first  regarded.  The  winding  avenues,  intersecting  each 
other,  must  be  so  arranged  as  not  to  mar  each  other's  pleasing  out- 
line; the  clumps  and  lines  of  trees  of  different  sizes,  forms  and 
shades  must  so  succeed  as  not  to  destroy  each  other's  effect.  Thus 
the  vegetable  garden  should  be  behind,  not  in  front  of  the  flower 
borders ;  and  the  stable  should  be  hid  by  the  mansion  rather  than 
obstruct  its  view.  In  proportioning  the  locations  and  sizes  of 
orchards,  ploughed  fields  and  pasture-grounds,  as  well  as  of  groves 
and  lines  of  trees,  the  eye  of  true  taste  is  demanded  as  much  as  in 
any  other  of  the  fine  arts. 

To  these  principles  of  order  and  symmetry  the  ancient  Greeks  and 
Romans,  from  the  general  style  of  their  art,  gave  an  excess  of  atten- 
tion. The  little  court-yard  back  of  the  entrance  in  a  Roman  city- 
residence  was  as  mathematically  exact  in  all  its  measurements  as  a 
diagram  in  Euclid.  This  controlling  method  entered  into  larger 
works,  in  their  villa  pleasure  grounds ;  it  passed  down  from  them  to 
the  middle  ages ;  and  without  even  the  virtue  of  the  principle  origi- 
nally controlling  its  features  it  was  introduced  into  France  and  Eng- 
land. Its  Procrustean  law  worked  sad  havoc  for  a  time  amid  the 
wooded  knolls  of  the  British  Isles;  until  other  principles,  equally 
worthy  of  the  artist's  regard  began  to  assert  a  correspondent  sway. 
That  the  simple  laws  of  order  and  symmetry  could,  among  such  a 
people  as  the  Greeks,  originate  a  style  of  garden  arrangement,  and 
that  they  should  have  been  the  ruling  principle  of  that  art  for  so 
many  ages,  is  sufficient  testimony  that  order  and  symmetry  are  per- 
manent elements,  never  to  be  overlooked  in  this  art. 

Sect.  2.  The  General  aim  of  Grandeur  in  extent  and  Picturesque- 
NEss  IN  Grouping,  conspiring  with  elegance  in  forms  and  richness 

IN  COIiOR. 

The  English  mind  had  been  called  by  Kent  and  others  to  this 
second  aim  in  Landscape  Gardening  when  Lord  Kames  wrote:  "Gar- 
dening besides  the  emotions  of  beauty  from  regularity,  order,  propor- 
tion, color  and  utility  can  raise  emotions  of  grandeur,  of  sweetness, 
of  gayety,  of  melancholy,  of  wildness  and  even  of  surprise  and 
wonder."  Grandeur,  as  we  have  seen,  is  beauty  with  massiveness  or 
wide  extent;  an  object  being  grand  which  having  the  attributes  which 
make  up  beauty  in  a  smaller  object  is  too  vast  to  be  taken  in  at  a 


THE   PICTURESQUE   IN   LANDSCAPE   GARDENING.  719 

single  glance  of  the  eye.  Architecture  under  the  inspiration  of  a 
M.  Angelo,  and  even  sculpture  in  the  hands  of  a  Phidias,  can  aspire 
to  attain  this  end.  It  belongs,  however,  to  the  great  Architect  of 
nature  to  minister  in  the  highest  degree  to  the  emotions  of  grandeur 
and  sublimity.  Landscape  gardening  can  take  advantage  not  only 
of  his  methods,  but  also  of  his  material,  to  accomplish  a  kindred 
end.  Bringing  in  an  extended  range  of  wood  and  of  open  field,  of 
hill  and  of  dale,  the  landscape  gardener  is  master  of  grandeur  in 
the  effects  he  seeks. 

The  English  Landscape  Gardeners  have  been  led  naturally  by  the 
surface  of  their  uneven  Isle  and  the  darkness  of  its  foliage,  to  aim  in 
their  art  at  the  "Picturesque;"  a  word  of  which  they  are  the  coiners, 
though  its  termination  is  French  in  form.  Sir  Kichard  Morris  in  his 
brief  treatise  of  the  art  distinguishes  the  picturesque  as  seen  "  in  un- 
finished" as  opposed  to  "finished"  forms.  As  we  have  observed 
Landscape  Painting  and  Landscape  Gardening  have  had  a  natural 
connection  in  the  history  of  art;  being  specially  wedded  in  English 
practice.  As  in  a  landscape  view  of  an  extended  prospect  some 
parts  deeply  shaded,  and  others  dim  in  the  distance  must  be  "unfin- 
ished "  in  order  to  be  true  to  nature,  an  idea  for  which  Kuskin  has 
so  contended,  so  in  a  landscape  garden  a  rock  that  would  be  a  blem- 
ish if  the  wild  brush  around  it  were  removed,  may  be  made  greatly 
to  add  to  the  entire  effect  if  left  in  its  native  ruggedness.  As  Phidias 
had  learned  that  the  very  roughness  of  Minerva's  brow  would  con- 
spire to  give  polish  to  that  very  feature  when  seen  in  the  distance,  so 
the  very  want  of  finish  skilfully  introduced  by  the  gardener  in  a 
vista  view  will  give  a  grace  which  no  pruning  could  effect.  To  this 
principle  Lord  Kames  refers;  suggesting  that  though  "Nature  in 
organized  bodies,  comprehended  under  one  view,  studies  regularity," 
yet  she  "in  her  large  works  neglects  these  properties;"  and  hence  in 
"embellishing  a  field.  .  .  .  the  artist  ought  to  neglect  them." 

The  main  point  of  attention  in  seeking  to  secure  the  effect  called 
the  "picturesque"  is  the  appropriate  grouping  of  the  finished  and 
unfinished  portions  of  the  landscape;  the  skilful  juxtaposition  of 
similar  or  contrasted  objects,  of  a  tangled  copse  and  a  shorn  lawn, 
of  an  ivy-covered  ruined  wall  and  a  cleared  grove,  or  of  a  wild  cas- 
cade and  a  neatly-walled  lake.  In  this  grouping  of  finished  and 
unfinished  parts,  however,  the  impression  of  rusticity  as  characteriz- 
ing the  whole  is  not  consistent  with  the  idea  of  true  art.  The  un- 
finished parts  are  not  to  be  allowed  to  degenerate  into  the  aspect  of 
slovenly  neglect;  but  an  air  of  elegance,  though  it  be  of  elegant 


720  ART   CRITICISM. 

neglect,  is  to  be  given  to  every  part;  otherwise  the  near  approach 
which  betrays  a  slovenly  aspect  will  mar  the  general  impression. 

As  in  form  the  general  aspect  should  be  one  of  elegance  so  in  the 
colors  grouped  and  blended  the  general  impression  should  be  one 
of  richness.  Here  again,  the  colors  of  foliage  and  flowers,  of 
buildings  and  fences,  of  architectural  and  sculptural  ornaments 
should  be  in  themselves  tasteful ;  lest  the  familiar  distastefulness  of  a 
near  view  be  retained  in  the  distant  and  modified  prospect.  To  this 
attribute,  colors  everywhere  rich  thrown  together  with  apparent 
negligence,  yet  carefully  adjusted  by  an  art  so  simple  that  it  was  only 
a  relieving  of  interferences  in  untrained  nature,  Milton  alludes  in 
picturing,  first  the  garden  as  it  came  from  the  Creator's  hand,  and 
then  Eve's  modest  employ  amid  its  extended  fields.  Over  it  were 
spread, — 

"Flowers  worthy  of  Paradise,  which  not  nice  Art 
In  beds  and  curious  knots,  But  Nature  boon 
Pour'd  forth  profuse  on  hill  and  dale  and  plain, 
Both  where  the  morning  sun  first  warmly  smote 
The  open  field,  and  where  the  unpierced  shade 
Imbrown'd  the  noontide  bowers ;" 

amid  which  Eve  at  her  pleasing  toil  is  pictured  as 

"  Oft  stooping  to  support 
Each  flower  of  slender  stalk,  whose  head,  though  gay 
Carnation,  purple,  azure  or  speck'd  with  gold, 
Hung  drooping  unsustained." 

In  art  the  poet  is  the  true  philosopher;  imagination  suggesting, 
to  Newton  under  the  apple-tree,  the  highest  principles  of  truth. 

Sect.  3.  The  sPECiAii  effects  of  Association  ;  as  the  novel,  or  vener- 

ABIiE,   THE  native  OR  FOREIGN,   THE  ENLIVENING  OR  DEPRESSING. 

The  power  of  association,  one  of  the  chief  charms  in  foreign 
travel,  may  be  secured  in  landscape  gardening  more  fully  than  in 
any  other  of  the  arts.  The  main  impressions  to  be  sought  in  this ' 
connection  are  to  be  secured  by  a  judicious  introduction  of  the  novel 
and  the  venerable,  of  the  native  and  the  foreign. 

The  novel  may  be  presented  in  that  which  is  in  itself  a  new  object 
of  human  invention,  or  which  in  location  is  new,  being  a  transplant 
from  other  lands  or  climes.  To  a  certain  extent  the  simple  variety 
which  may  be  secured  in  a  garden  gratifies  the  taste  for  novelty.  A 
work  of  sculpture  or  architecture  has  .one  stereotyped  unchanging 


THE   NOVEL   AND   ANCIENT   IN   GARDENS.  721 

form,  color  and  relation.  In  the  garden,  however,  new  forms  and 
hues  appear  every  day ;  every  shower  giving  a  fuller  and  rounder 
development  of  shape  and  size,  and  retouching  with  the  pencil  of 
the  great  artist  each  freshened  tint;  while  even  the  frosts  of  autumn 
have  a  strange  power  to  paint  with  sober,  yet  gorgeous  hues  the  vast 
amphitheatre  of  hill  and  valley.  EveVy  change  of  position,  too,  in 
walks  for  hours,  throws  the  groupings  of  trees  into  new  combina- 
tions. In  addition,  however,  to  this  constant  renewing  of  the  face 
of  the  landscape  by  the  action  of  the  elements  and  by  the  beholder's 
change  of  position,  novelty  may  be  sought  by  new  collections  or  con- 
structions. Among  the  wild  flowers  and  shrubs  of  every  neighbor- 
hood there  are  rare  plants  which  may  be  culled  and  transplanted; 
in  the  architectural  and  sculptural  decorations;  introduced,  as  in 
summer  houses,  fountains,  gates  and  fences,  novel  designs  may  be 
invented ;  and  in  the  birds  and  animals  collected  rare  varieties  may 
be  sought.  Thus  Solomon  had  apes  and  peacocks  brought  from 
Southern  India,  as  well  as  exotic  plants,  in  his  gardens  at  Jerusalem. 
The  Chinese  have  always  been  noted  for  their  delight  in  surprises  in- 
troduced into  their  gardens ;  a  winding  path  through  a  thicket  sud- 
denly ending  at  an  impassable  barrier,  or  opening  into  a  delightful 
parterre.  The  gardens  of  Versailles  have  an  excess  of  novelties  in 
quaint  devices  for  hedges  and  fountains. 

While  the  love  of  the  novel  leads  to  new  devices,  attachment  to  the 
ancient  prompts  to  resorts  which  may  recall  associations  of  the  vener- 
able past.  An  artificial  wall  in  apparent  dilapidation,  a  broken 
column,  a  fragment  of  an  ancient  statue,  or  even  an  old  dead  tree 
covered  with  creeping  ivy,  add  the  charm  of  connection  with  days 
bygone.  The  fondness  for  the  antique  led  the  Romans  under  Augus- 
tus, and  again  under  Constantine,  to  bear  off  from  Egypt  nearly  all 
the  obelisks  found  in  the  land,  and  to  set  them  up  as  venerable  mon- 
uments in  the  ornamental  squares  of  their  younger  cities  Rome  and 
Constantinople;  while  the  same  aspiration  led  the  Emperors  inter- 
vening between  Augustus  and  Constantine  to  store  their  new  villas 
about  Rome  and  Naples  with  the  relics  of  ancient  Grecian  Art;  to 
which  Cicero,  Horace  and  other  Latin  authors  so  often  refer.  The 
Chinese,  with  a  taste  unrefined,  yet  showing  the  more  its  naturalness 
in  its  extreme  development,  introduce  dry  trunks  of  trees  artificially 
transplanted,  whose  naked  limbs  tell  of  years  of  greenness  long  past. 
Lord  Kames,  in  his  peculiarly  clear  analysis  of  the  power  of  associa- 
tion awakened  by  the  venerable  in  garden  scenery,  even  suggests 
attention  to  the  age  and  style ;  whether  Grecian  or  Gothic  is  appropriate 

61  4  Q 


722 


ART   CRITICISM. 


for  architectural  ruins.  He  suggests  that  the  Gothic  is  most  appro- 
priate; because  "the  Gothic  exhibits  the  triumph  of  time  over 
strength;  a  melancholy  but  not  unpleasant  thought;"  while  "a  Gre- 
cian ruin  suggests  rather  the  triumph  of  barbarity  over  taste ;  a 
gloomy  and  discouraging  thought." 

Associated  with  the  ideas  'first  traced,  at  least  as  a  means  to  an 
end,  is  the  introduction  of  the  foreign  among  the  native  in  the  selec- 
tion of  plants,  animals  and  of  architectural  decorations  of  different 
lands.  Every  house-keeper,  fond  of  plants,  wishes  her  flower-border 
in  summer,  and  her  bay  window  in  winter,  to  have  in  it  some  rare 
plant;  and  the  simple  fact  that  it  is  foreign,  adds  to  the  interest 
attaching  to  a  plant.  The  canary  and  the  parrot  are  in  themselves 
interesting ;  but  their  foreign  character  adds  to  their  charm.  In  the 
large  collections  of  a  public  garden  the  green-house  and  conservatory 
of  exotics,  with  trees  from  every  clime,  is,  as  in  the  "  Jardin  des 
Plantes"  at  Paris,  the  chief  portion  of  the  garden  on  which  expense 
is  lavished.  So,  too,  the  menageries  of  foreign  animals  may  grow  to 
the  extent  of  the  London  Zoological  Gardens.  Some  bold  designer 
has  suggested  for  the  environs  of  the  American  Capital  an  enclosure 
of  some  miles  in  area  in  which  sections  be  planted,  stocked  and 
peopled  by  the  trees,  animals  and  men  of  the  three  continents  of 
the  old  world.  As  the  venerable  mingled  with  the  novel  gives  com- 
prehensiveness in  time,  mingling  the  past  and  old  with  the  present 
and  new,  so  the  foreign  mingled  with  the  native  gives  the  range  of 
space  added  to  that  of  time;  making  the  ends  of  the  earth  seem  to 
meet  in  their  gatherings. 

Not  only  the  associations  of  time  and  space,  but  also  sentiments 
enlivening  or  depressing  may  be  awakened  by  a  studded  landscape; 
aiding  sculpture  to  arouse  religious  reverence  or  sorrow  for  the 
dead.  A  garden  decked  with  gay  flowers  and  cheerful  shrub- 
bery, sparkling  with  glittering  waters  and  enlivened  by  sportive 
animals  and  gay  songsters,  may  give  the  exhilaration  of  new  life. 
With  equal  power  the  cool  and  quiet  grove  may  woo,  as  did  the 
groves  of  Academus,  to  poetic  and  philosophic  reflection;  or,  like 
the  venerable  olives  in  the  garden  to  which  Jesus  oft  resorted  with 
his  disciples,  they  may  dispose  the  soul  to  communion  with  the 
Divine  Spirit  in  prayer.  With  yet  greater  effect  the  church-yard 
may,  with  its  moss-covered  stone  and  bramble-carpeted  grave,  make 
death  seem  gloomy  and  the  tomb  dreary ;  or,  with  its  opposite  trim- 
ming of  gay  flowers  and  lively  sculpture,  it  may  give  the  associations 
of  holiday  cheerfulness  to  the  last  resting  place  decked  as  a  bridal 


r 


MOTION   IN    WATER,   PLANTS   AND   ANIMALS.  723 

bed ;  or,  yet  again,  the  drooping  willow  and  the  dark  green  leaf  and 
modest  blue  flower  of  the  thick  clustering  myrtle  may  yield  that  yet 
more  just  and  equable  impression  of  light  mingled  with  shade  which 
seem  fit  at  the  tomb. 

Sect.  4.  The  Special  Effects  of  motion  apparent  or  real  ;  in  undu- 
lation OF  soil,  in  running  water,  in  waving  forms  and  suscepti- 
bilities of  trees,  and  in  animate  creatures. 

While  form  and  color  speak  to  the  mind  in  the  landscape,  produc- 
ing their  differing  impressions,  there  is  a  special  power  in  motion; 
which  indicates  life.  In  sculpture  and  painting  the  action  which  the 
Greek  artist  always  infused  into  his  works  was  the  leading  element 
of  their  power.  In  those  arts  of  course,  motion  or  action  is  but 
represented ;  it  is  apparent  not  real.  In  gardening,  however,  actual 
motion,  that  of  physical  agencies  and  of  animal  as  well  as  vegetable 
life,  is  a  positive  element  in  a  pleasing  landscape.  There  is  scarcely 
a  feature  of  the  landscape  which  may  not  be  made  instinct  with 
motion  as  a  power  to  please  the  mind. 

Even  the  bare  land  itself,  as  the  word  "  undulating"  and  "  rolling" 
so  commonly  employed  imply,  may  give  the  impression  of  motion. 
It  is  not  unworthy  of  note  that  increase  of  extent  is  apparently  pro- 
duced by  undulations  of  surface;  for  though  the  surveyor  is  right  in 
reducing  his  measurement  of  land  to  a  plane  surface,  since  no  more 
uprights  can  be  reared  upon  a  slope  which  is  the  hypothenuse  of  a 
right  angled  triangle  than  could  be  erected  upon  its  base,  and  hence 
no  more  available  products  can  be  raised  upon  a  hill-side  than  on  a 
plane  of  a  less  area,  yet  to  the  eye  that  roves  along  its  surface,  and 
to  the  feet  that  climb  and  then  descend  its  rise,  there  is  a  more  ex- 
tended area.  In  addition  to  this  apparent  increase  of  superficial  feet 
in  the  area  the  eye  that  turns  upward  and  downward  over  curved 
hillocks  comes  to  transfer,  as  it  were,  its  own  movement  to  the  sur- 
face over  which  it  glides.  The  whole  frame,  too,  of  the  rambler  up 
and  down  its  inclinations  takes  on  the  motion  peculiar  to  one  riding 
over  billows  at  sea ;  and  the  landscape  becomes  to  him  literally  un- 
dulating and  rolling.  The  influence  of  this  feature  is  to  be  traced  in 
the  contrasts  of  Egyptian  and  Assyrian  as  compared  with  Syrian 
and  Persian,  and  of  Dutch  as  compared  with  English  gardens. 

In  water  there  is  real,  not  apparent  motion.  Be  it  the  gentle 
ripple  from  the  breeze  on  the  quiet  lake,  or  the  gliding  slide,  the  roll- 
ing furrow  or  the  whirling  eddy  of  the  running  stream,  be  it  the 
thin  white  sheet  with  the  glassy  vase-like  curve  of  the  waterfall,  or 


724  ART   CRITICISM. 

the  parabolic  shoot  of  the  upward  jet  and  the  raindrop  fall  of  the 
fountain,  motion  in  water  is  most  pleasing  either  in  the  heights  or  in  the 
low  grounds  of  a  landscape.  Hence  alike  in  primitive  Eden  out  of 
which  flowed  the  streams  forming  the  head  waters  of  four  rivers,  and 
in  the  most  tastefully  wrought  public  gardens  now  found  on  every 
continent  of  the  globe,  living  and  flowing  water  seems  to  be  an  in- 
dispensable requisite.  Its  interest  is  heightened  when  as  in  the  palace 
gardens  of  Europe  fish  and  other  aquatic  tenants  are  added ;  while 
even  the  encircling  shells  around  the  basons  in  the  little  court-yards 
of  the  old  Koman  houses  at  Pompeii  have  a  peculiar  charm. 

The  motion  of  the  green  plants  spread  over  the  surface  of  the  land- 
scape has  also  its  charm.  Poesy  has  grown  eloquent  over  the  beauty 
of  the  golden  grain  rocking  its  myriad  heads  responsive  to  the  Ze- 
phyr's mild  sweep.  In  trees  every  variety  of  form  susceptible  to  mo- 
tion is  furnished.  The  aspen's  leaf  quivers  on  its  narrow  and  unsta- 
bly balanced  stem  in  the  calm  as  in  the  gale;  while  the  stiff*  spines 
of  the  pine  tree  scarce  waver  amid  the  fury  of  the  tempest.  The 
branching  top  of  the  maple  sways  on  its  fragile  foot  as  the  gale  rocks 
it;  while  from  the  tall  stout  elm  and  the  low  drooping  willow  only  the 
tips  of  their  slender  boughs  fly  like  streamers  out  on  the  wind.  The 
sturdy  oak  bends  with  young  elasticity  to  let  the  gale  sweep  over  it; 
while  the  stiff*  cedar  nods  no  recognition  even  to  the  king  of  storms, 
when  passing  by  in  his  majesty. 

The  final  delight  of  a  broad  landscape  garden  is  its  animate  in- 
habitants ;  which  for  a  double  reason  give  a  pleasing  attraction.  A 
landscape  is  made  for  the  lower  animals,  its  grass  for  the  sheep  and 
cows,  its  forest  nuts  for  the  squirrel  and  its  flower  seeds  and  its  fruits 
for  the  birds;  and  the  green  sward  and  the  forest  and  fruit  trees  look 
desolate  without  their  appropriate  tenants.  Yet  more  in  themselves 
these  denizens  of  the  landscape  are  interesting.  Eden  would  have 
had  but  half  its  delight  had  not  the  animals  been  man's  companions 
and  his  charge ;  Solomon  sought  strange  creatures  like  the  ape  and 
peacock  to  add  a  charm  to  the  gardens  of  his  favorite  bride ;  and  al- 
ways the  swan  on  the  lake,  the  bear  chained  to  a  rock,  and  the  eagle 
securely  caged  are  central  attractions  of  the  most  elaborately  attract- 
ive public  pleasure  grounds. 

Sect.  5.  The  rare  resort  to  fictitious  effects;  as  the  imitative,  the 
deceptive,  the  grotesque. 

Hogarth  dwells  on  Intricacy  as  one  of  the  chief  elements  of  suc- 
cess in  art.     Milton's  scholarly  culture,  and  his  enriched  imagination 


INTRICATE,  DECEPTIVE  AND  GROTESQUE  IN  GARDENING.      725 

pictured  as  one  of  the  fascinating  attractions  "  the  crisped  brooks," 
which  "  ran"  through  Eden 

"  With  mazy  error  under  pendant  shades." 

The  Chinese  strive  to  crowd  their  more  extended  and  elaborate 
gardens  with  surprises ;  some  of  them  most  uncouth  in  their  concep- 
tions. The  same  impulse  of  the  mind  which  makes  children  fond  of 
riddles  and  puzzles,  which  stimulates  the  hunter  and  the  explorer  in 
tracking  forests,  deserts  and  mountain  passes,  and  which  gives  fasci- 
nation to  the  involved  plot  of  the  writer  of  romance  and  of  tragedy, 
may  have  its  place  among  the  fine  arts  addressing  the  eye;  and  gar- 
dening seems  to  be  the  chief  art  for  its  exercise. 

The  imitation  of  natural  objects  not  furnished  by  nature  in  a 
landscape  is  legitimate  and  pleasing  when  that  imitation  is  produced 
by  material  of  the  same  class  to  which  it  belongs.  A  tall  jutting 
rock  may  be  well  represented  by  a  pile  of  loose  stones  so  covered 
with  moss  and  ivy  as  to  hide  its  disintegration.  A  grotto  may  be 
built  of  brick  and  broken  stone  into  a  hill-side  where  there  is  no  rock 
to  excavate ;  though  reared  above  the  level  ground  it  would  be  un- 
natural. Trees  and  vines  may  be  bent  and  interwoven  into  arbors 
and  festoons;  but  as  Lord  Karnes  well  remarks,  the  clipping  of 
clumps  of  shrubbery,  as  at  Versailles,  into  clumsy  imitations  of 
animal  forms  is  a  violation  of  taste.  A  fountain  jet  may  be  made 
to  spout  from  the  mouth  of  a  fish,  or  a  swan;  though  Lord  Kames 
condemns  this  conceit:  but  it  would  be  more  in  accordance  with  na- 
ture to  make  the  jet  issue  from  a  whale's  snout  or  an  elephant's 
trunk,  or  from  some  known  artificial  spout  as  from  the  nose  of  a 
pitcher  or  the  cock  of  an  urn.  In  all  efforts  at  imitation  true  taste 
seems  to  require  that  effects  represented  seem  to  proceed  from  a  na- 
tural, not  an  unnatural  cause. 

In  the  employ  of  deceptive  effects  a  similar  principle,  without 
doubt,  should  serve  as  a  guide.  As  in  architectural  interiors  multi- 
plying mirrors  may  be  allowable  to  give  the  aspect  of  reduplicated 
halls,  so  a  skilfully  adjusted  perspective,  seen  through  an  opening 
among  trees,  may  be  made  to  duplicate  the  extent  of  the  natural 
grounds  of  a  garden.  As  frescoed  walls  giving  the  impression  of 
openness  and  extent  of  view  may  give  an  airy  relief  to  walls  that 
would  otherwise  seem  close  and  cramped,  so  the  enclosing  limits  of  a 
garden,  instead  of  being  high  walls  of  brick  which  make  the  be- 
holder feel  as  if  cooped  in  the  enclosure  of  a  prison-yard,  may  be  a 
low  green  hedge  or  an  open  paling  of  wood,  or  an  arborescent  rail- 
61  * 


726  ART   CRITICISM. 

ing  of  bronzed  iron,  or  a  vine-covered  wall  of  brick  or  stone  which 
gives  the  impression  not  of  a  limit  but  only  of  a  dividing  line. 
Bronze  lions  or  dogs  chained  at  a  gate,*  or  even  stuffed  deer  or  birds 
half  hidden  among  the  foliage,  are  legitimate  deceptions;  though 
foliage  cut  into  animal  forms  is  illegitimate  since  it  is  less  even  of  a 
deception  than  of  an  imitation.  Skilfully  painted  implements,  such 
as  of  a  key  hanging  by  the  side  of  a  gate  that  is  locked,  or  even  of 
a  vase  of  flowers  or  a  basket  of  fruit,  when  so  arranged  as  really  to 
produce  deception  are  common;  and  if  their  borders  are  skilfully 
concealed  by  foliage  are  quite  successful. 

The  garden  is  the  legitimate  field  for  the  grotesque,  even  more  truly 
than  for  the  imitative  and  deceptive;  and  it  is  indeed  the  only  one 
of  the  arts  to  which  it  is  truly  appropriate.  The  natural  location  of  the 
grotto  is  the  shaded  hill-side ;  and  no  landscape  garden  can  be  complete 
without  wooded  hillocks.  Hence  Milton  introduces  into  the  first 
garden  of  man,  "umbrageous  grots  and  caves;"  while  in  almost 
every  age  and  clime,  if  nature  has  not  furnished  a  hill-side  for  such 
a  retreat,  an  artificial  mound  to  serve  as  a  grotto  cover  will  be  reared. 
The  grotto  is  the  only  natural  as  it  is  the  originating  location  of  the 
grotesque.  No  principle  of  taste  can  justify  the  mediaeval  artist 
who  covered  the  sunny  fronts  of  the  Old  Cathedrals  of  France  and 
Germany  with  all  sorts  of  fantastic  and  hideous  figures  of  reptile 
forms;  and  even  their  later  and  more  general  employ  as  water 
spouts  upon  cornices  is  objectionable.  The  reptile  seeks  the  dark 
shade  of  the  grotto,  or  of  his  burrow;  and  if  he  does  occasionally 
obtrude  his  head  from  chinks  and  deep  crevices  in  a  dilapidated 
wall,  he  does  not  stand  the  sun's  glare.  The  oak  carving  appropri- 
ate to  a  dark  old  lizard  haunted  castle  or  baronial  hall  may  be 
artistic  in  a  dark  lobby  of  dreary  aspect;  though  not  for  a  light  and 
airy  saloon.  The  garden  grotto,  however,  is  of  all  other  spots  the 
natural  home  of  the  grotesque.  The  Chinese  probably  carry  this 
feature  to  an  extreme,  while  perhaps  modern  Western  taste  may  not 
sufiSciently  appreciate  the  grotesque. 

Sect.  6.  Studies  in  Science  and  Art  relating  to  Landscape  Gardening, 

AND  REQUISITE  TO  THE  MASTER  IN  THIS  ArT. 

In  Gardening,  as  in  the  other  fine  arts,  the  theorist  may  not  be  a 
master,  and  most  students  in  this  art  will  only  be  amateurs  seeking 
the  knowledge  of  its  principles  as  an  element  of  general  culture. 
For  the  master  in  an  art  the  science  of  his  profession  is  essential  to 


STUDIES    ESSENTIAL   TO   THE    LANDSCAPE   GARDENER.      727 

uniform  success;  and  to  the  mere  student  it  is  the  main  object  of 
acquisition. 

In  Geometry,  as  a  branch  of  mathematical  science,  the  landscape 
gardener  must  be  a  special  proficient.  Deriving  its  very  name  from  the 
measurement  of  land,  the  Egyptian  farmer  needed  its  principles  in  order 
yearly  to  restore  the  field  bounds  which  the  Nile's  inundation  every 
summer  swept  away ;  but  the  landscape  plotter  has  a  far  more  diffi- 
cult task.  The  carpenter  with  his  square  may  cut  with  accuracy  recti- 
linear figures;  but  it  requires  the  skilful  carver  to  strike  a  circle  or 
ellipse.  Some  of  the  most  difficult  applications  of  geometry  are 
found  in  the  plotting  of  the  beds  and  paths  of  a  flower  garden  or 
court-yard.  The  principles  of  Descriptive  Geometry  and  Optics, 
also,  as  they  relate  to  Perspective  are  essential  for  the  study  of 
effects  of  landscape  in  the  distance;  these  principles  having  an 
application  in  this  respect  kindred  to  that  required  in  the  other 
arts. 

As  Chemistry  reveals  to  the  painter  the  pigments  which  will  be 
durable  as  well  as  rich  in  hue  under  all  the  accidents  of  age  and 
damp,  and  to  the  architect  the  kinds  of  wood,  stone  or  metal  that 
will  stand  the  pressure  and  the  wear  of  the  elements,  so  to  the  gar- 
dener Agricultural  Chemistry  alone  can  be  a  sure  guide  in  securing 
a  healthful  and  rich  growth  to  the  plants  which  are  the  chief  mate- 
rial of  his  art.  Essential  as  this  is  to  the  mere  horticulturist,  who 
seeks  profit  rather  than  pleasure,  it  is  indispensable  to  the  producer 
of  every  variety  of  flower  and  ornamented  shrub.  With  this  study 
that  of  Botany  and  Vegetable  Physiology  must  be  associated;  a 
science  less  •  required  in  useful  than  in  ornamental  gardening.  To 
this  pursuit,  as  an  art  worthy  alike  of  a  princely  mind  and  a  princely 
purse,  the  wisest  of  ancient  writers  gave  a  share  of  his  time  and 
thought ;  and  the  sweetest  of  poets  have  mingled  in  this  flowery  field 
fancies  for  the  imagination  and  precepts  for  the  practical  reader.  Of 
Solomon,  the  king  of  Israel,  declared  to  be  "wiser  than  all  men,"  we 
are  told  that  "he  spake  of  trees,  from  the  cedar  that  is  in  Lebanon 
even  unto  the  hyssop  that  springeth  out  of  the  wall ;"  the  giant  of 
the  forest,  and  the  humblest  lichen  on  the  garden-wall,  being  the 
extremes  of  landscape  ornaments  which  passed  under  his  review. 
The  sweetest  of  Koman  poets,  the  graceful  and  pensive  Virgil,  has 
in  his  Georgics  and  Bucolics,  shown  the  dignity  as  well  as  the  extent 
of  the  science  of  plant-study  and  culture  which  the  master  in  garden- 
ing must  follow  the  poet  in  attaining. 

Not  only  in  science  but  in  art  also  the  successful  gardener  must  be 


728  ART  CRITICISM. 

an  adept.  To  accomplish  the  effects  sought  in  color  and  form,  relation 
and  motion  he  must  be  skilled  in  the  principles  of  design,  in  the  anal- 
ysis and  aesthetic  power  of  hues  and  tints,  and  in  the  combination  of 
his  varied  material  so  that  the  whole  of  his  work  shall  like  a 
group  of  sculpture  or  a  composition  in  painting  conspire  to  one  idea. 
The  simple  fact  that  landscape  painting,  the  latest  if  not  the  ablest 
branch  of  that  art  to  be  developed,  has  always  been  associated  in  its 
progress  with  the  improvement  of  an  age  or  location  in  landscape 
gardening,  is  sufficient  indication  how  comprehensive  a  study  of  art 
as  well  as  of  science  is  essential  to  the  highest  success  in  landscape 
gardening. 


CHAPTER    II. 

THE    MATERIALS    BY  WHICH   THE   EFFECTS  OF   LANDSCAPE   GARDEN- 
ING  ARE   SECURED. 

The  material  available  for  the  sculptor  and  architect,  as  well  as  the 
end  for  whose  accomplishment  it  is  furnished,  must  be  a  study  with 
a  master;  for  the  sure  production  of  a  desired  effect  must  be  depen- 
dent in  a  measure  on  the  adaptation  of  material  employed.  As  the 
material  whether  of  wood,  stone  or  metal  available  to  artists  in  these 
departments  varies  in  different  lands  and  climes  the  study  of  its 
capabilities  by  the  master  must  be  an  independent  investigation; 
only  general  principles  derived  from  the  experience  of  other  artists 
aiding  his  inquiries.  If  this  be  true  in  arts  which  employ  so  limited 
an  amount  of  material  it  must  in  a  far  wider  scope  be  true  of  gar- 
dening. The  marble  of  Lebanon,  of  Pentelicus  and  of  Carrara  have 
their  palpable  differences ;  as  has  the  granite  of  Egypt,  of  Spain  and 
of  New  England ;  but  this  variety  is  soon  exhausted  by  the  studious 
analyzer.  It  is  a  more  extended  and  a  different  inquiry  which  is 
presented  to  the  landscape  gardener;  the  range  of  whose  art  takes  in 
every  variety  of  inorganic  material  as  earth,  stone  and  wood,  and 
every  class  of  organic  creation  as  herb,  shrub  and  tree,  bird,  reptile 
and  quadruped. 

Sect.  1.  The   two  Classes  or  Objects,  natural  and  artificial,  com- 
bined IN  Landscape  Gardening. 

In  sculpture  and  architecture  the  entire  work  to  be  performed  by 


THE  NATURAL  AND  ARTIFICIAL  IN  LANDSCAPE  GARDENING.  729 

the  artist  is  human.  The  Divine  hand  provides  material  for  the 
artist's  work ;  and,  moreover,  presents  in  nature  models  for  imitation. 
Every  part  of  the  form,  however,  and  in  painting  the  entire  color  is 
to  be  wrought  out  by  the  artist's  skill.  In  gardening,  on  the  contrary, 
part  of  the  forms,  with  their  colors,  are  furnished  in  nature,  and  only 
their  grouping  belongs  to  the  artist;  while  as  a  second  work  the 
s(!ulptor  and  architect  are  to  construct  and  to  group  their  work  in 
combination  with  the  works  of  nature. 

The  soil  was  made  by  the  Creator  for  the  production  of  plants.  It 
will  be  clothed  with  grass  for  the  food  of  flocks,  with  grain,  herbs 
and  fruit  for  man's  nourishment,  and  with  shade-trees  for  his  shelter ; 
or  it  will  be  covered  with  weeds  or  noxious  plants.  It  is  man's  work 
to  cull  and  to  culture  the  plants  designed  for  his  good,  making  them 
spring  up  and  thrive  around  him.  It  is  his  privilege  to  link  pleasure 
with  profit  by  causing  the  landscape  to  bloom  and  glow  with  beauty 
in  the  plants  he  rears  and  in  the  groupings  he  gives  them.  These 
are  natural  elements  to  be  wrought  by  his  skill  into  his  work. 

The  ground  with  its  products  was  designed  to  be  the  abode  of  man. 
The  house  to  shelter  him  and  the  conveniences  he  gathers  about  it, 
the  stable  and  stalls  for  the  beasts  that  serve,  the  fences  and  the 
out-houses  that  add  defence,  convenience  and  comfort  to  his  domain, 
are,  though  artificial,  essential  parts  of  the  one  whole.  Yet  more  the 
proper  location  of  these  upon  the  grounds  to  secure  both  utility  and 
beauty,  the  happy  combination  of  the  natural  with  the  artificial, 
makes  the  whole  a  composition  quite  unlike  that  of  any  single  art. 

Sect.  2.  The  structure  of  the  surface  of  the  ground  to  be  adorned 

AS  THE  controlling  NATURAL  FEATURE  IN  LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 

To  a  certain  extent  the  formation  of  the  ground  may  be  modified 
by  art.  Its  great  leading  features,  however,  of  surface,  whether  a 
plain  of  sand  or  loam,  a  meadow  of  dark  damp  mould,  a  rolling 
gravelly  succession  of  hills,  or  a  rocky  mountain-side,  are  fixed  un- 
changeably by  nature :  they  must  be  accepted  as  they  are,  and  be 
made  the  foundation  of  the  work  expended  upon  their  face.  The  cast 
of  structures  to  be  erected,  and  the  choice  of  plants  to  be  reared 
must  be  made  dependent  on  this  structure  of  surface  already  fixed 
by  nature  as  its  leading  feature. 

If  choice  be  allowed,  the  eye  of  taste  may  make  extended  search 
for  a  spot  presenting  the  greatest  variety  for  the  accomplishment  of 
its  ends.  Thus  the  Romans  in  the  times  of  the  Republic  followed  up 
the  Arno  for  miles  from  their  city  in  order  to  select  such  retreats  as 

4R 


730 


ART   CRITICISM. 


Tivoli  for  their  favorite  villa  residences ;  and  the  Emperors  did  not 
value  days  of  travel  to  secure  the  attractions  that  clustered  about 
Baise  and  Cumse  and  the  Bay  of  Naples. 

When  selected,  either  from  necessity  or  choice,  the  surface  of  the 
ground  is  a  feature  controlling  the  natural,  and  to  a  certain  extent 
the  artificial  ornamentation  of  its  face.  On  a  perfectly  level  sur- 
face, carriage  and  foot-paths  and  also  field  bounds,  not  only  allow  but 
to  a  certain  extent  demand  straight  lines  as  their  limit ;  for  though 
a  serpentine  avenue  is  allowable  in  a  level  garden,  a  bowed  and 
especially  a  serpentine  field-bound  on  a  perfectly  flat  surface  could 
not  be  made  to  seem  natural.  On  the  other  hand  there  is  a  habit 
in  animal  instinct,  which  thus  becomes  a  law  of  nature,  to  seek  a 
winding  path  over  an  eminence.  The  camel  of  Arabia  in  climbing 
a  mountain  seeks  a  winding  path ;  and  the  dray-horse  dragging  his 
load  up  a  broad  avenue  on  a  hill-side,  bends  first  to  one  side  then  to 
the  other,  making  a  serpentine  path  for  himself  to  avoid  the  direct 
pull  against  the  force  of  gravity.  Guided  by  this  instinct  of  the 
animal  the  explorer,  seeking  the  best  track  for  a  road  across  moun- 
tain regions,  is  surely  led  to  the  lowest  and  most  accessible  pass  as  he 
follows  the  windings  of  a  water-course  and  of  the  deer  that  resort  to 
it.  The  cattle  in  every  pasture  wind  in  graceful  curves  about  the 
hill-sides  as  they  browse  along  their  sides  or  cross  them  to  more  dis- 
tant fields.  The  landscape  gardener  would  be  at  war  with  nature's 
models  who  should  insist  upon  laying  out  straight  avenues  on  an  un- 
dulating surface;  as  the  engineer  does  who  cuts  a  high  road  in  a 
straight  line  over  an  eminence  even  when  it  would  be  a  less  distance 
to  wind  gracefully  and  without  labor  around  its  base. 

Indeed  not  only  in  paths  and  field  bounds  but  in  the  selection  of 
trees  for  different  portions  of  the  grounds  good  taste  will  look  first  at 
the  structure  of  the  surface  as  a  controlling  guide.  Practical  know- 
ledge as  much  as  true  taste  would  make  the  outline  of  a  lake  in  a 
deep  valley  not  an  unvarying  ellipse  but  in  curves  conformed  to  the 
foot  of  the  hill-slopes  around ;  it  would  place  a  grotto  in  the  steepest 
side  where  rock,  if  not  present,  is  indicated  by  the  precipitous  slope; 
and  it  would  fringe,  the  lake  with  willows,  and  sprinkle  cedars  on  the 
rocky  heights.  The  cedar  of  Lebanon  may  be  transplanted  in 
modern  days  to  the  Garden  of  Plants  at  Paris  as  it  was  in  ancient 
times  to  the  Syrian  gardens  of  Baalbeck  lying  between  the  ranges  of 
its  native  mountains;  and  the  palm  may  tower  in  Hyde  Park  at 
London  as  in  the  gardens  of  Shoubra  the  favourite  palace  of  the 
Pashas  of  Egypt.     But  the  cedar  must  be  planted  on  a  bleak  rocky 


ADAPTATION   OF   BUILDINGS   TO   LOCATIONS,  731 

hill-side  and  the  palm  in  a  sunny  and  sheltered  nook ;  for  the  de- 
mands of  beauty  as  well  as  of  horticultural  experience  make  surface 
to  control  other  natural  features  in  a  Landscape  Garden. 

Sect.  3.  The  style  of  buildings  to  be  erected  as  the  leading  artifi- 
cial FEATURE  IN  LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 

Surface  of  ground,  nature's  provision  which  cannot  be  materially 
changed,  is  as  we  have  seen  a  controlling  guide  in  ornamentation. 
On  the  other  hand  styles  of  architecture,  which  may  be  indefinitely 
varied,  so  they  are  in  general  accord  with  their  location,  become, 
when  one  is  selected,  leading  features  hinting  a  principle  of  harmony 
controlling  all  the  artificial  adornments.  Here  two  points  for  con- 
sideration are  suggested;  first,  the  circumstances  Avhich  must  in- 
fluence choice  in  the  selection  of  an  architectural  style;  second,  the 
extent  to  which  the  demands  of  harmony  require  adherence  in  difier- 
ent  portions  of  the  same  grounds  to  the  one  style  selected. 

We  have  observed  in  the  history  of  architecture  how  the  circum- 
stances of  climate,  surface  of  country  and  material  ready  at  hand 
have  determined  the  general  style  of  architecture  in  different  lands ; 
and  how  the  special  culture  of  a  nation  has  given  a  ruder  or  more 
refined  character  of  adornment  and  elaborateness  of  finish  to  the 
structures  of  the  same  type  in  the  progress  of  a  people  in  civiliza- 
tion. Those  leading  circumstances  will  always  demand  attention  in 
fixing  the  style  of  buildings  appropriate  to  ornamented  grounds. 

The  general  design  of  the  buildings  to  be  reared  on  private  grounds 
will  of  course  always  be  one.  A  mansion  for  the  family,  a  porter's 
lodge  and  farm-house,  the  stable  for  the  mansion  and  the  barns  and 
granary  for  the  farm-house,  and  also  summer  houses  and  arbors  for 
shelter  in  the  hot  season  and  green-houses  and  conservatories  for  the 
cold  season,  are  the  more  important  buildings  required.  The  mansion 
is,  of  course,  the  principal  structure  from  which  the  others  should  take 
their  type.  Kegard  for  surface  of  ground  requires  that  a  Swiss  cot- 
tage, with  its  roof  of  the  sharpest  pitch,  should  be  nestled  under  the 
projecting  brow  of  a  hill  too  steep  for  easy  ascent;  that  a  Chinese 
square  house,  with  light  roof  and  broad  open  verandahs,  should  stand 
on  an  open  field  with  a  sunny  exposure;  and  that  roofs  of  interve- 
ning steepness,  as  the  gently  sloped  gable  of  the  Grecian  temple,  the 
steeper  but  straight  roof  of  the  Italian  villa  with  its  limited  corri- 
dors and  balconies,  the  French  chateau  with  its  sharp  double-pitched 
roof  and  its  windows  and  door  with  slightly  projecting  columnar  dec- 
orations, all  these,  graduated  in  a  scale  between  the  extremes,  re- 


732 


ART   CRITICISM. 


ceive  a  location  on  a  surface  varying  from  the  extreme  of  flatness 
to  that  of  ruggedness  in  surface.  The  climate,  it  should  be  remem- 
bered, is  to  a  considerable  extent  assimilated  to  the  surface  of  country ; 
the  Swiss  Alpine  regions  being  on  the  same  parallel  with  the  plains 
of  Southern  France  and  of  Northern  Italy,  but  of  a  climate  as  di- 
verse as  their  surface.  In  general  the  same  measure  of  openness  or 
compactness  is  to  be  sought  in  the  style  of  building  that  is  found  in 
the  face  of  the  grounds  to  be  occupied;  while  it  is  true  that  the 
colder  winters  of  such  a  country  as  New  England  and  the  denser 
fogs  of  Old  England  require  so  far  as  form  is  concerned,  a  more  com- 
pact style  of  building  than  is  required  on  a  surface  of  the  same  char- 
acter under  a  more  southerly  sky.  As  to  material  the  supply  of  a 
country  may,  as  in  Egypt  and  Greece,  limit  choice.  When  however 
wood,  brick  or  stone  are  at  hand,  choice  may  be  controlled  by  the 
means  of  the  proprietor;  while  nevertheless  the  style  should  be  de- 
pendent on  the  kind  of  material  selected.  A  Grecian  edifice  should 
be  constructed  of  material  w^hich  can  be  rendered  as  white  as  the 
marble  of  Pentelicus ;  while  a  Gothic  structure  of  fine  white  marble 
can  never  be  looked  upon  as  a  specimen  of  good  taste.  Rough  brick, 
thoroughly  painted  and  sanded,  can  be  adapted  by  its  color  to  almost 
any  of  the  lighter  and  open  styles;  while  rough  stone,  with  mastic, 
answers  well  for  any  of  the  heavier  and  compact  styles. 

The  second  question,  how  far  all  the  buildings  of  an  enclosure 
should  conform  to  the  principal  mansion,  is  no  less  important  than 
the  one  just  considered.  In  general  all  buildings  coming  into  one 
range  of  view  should  accord  with  each  other  in  style.  In  a  small 
private  enclosure  there  is  usually  but  one  main  view;  all  the  build- 
ings being  seen  together.  In  more  extended  private  or  public  grounds 
each  range  of  hills,  or  even  thick  shaded  avenue,  has  separate  fields 
adapted  to  an  entirely  diverse  order  of  architectural  decoration.  In 
these  larger  works,  thus  separated  into  parts,  the  same  general  princi- 
ples of  adaptation  already  observed  should  be  allowed  control.  The 
chapel  of  a  cemetery  may  be  a  Grecian  temple  or  a  Gothic  Cathe- 
dral in  type ;  but  if  the  model  be  Grecian  it  should  be  of  white  mar- 
ble or  material  which  may  be  made  to  imitate  it,  and  should  stand 
on  a  gentle  eminence  or  in  a  field  little  encumbered  by  trees ;  while 
if  the  Gothic  be  the  style  it  should  be  of  dark  stone  or  kindred  ma- 
terial, and  should  be  reared  amid  a  thick  surrounding  shade;  while 
for  harmony's  sake  the  tombs  and  monuments  in  each  cluster  or  range 
may  well  be  of  the  same  class  whether  Egyptian  or  Roman,  Grecian 
or  Gothic.     So  also  in  larger  public  grounds  in  cities,  or  in  adjoining 


FENCES   ADAPTED   IN   STYLE   TO   SURFACES.  733 

country  seats  harmony  should  reign  in  single  views.  If,  as  in  the 
villa  Borghese,  the  effort  be  made  to  reconstruct  in  different  sections 
the  style  of  Egypt,  of  Greece  and  of  later  ages,  for  each  class  to  be 
illustrated  the  ground  most  like  in  surface  to  the  original  home  of 
that  class  of  architecture  should  be  carefully  selected;  while  in  the 
grouping  of  the  varied  styles  in  each  class,  the  order  of  natural  de- 
velopement  should  be  observed. 

Sect.  4.  The  Bounding  Limits  of  Grounds;  fences  sunken  or  raised, 
ditched  or  terraced ;  palings  of  wood  or  of  iron ;  walls  of  brick 
or  of  stone ;  and  hedges  of  shrubbery. 

The  design  of  the  fence  is  to  protect  the  grounds  enclosed  from 
injury  by  cattle  or  other  causes.  To  accomplish  this  end  there  must 
of  course  be  adequate  strength;  for  which,  material  of  fitting  mas- 
siveness  must  be  sought.  The  leading  feature  required  in  fences  so 
that  beauty  may  be  added  to  utility  is,  as  the  best  writers  urge,  that 
the  fence  be  of  such  construction  that  it  shall  seem  as  little  as  possi- 
ble to  be  a  limit  artificially  fixed  to  the  landscape.  If  it  can  be  made 
to  seem  an  extension  of,  or  at  least  an  addition  to  rather  than  a  re- 
striction of  the  vista  of  which  it  is  a  part,  it  accomplishes  the  end  of 
art. 

Two  restrictions  to  choice  arise  from  the  structure  of  the  surface  to 
be  adorned  and  from  the  supply  of  material  furnished  for  the  erec- 
tion. If  the  face  of  the  country  be  undulating,  a  fence  may  be  raised 
entirely  above  ground  to  an  elevation  sufficient  for  the  required  pro- 
tection without  obstructing  to  any  extent  the  view,  by  ranging  its 
line  in  the  depression  of  the  surface.  If  the  elevation  of  the  grounds 
be  but  slightly  above  the  general  surface,  an  embankment  of  half  the 
required  height  with  an  open  fence  filling  the  remainder  of  the  eleva- 
tion may  give  the  desired  aspect  of  uninterrupted  extent.  Upon 
a  perfectly  flat  plain  the  resort  may  be  to  a  ditch  with  a  low  fence 
on  its  interior  or  exterior  bank,  or  a  high  but  open  paling  so  con- 
structed as  to  give  the  slightest  possible  appearance  of  compactness. 
How  much  in  violation  of  this  principle  close  high  fences  of  wood, 
brick  or  stone  must  be,  is  manifest  to  every  one  in  passing  such  an 
enclosure.  To  the  visitor  within  a  garden  thus  enclosed  there  is  a 
feeling  of  prison-like  confinement,  which  takes  away  the  impression 
of  freedom  and  ease  which  is  essential  to  true  delight.  The  passer-by 
on  the  outside  of  such  an  enclosure  feels  annoyed  and  uncomfortable 
at  the  exclusive  spirit  which  grudges  him  the  pleasure  of  looking  on 
beauties  which  should  be  for  public  enjoyment.     It  is  manifest,  too, 

62 


734  ART  criticis:m. 

that  the  plants  themselves  were  not  made  for  such  seclusion  from  the 
cooling  breeze  and  such  penning  up  to  the  scorching  of  the  meridian 
sun ;  and  their  parched  and  yellow  leaves  seem  to  remonstrate  against 
such  unnatural  captivity. 

A  wide  latitude  for  variety  is  furnished  within  the  range  of  the  prin- 
ciples thus  stated  for  the  construction  of  field  bounds.  Where  stone 
abounds  an  embanked  wall  forming  the  entire  or  half  of  the  height 
required  is  tasteful ;  and  usually  an  undulating  soil  will  furnish  this 
material.  If  a  steep  rise  of  the  land  lies  behind  such  a  wall  its 
arrangement  into  terraces,  of  which  the  wall  forms  one  stage,  gives 
unity  and  completeness  of  finish.  On  flat  sandy  or  prairie  lands,  an 
open  paling  fence  or  a  hedge  is  most  artistic;  while  in  a  meadow 
bottom,  or  in  a  country  where  neither  wood  nor  stone  abound,  a  ditch 
with  its  border  fringed  by  a  low  hedge  is  at  once  a  guard  and  a 
beauty.  Where  the  limited  extent  of  grounds  allows  such  expendi- 
tures, especially  in  the  family  enclosures  of  a  cemetery,  which  demand 
special  lightness  united  to  strength,  open  iron-work  of  rods,  of  wire- 
netting,  of  chains,  or  of  foliated  castings,  is  an  artificial  fence-work 
rich  though  expensive.  Whether  of  wood,  stone,  metal  or  shrubbery 
the  eye  and  hand  of  taste  finds  a  special  field  for  exercise  of  skill  in 
devising  artistic  field-bounds. 

Sect.  5.  The  Walks  and  Drives  ;  dependent  as  to  direction  and  cur- 
vature UPON  inequalities  and  obstructions  of  grounds,  and  on  the 
position  of  the  principal  buildings. 

The  design,  so  far  as  utility  is  concerned,  of  a  carriage-drive  or  of  a 
foot-path,  is  to  afford  a  road  of  access  to  different  portions  of  the 
grounds,  and  especially  to  its  buildings.  The  main  feature  to  be 
sought,  so  far  as  beauty  is  an  end,  is  to  avoid  sameness  by  giving  a 
variety  of  views  of  the  mansion  and  of  the  grounds  in  the  approach. 
This  end  is  secured  best  by  a  curved  avenue  whose  sweep  in  the  ap- 
proach gives  at  every  step  in  advance  a  new  view. 

When  a  mansion  stands  in  an  open  level  field  there  is  nothing 
richer  than  a  neatly  mown  lawn  stretching  from  the  highway  to  the 
mansion  whose  end  or  side  is  wholly  exposed  to  view;  while  a 
straight  avenue  of  shade-trees  at  one  side  of  the  lawn  extends  down 
to  an  entrance  hid  from  the  lawn ;  for  though  only  one  view  is  thus 
furnished  so  much  is  brought  into  the  view  that  its  separate  features 
furnish  a  rich  variety.  Even  on  grounds,  however,  nearly  or  quite 
level,  a  curved  avenue  of  approach  will  generally  be  preferred.  If 
the  face  of  the  grounds  be  flat,  or  very  slightly  sloping,  a  single  uni- 


ROADS  AND  WATER-(X)URSES  AS  CONTROLLED  BY  SURFACE.  735 

form  curve  is  most  tasteful.  If  the  ascent  be  considerable,  and 
especially  if  it  slope  in  different  directions,  a  change  of  direction, 
giving  a  winding  approach,  is  most  desirable;  though  in  a  carriage 
drive  the  sweep  of  the  curve  should  always  be  gradual,  never  abrupt. 
In  foot-paths  of  any  considerable  extent  openness  of  surface  rather 
than  evenness  is  to  be  regarded.  In  grounds  filled  with  smaller 
plants,  as  a  vegetable  or  flower-garden,  straight  lines  in  paths  are 
most  in  accordance  with  nature ;  for,  in  an  open  field  men  or  animals 
naturally  take  the  straight  route  as  the  shortest  to  a  point.  In  a 
grove,  however,  among  shade-trees  it  is  natural  to  follow  a  winding, 
zigzag  path  in  order  to  pass  around  the  obstructions  which  the  trunks 
and  boughs  of  trees  oppose.  The  serpentine  is  the  true  line  of  a 
wooded  path. 

The  question  how  far  rocks  and  old  trees,  deep  dells  and  sharp 
acclivities  should  be  left  undisturbed  in  gardening,  has  been,  as  we 
shall  see,  the  hinging  pivot  of  broad  discussion  in  English  garden- 
ing. In  general  the  less  the  features  enstamped  by  nature  on  the 
landscape  be  interfered  with,  the  better  for  the  demands  of  true 
taste.  As  it  is  natural  for  passing  animals  and  men  to  go  round  ob- 
stacles interposed  in  their  path,  so  any  permanent  feature  of  a  land- 
scape will  be  a  beauty  not  a  blemish  if  allowed  to  remain.  Though 
a  stump,  which  an  animal  could  not  remove,  is  a  monument  of  an 
unfinished  work  in  the  man  who  first  cut  the  tree  and  therefore  is 
unsightly  by  the  road-side  yet  a  sweep  of  a  few  feet  to  save  a  noble 
tree  awakens  pleasure  to  see  a  preserved  work  of  the  Creator's  hand. 
While  a  low  ragged  rock  just  jutting  above  the  soil  seems  no  sufficient 
obstacle  to  turn  man  from  his  path  in  cutting  a  carriage  road,  yet 
such  an  obstruction  in  the  track  of  a  foot-path  is  a  legitimate  occa- 
sion for  bending  to  one  side.  In  general  to  every  mind  of  ordinary 
intelligence  the  principle  of  nature,  always  that  of  beauty,  will  be 
ready  with  its  suggestions  in  the  practical  work  of  arranging  the 
drives  and  walks  of  a  landscape  garden. 

Sect.  6.  The  conduct  of  water,  dependent  on  slope  of  grounds  ;  and 
ITS  employ  in  fountains,  rills  and  pools. 

The  presence  of  water  in  grounds  is  requisite  for  the  useful  ends 
of  furnishing  food  to  plants,  and  drink  to  man  and  beast ;  if  not  suf- 
ficiently abundant  to  give  swimming  space  for  water  fowl  and  a 
bathing  place  for  animals  and  men.  A  farm-house  would  go  tenant- 
less  without  a  neighboring  spring  or  a  convenient  well ;  and  farming 
lands  without  any  clear  stream  for  pastured  cattle  would  lack  a 


736  ART   CRITICISM. 

large  share  of  the  value  which  other  features  might  give  them.  The 
introduction  and  conduct  of  water  in  landscape  gardening,  designed 
chiefly  to  promote  beauty,  must  be  controlled  by  the  end  of  securing 
naturalness  of  flow.  In  water,  therefore,  acted  upon  only  by  the 
force  of  gravity,  the  slope  of  the  ground  is  a  controlling  limit.  A 
natural  rill  cannot  of  course  be  made  to  floAV  except  down  a  declivity 
of  natural  steepness;  as  a  quiet  pool  cannot  exist  naturally  except 
in  a  plain  or  meadow.  If  acted  upon,  however,  by  an  artificial 
force,  as  is  always  really  or  apparently  true  in  a  flowing  or  jetting 
fountain,  any  position  or  face  of  grounds  in  a  narrow^  court-yard 
seems  natural;  though  in  extended  grounds  a  jet  seems  more  natural 
and  therefore  beautiful  when  spouting  in  a  deep  valley  or  from  a 
hill-side. 

In  the  conduct  of  water  narrow  grounds  offer  little  variety  in  the 
movement  of  the  water  itself;  and  therefore  invite  accumulated 
adornment  of  the  fountain  jet  and  basin.  One  of  the  most  interest- 
ing features  of  the  houses  of  unburied  Pompeii  is  the  basin  of  the 
fountain  in  the  little  court-yard  of  private  houses ;  either  a  richly 
carved  vase  rising  above  the  floor,  or  a  small  pool  on  the  ground 
level,  walled  with  marble  chipping,  tastefully  decorated  with  sea 
shells,  and  often  surrounded  by  a  group  of  miniature  animals,  living 
or  sculptured;  made,  as  is  manifest,  at  first  to  stand  upon  a  narrow 
border  of  grass  sward  ornamented  with  flowers.  In  the  larger  gardens 
of  ancient  and  modern  times  art  has  exhausted  its  skill  in  designs  for 
the  improvement  of  this  feature.  In  Eden  four  rivers  had  their 
rise;  and  Milton's  imagination  is  specially  exhausted  in  pictures  re- 
lating to  their  varied  conduct.  The  gardens  of  Jerusalem  and  Ba- 
bylon, of  Caserta  and  Versailles,  have  made  real  the  pictures  of 
oriental  luxury  uttered  in  romance  and  poetry.  The  steep  hill-sides 
rejoice  in  sparkling  and  dancing  rivulets,  and  projecting  cliflTs  toss 
from  their  tops  dashing  and  foaming  cascades.  Deep  quiet  dells  are 
filled  with  shaded  pools  where  the  duck  and  swan  enjoy  a  delightful 
retreat;  and  broad  open  valleys  are  basoned  with  lakes,  on  which 
light  caiques  and  gondolas,  richly  canopied,  float  with  fairy-like 
grace  and  bearing  festive  parties.  The  presence  of  water  in  grounds 
limited  or  extended  is  a  chief  feature  of  beauty;  and  its  skilful 
conduct  is  the  greatest  success  of  the  landscape  gardener. 


LOCATION   AND   ARRANGP^MENT   OF   TILLED   GROUNDS.      737 


Sect.  7.  The  location  of  tilled  lands  and  useful  plants  ;  as  vegeta- 
ble GARDENS,  FRUIT  ORCHARDS,  WHEAT  FIELDS,  GRASS  AND  PASTURE 
LANDS. 

The  field  bounds,  the  drives,  and  the  water  courses  are  the  great 
outlines  of  grounds ;  the  parts  which  on  a  map  would  be  first  drawn ; 
and  the  features  to  which  as  fixed  in  nature  all  the  arrangement  of 
the  different  products  introduced  must  be  made  to  conform.  These 
products  will  naturally  be  grouped  in  two  classes;  useful  and  orna- 
mental plants.  In  large  public  parks  or  gardens,  as  also  in  the 
small  private  enclosures  of  a  city  residence,  the  entire  area  will  be 
devoted  to  the  ornamental.  In  all  larger  suburban  retreats,  whether 
large  estates  or  village  enclosures,  utility  is  the  main  end,  to  which 
ornamentation  is  subordinate.  In  this  the  ancient  Egyptian  and 
modern  Chinese  have  made  their  gardens  wonders  of  success;  the 
modern  Chinese  gardener  supporting  his  family  on  a  narrow  area 
which  an  American  would  think  insufficient  for  a  vegetable  bed ; 
while  at  the  same  time  he  gives  an  air  of  finish  and  variety  to  the 
whole  most  pleasing  to  the  eye.  The  ancient  Romans,  eminently 
practical  as  well  as  grand  in  their  aspirations,  made  the  growth  of 
useful  plants  a  main  end,  not  only  in  their  farms,  but  also  in  their 
villa  retreats;  as  is  seen  in  the  Georgics  of  Virgil,  in  Pliny's  trea- 
tises, and  in  Cicero's  letters. 

Regard  is  to  be  paid  to  the  location,  taken  as  a  whole,  of  the  use- 
ful products  of  a  suburban  retreat.  Universal  taste  has  suggested 
that  a  vegetable  garden  should  not  be  made  conspicuous  by  being 
placed  in  front  of  a  mansion.  Even  in  the  great  vegetable  farms 
arranged  along  the  numerous  streams  coming  into  such  a  port  as 
Norfolk,  Va.,  strips  of  land  a  mile  in  length  though  but  a  few  rods  in 
width,  with  the  mansion  three-fourths  of  a  mile  from  the  highway  and 
near  the  water  course  on  which  the  produce  boats  are  laden,  taste, 
everywhere  asserting  its  sway,  has  introduced  a  shaded  lawn  in  front 
of  the  mansion  and  has  shut  out  from  the  point  of  the  eye's  ordinary 
view  the  grosser  products  of  the  soil.  In  small  village  enclosures, 
beds  of  the  smaller  vegetables,  ranged  on  either  side  of  the  front  area, 
are  not  distasteful ;  especially  if  symmetrically  divided  and  shielded 
by  a  flower  border,  by  a  hedge  or  by  a  row  of  flowering  shrubs.  In 
general  however  tilled  fields  should  be  retired,  and  in  the  back-ground. 

In  grouping  the  parts  of  more  extended  grounds,  where  tilled  land, 
hay-fields  and  pasturage  are  grouped,  beauty  requires  that  regard 
be  paid  to  their  relative  position.     There  are  certain  suggestions  of 

(52*  4S 


738  ART   CRITICISM. 

tiiste  that  are  instructive  to  the  ordinary  husbandman  in  this  respect. 
The  early  and  short-stalked  grains,  as  wheat,  show  to  best  advantage 
in  front  of  the  taller  maize;  and  a  hay-field,  always  green,  appears 
best  intervening  between  the  high  road  or  drive  and  the  tilled  lands. 
In  this  respect  the  grouping  of  orchards,  as  apples,  pears,  peaches, 
cherries,  and  other  fruit  trees  requires  special  care  for  the  best  effect. 
Relatively  to  tilled  grounds  they  should  be  in  the  rear;  and  as  usu- 
ally, both  for  security  and  just  association,  they  are  an  accompani- 
ment of  the  kitchen  garden,  they  should  be  grouped  beyond  its  beds. 
Relatively  to  each  other  the  same  regard  should  be  paid  to  the  forms  of 
fruit-trees,  whether  drooping  like  the  peach,  or  erect  and  conical  like 
the  cherry;  and  also  to  the  colors  of  their  blossoms,  as  that  which 
guides  in  the  juxtaposition  of  ornamental  trees.  Pasturage  grounds 
for  larger  animals  are  usually  located  in  the  rear  of  tilled  lands  be- 
cause the  poorer  and  less  finished  portions  of  an  estate  seem  best 
adapted  to  this  purpose.  The  low  grounds  also  are  naturally  devoted 
to  pasturage ;  both  because  the  water  there  gathers  and  the  lands  are 
adapted  to  this  end.  An  enclosed  park  for  deer,  however,  or  a  lawn 
close  cropped  by  sheep,  is  an  attractive  and  elegant  ornament  of 
front  grounds.  The  kitchen  garden,  other  things  being  equal,  is  ap- 
propriately located  in  proximity  to  the  portion  of  the  mansion  devo- 
ted to  cooking  purposes. 

The  form  which  the  patches  of  ground  devoted  to  different  pro- 
ducts may  take  is  naturally  suggested.  For  convenience  as  well  as 
beauty  fields  are  usually  cut  in  a  square  form  and  beds  in  rectangles. 
The  farmer  could  hardly  train  his  team  or  plough  to  move  in  any 
but  straight  lines ;  and  he  finds  greater  economy  in  working  his  land 
especially  with  the  plough,  when  the  four  sides  of  the  field  are  about 
equal  in  length.  Planted  corn-rows  are  necessarily  in  straight  lines; 
and  vegetable  beds  would  be  w^eeded  with  inconvenience  except  they 
were  laid  off  in  narrow  rectangles.  In  general  therefore  the  portions 
of  an  estate  devoted  to  useful  purposes  will  fix  the  straight  line  as 
the  ground-form  of  all  its  arrangements;  and  this  will  give  shape 
therefore  to  a  certain  extent  to  the  adjacent  ornamented  grounds.  It 
is  only  in  the  grass  plots  bordering  the  drives  that  curved  lines  are 
appropriate  in  lands  devoted  to  useful  purposes. 

Sect.  8.  The  relative  position  of  ornamental  plants  ;  the  arrange- 
ment OF  LAWNS,  FLOWER  BEDS,  BORDERS  OF  SHRUBBERY;  AND  THE  COM- 
BINATION OF  ALL  ACCORDING  TO  THE  LAWS  OF  HARMONY  IN  DIMENSIONS, 
FORM   AND   COLOR. 

According  to  their  size  the  ornaments  of  grounds  are  divided   into^ 


ARRANGEMENT  OF  ORNAMENTAL  PLANTS.       739 

plants  and  trees;  forming  two  classes  quite  distinct  in  the  rules  for 
their  employ.  To  the  former  belong  herbaceous  plants,  whether 
annuals  or  perennials,  whose  stalk  dies  down  every  Autumn ;  and 
woody  plants,  or  shrubs,  which  stand  during  the  winter  as  permanent 
marks,  if  not  ornaments  of  the  garden.  Below  these  two,  and  subor- 
dinate as  a  common  second  feature  to  both,  is  the  grass-sward; 
sometimes  serving  only  in  a  narrow  strip  as  a  border  to  a  flower  bed; 
but  sometimes  forming  a  broad  carpet  between  clumps  of  shrubbery 
or  beds  of  flowers. 

The  form  which  flower  beds,  the  leading  feature  of  ornamented 
grounds  may  take,  is  extremely  varied;  the  curved  line  predomi- 
nating. Those  skirting  walks  and  drives  must,  of  course,  take  as 
their  exterior  line  that  of  the  avenue  to  which  they  are  a  border. 
Those  located  between  walks,  or  in  front  court-yards,  may  be  cut  into 
stars,  and  ovals  of  various  forms;  good  taste,  however,  deciding  in 
favor  of  the  simpler  and  less  complicated  outlines.  Shrubs,  especially 
the  more  arborescent,  require,  like  trees,  independent  locations; 
either  in  lines  at  intervals  along  carriage  drives,  and  in  front  of 
the  mansion,  or  in  clumps  or  single  ornaments  as  a  back-ground  to 
flower  or  grass  plots.  The  grass-sward  intervening,  serving  as  a 
back-ground  to  the  figures  in  the  picture,  takes  the  outline  of  the 
prominent  features  to  which  it  is  subordinate. 

As  to  relative  position,  regard  must  be  had  to  summer  and  winter 
effects.  In  summer  flowering  plants  and  shrubs  will  be  the  chief 
feature.  Arranged  along  drives  flowers  should  be  seen  rather  be- 
tween, than  in  front  of  larger  shrubs ;  as  these  again  should  intervene 
between,  yet  retire  slightly  behind  the  trees  which  line  the  avenue. 
By  this  arrangement  the  tender  flowers  will  seem  guarded  from 
being  crushed  or  cropped  by  passing  animals;  the  tree  trunk  protect- 
ing the  shrubs  and  the  plants.  Along  foot-paths,  and  away  from  the 
reach  of  animals,  the  reverse  order  should  be  observed ;  the  shrubs 
rising  behind  flower  beds,  and  trees  back  of  them.  In  broad  spaces, 
intervening  between  avenues,  a  grass-sward  lawn,  dotted  with  arbor- 
escent shrubs,  should  form  the  central  portion.  In  winter  the 
arrangement  mentioned  still  preserves  symmetry  of  aspect;  the 
shrubs  rising  at  intervals  cloaking  the  nakedness  of  the  portions 
where  the  flowers  have  died,  or  have  been  laid  down. 

The  main  effect  to  be  sought  in  the  grouping  of  shrubs  and  plants 
is  the  securing  of  harmony  in  their  order  as  respects  dimensions, 
form  and  color.  So  far  as  dimensions  are  concerned  harmony  is 
attained  by  a  gradation  as  to  height  so  that  those  in  the  back-ground 


740  AllT    (JIUTICISM. 

shall  be  seen  over  those  in  front ;  or  by  making  the  distances  of  the 
larger  shrubs  ranged  in  the  front  such  that  the  smaller  plants  are 
seen  in  vistas  beyond.  As  respects  form,  tall  and  tapering  shrubs, 
as  the  arbor  vitse,  may  be  made  to  set  off  round-topped  bushes,  as  the 
box  or  holly ;  and  dwarfed  shrubs  show  to  advantage  beneath  the 
high  boughs  of  the  lilac  or  althea.  The  securing  of  harmony  in 
color  is  yet  more  a  master-work;  for  as  in  making  up  a  bouquet  the 
just  gradation  of  colors  according  to  the  laws  of  contrast  and  com- 
plement, the  shading  of  the  lively  into  the  sombre  and  the  relieving 
of  the  whole  by  a  back-ground  of  green,  tests  the  skill  even  of  an  artist, 
so  does  the  grouping  of  the  natural  flowers  set  in  juxtaposition  in 
the  landscape  garden. 

Sect.  9.  The  Grouping  of  Ornamental  trees;  as  to  juxtaposition  in 

GROVES,  avenues  OR  CLUMPS;  ACCORDING  TO  CLASS  AS  DECIDUOUS  OR  EVER- 
GREEN ;  ACCORDING  TO  FORM  AS  CONICAL,  OVAL  OR  DROOPING ;  ACCORDING 
TO  COLOR  AS  LIGHT  OR  DARK ;  ACCORDING  TO  MOBILITY  AS  RIGID,  WAVING 
OR  TREMULOUS. 

Ornamental  trees,  the  grand  feature  of  public  parks  as  well  as  of 
private  grounds,  have  a  double  aim ;  the  utility  of  their  shade,  and 
the  ornament  of  their  gigantic  moving  forms.  Of  the  charms  of 
shade  trees  poets  have  sung;  the  dearest  recollections  of  childhood 
are  associated  with  the  old  elm  or  oak  under  which  the  family  sat  to 
rest  at  noon  or  to  converse  at  evening;  and  beneath  shade  trees  the 
wise  of  earth  have  stood  to  teach,  and  the  good  have  knelt  to  pray. 
Without  the  cool  of  their  shade  the  thoroughfares  of  villages  and 
cities  would  be  intolerable  to  the  laborer  and  man  of  affairs ;  and 
half  the  joys  of  the  rich  and  of  the  poor  alike  in  the  days  and  hours 
of  leisure  from  toil  and  care  is  found  under  the  trees'  grateful  re- 
treats. The  same  Creator,  however,  who  in  Eden  made  trees  second- 
arily to  serve  purposes  of  "  good"  to  man,  made  them  primarily 
"pleasant  to  the  eyes."  As  ornaments,  trees  from  their  size  are 
designed  to  have  grandeur  as  well  as  beauty,  when  seen  from  afar ; 
while  also  nearer  at  hand,  their  perfect  workmanship,  elaborated  by 
the  Divine  hand,  outvies  all  man's  work,  made  to  be  master-pieces 
only  at  a  single  point  of  view.  Thus  viewed  several  attributes  of 
beauty  secured  by  the  hand  of  art  may  be  made  to  add  to  their 
charm. 

The  juxtaposition  of  trees  in  groves,  avenues  and  clumps  may 
have  reference  to  the  double  ends  referred  to  above.  The  grove  is  a 
clustered  group,  delightful  in  itself  and  in  its  associations  as  seen 


GROUPING   OF   ORNAMENTAL   TREES.  741 

from  afar.  Its  extent  makes  it  a  favorite  resort  for  a  quiet  ramble 
or  for  the  gathering  of  hundreds  for  open-air  discourse.  As  such  the 
poets  have  had  in  groves  their  sweetest  dreams;  and  philosophers,  as 
opposite  as  Plato  and  Epicurus,  have  found  its  shade  a  comment 
alike  on  the  most  ideal  of  spiritual  breathings  and  on  the  most  palpa- 
ble of  sensual  comforts.  The  grove  is  scarcely  natural  unless  formed 
of  native  forest  growth,  among  which  the  oak  towers  as  chief  mon- 
arch ;  beneath  whose  giant  tops  not  the  axe  but  the  grubbing-hoe 
and  the  rake  have  done  the  chief  work.  The  avenues  required  not 
simply  to  line  the  walks  of  fenced  grounds  but  also  of  open  streets 
and  highways,  admit  trees  of  greater  variety;  since  they  are  sup- 
posed to  be  transplants.  These,  however,  since  the  merit  of  giving 
shade  is  one  of  their  charms,  are  restricted  mainly  to  trees  with 
branching  tops  and  umbrageous  foliage.  Tree  clumps  are  designed 
for  ornament  merely;  and  therefore  admit  every  form  and  variety. 
In  their  rudest  form  they  are  the  natural  forest  growth ;  left  often  in 
the  clearing  simply  to  save  labor;  because  they  cover  rocky  promi- 
nences, or  line  a  marsh  or  streamlet ;  where,  since  they  scarcely  pay 
for  the  cutting,  and  no  gain  of  arable  land  invites  their  felling,  the 
woodman's  axe  has  spared  them,  at  least  for  a  season.  It  is  seen  in 
a  second  stage  of  development,  when  the  thrifty  farmer,  able  to  sacri- 
fice somewhat  to  his  tastes,  leaves  designedly,  even  on  arable  land, 
well  chosen  clumps  of  trees  and  plants,  here  and  there  a  group  of 
maples,  willows  and  oak,  or  of  alder,  hawthorn  or  sweet-brier,  to  set 
off  the  beauty  of  his  grass-lands.  It  reaches  its  rarest  perfection  when 
an  extensive  meadow  is  devoted  expressly  to  this  end;  and  the  eye 
and  hand  of  a  genuine  amateur  follows  for  years  the  efibrt  to  make 
its  ever-improved  grouping  a  gem  of  art. 

In  the  grouping  of  clumps  the  nicer  principles  of  gradation  in 
character,  form,  color,  &c.,  have  chief  play.  The  test  of  winter's 
stripping  invites  attention  to  the  character  of  trees  as  deciduous  or 
evergreen.  The  bare  limbs  of  the  tree  with  forest-killed  leaves,  re- 
quire as  a  relief  front  rows  or  occasional  dottings  of  such  trees  as 
the  spruce,  cedar,  &c.,  which  are  green  during  winter.  The  corners 
of  intersecting  paths  especially  should  be  marked  by  evergreen,  to 
serve  as  land-marks  in  the  season  of  barren  frost.  The  shape  of  trees 
is  an  element  of  effective  harmony  either  when  grouped  in  intermin- 
gled clumps,  or  when  employed  to  express  a  sentiment  appropriate  to 
their  place.  The  Turk  regards  the  tall  conical  sky-pointing  cypress 
as  a  fit  monitor  at  the  grave;  while  Christians  have  preferred  the 
drooping  form  of  the  weeping  willow  as  a  funereal  emblem.     When 


742 


ART   CRITICISM. 


clumps  are  ranged  in  succession  in  a  vista  an  enchanting  effect  may 
be  produced  by  a  skilful  succession  of  the  conical  firs  and  spruces, 
the  oval  maple  and  poplar,  the  acorn-shaped  oak  and  chestnut,  and 
the  umbrella-topped  willow  and  elm.  Color  too  may  be  made  to  pro- 
duce its  effect  in  grouping.  Where  at  every  step  of  the  beholder  the 
vista  changes,  from  the  dark  bottle  green  of  the  fir,  lightening  up 
through  the  varied  shades  of  green  and  yellow,  to  the  snow  white  of 
the  silver-leaved  poplar,  the  pleasing  effect  of  near  or  distant  lights 
may  be  secured.  Yet  again,  the  tree,  much  more  than  the  waving 
grain  and  smaller  stalks,  may  be  made  to  produce  the  most  sublime 
effects  of  motion.  In  the  gentlest  zephyr  the  ever  fluttering  leaves 
of  the  aspen  may  seem  so  many  butterflies  flitting  over  the  tree-top. 
In  the  fanning  of  the  cooling  breeze  the  graceful  sway  of  the  maple's 
leaves  and  of  the  willow's  pendants  may  picture  the  movement  of 
nymphs  through  the  woods.  In  the  rush  of  the  gale  the  mast-like 
roll  of  the  "rocking  pines,"  and  the  majestic  sweep  of  the  mighty  elm, 
is  like  a  giant's  struggle  with  the  wrestling  winds ;  while  the  stiff  ce- 
dar and  the  sturdy  oak  scarcely  bending  before  the  fury  of  the  tor- 
nado, stand  like  the  granite  obelisk  reared  by  man,  or  the  tall  cliff 
planted  by  the  Almighty  arm,  immovably  secure.  There  is  no  work 
to  which  man's  skill  and  power  can  give  shape  that  has  combined  so 
many  elements  of  beauty  and  grandeur  as  the  noble  trees  that  may 
tower  over  a  landscape  garde*. 

Sect.  10.  ARTinciAii  Accessories;  as  sculptured  forms ;  rustic  seats, 

ARBORS  AND  GROTTOES  FOR  REST ;    AND  SWINGS,  VEHICLES   AND   BOATS  FOR 
MOTION. 

The  comprehensiveness  of  gardening  as  an  art  appears  in  the 
appendages  of  sculptural  decoration  and  architectural  ornamentation 
which  may  be  added.  Besides  the  buildings  essential  to  every 
human  abode  those  designed  merely  for  occasional  shelter  or  rest  or 
even  for  simple  ornament  may  be  made  the  gems  of  a  landscape; 
while  sculptured  forms  may  decorate  enclosures  too  small  for  archi- 
tectural erections. 

How  truly  sculpture  is  adapted  to  open  air  positions  is  seen  in  the 
fact  that  in  both  ancient  and  modern  times  sculpture  to  a  great  ex- 
tent demands  in  its  very  idea  an  out-door  location.  The  same  reli- 
gious conviction  that  peopled  groves  and  rocky  heights  with  the 
spirits  of  rural  deities,  fixed  the  nature  of  their  shrines.  The  ancient 
descendants  of  Ham,  peopling  Canaan,  planted  the  hill-tops  with 
groves;  that  in  their  free  shelter,  rather  than  in  prison-like  temple- 


SCULPTUEE   AND   RUSTIC   FURNITURE   OF   GARDENS.        743 

cells,  the  images  of  their  deities  might  be  placed.  The  fountains  and 
gardens  of  the  Romans,  like  those  of  Baise,  of  Cumse  and  of  Egeria, 
could  not  keep  alive  their  storied  charm  without  sculptured  deities 
to  people  their  secluded  retreats.  The  exhumings  of  ancient  Pom- 
peii reveal  these  images  still  presiding  in  the  open  and  inner  courts 
of  city  dwellings;  while  the  excavations  of  ancient  villa  residences 
show  that  groves  and  open  pleasure  grounds  were  all  alive  with 
sculptured  throngs.  Among  the  rescued  works  of  ancient  sculpture, 
a  large  proportion  are  only  fitted  for  the  garden  area,  under  the  open 
sky.  Statues  of  rural  deities,  as  Flora,  Ceres  and  even  Diana,  never 
seem  truly  natural  except  in  the  field  and  forest.  Vases  of  larger  pro- 
portions, designed  either  for  growing  flowers  or  flowing  waters  whether 
thus  employed  or  not,  were  adapted  only  to  the  uncovered  canopy 
of  heaven.  All  life-size  or  colossal  work  in  bronze,  especially  eques- 
trian statues,  proclaim  in  the  very  material  of  its  composition  that 
it  was  made  to  endure  the  wear  of  exposure  to  the  elements.  The 
thousand  devices,  especially  for  fountains  of  flowing  water,  carried 
in  the  gardens  of  Versailles  to  an  extravagant  extreme,  all  are  ex- 
pressive only  in  the  open  air.  Of  course  funereal  monuments  in  every 
age  and  land,  the  larger  demand  on  the  sculptor's  art,  are  companions 
of  the  green  sod  that  covers  the  dead. 

The  resting-places  furnished  by  miniature  architectural  structures, 
are  a  summer  delight  in  gardens.  Among  the  open  trees  of  the 
walk  or  grove,  rustic  seats  are  the  simplest,  and  sometimes  the  only 
lounges  appropriate ;  as  to  their  material  and  form  the  more  con- 
formed to  nature  the  more  truly  artistic.  The  seat  may  be  a  moss- 
covered  bank  of  earth,  a  stone  smoothly  hewn,  a  lounge  of  wicker- 
work,  a  rude  chair  formed  from  jagged  and  knotty  boughs  and 
vine-branches ;  or  a  seat  of  bronze  or  iron,  cast  in  imitation  of  foliated 
and  intertwining  boughs.  In  more  open  portions  of  the  ground  a 
canopy  as  Avell  as  a  seat  is  required ;  and  almost  every  form  of  rural 
shelter  has  been  conceived.  The  extemporized  booth  made  of  mere 
boughs  of  trees,  the  wooden  frame  with  open  or  close  lattice  and  clad 
with  creeping  vines,  the  plain  shed-like  roof  of  wood,  the  richly 
adorned  Asiatic  kiosk,  all  have  their  place  in  history  and  their  appro- 
priate employ  in  the  more  rustic  or  refined  portions  of  a  garden. 
From  the  gourd-covered  booth  under  which  the  Hebrew  Jonah  sat 
to  the  summer  parlor  of  Eglon  the  Canaanite  lord,  this  feature  of  a 
public  or  private  garden  has  its  peculiar  attraction.  Yet  again,  for 
deeper  seclusion  and  as  a  retreat  from  intenser  heat,  the  grotto  has 
its  own  peculiar  place  in  art.     It  may  be  natural,  a  native  cavity  in 


744  ART   CRITICISM. 

a  rocky  hill-side;  or  it  may  be  artificial,  reared  of  rude  masonry, 
covered  without  by  an  undisturbed  thicket,  and  within  decorated 
with  shells  lining  the  edges  of  its  thickly  sanded  floor,  with  covered 
seats  ranged  along  its  sides,  and  with  lichens  and  carved  reptiles 
clinging  to  its  walls  and  ceiling. 

Above  all,  accessories  which  give  the  delight  of  motion  are  appro- 
priate to  the  garden.  The  swaying  of  the  swing  hung  upon  a  strong 
oak  or  elm  is  a  perennial  delight  of  childhood ;  as  also  the  pigmy 
carriage  drawn  by  hand  or  dragged  by  neatly  harnessed  goats.  In 
larger  public  grounds  no  recreation  is  more  fascinating  than  the 
sweep  of  the  light  row-boat.  The  dreamy  romance  that  clusters 
about  the  Turkish  caique  on  the  Bosphorus,  and  that  lingers  fragrant 
around  the  dark  gondolas  of  the  Venetian  canals,  adds  its  peculiar 
charm  to  the  delight  of  boat  riding  upon  a  pleasure-ground  lake. 
In  the  artificial  accessories  of  public  grounds  an  ever  new  freshness 
and  zest  for  the  ordinary  frequenter  can  be  kept  alive  with  which  the 
most  costly  works  of  higher  art  cannot  keep  pace. 

Sect.  11.  Animal  accessories;  smaller  and  larger  quadrupeds  wild 
AND  domestic;  birds  free  or  caged;  fish  and  reptiles. 

Man  was  not  made  to  be  solitary;  the  water,  the  air  and  the  dry 
land  was  peopled  by  other  moving  creatures  long  ere  he  appeared  on 
earth;  and  when  he,  the  monarch  of  all,  was  placed  in  his  garden- 
abode  animals  adapted  to  his  service  were  already  awaiting  their 
lord.  As  the  first  garden  would  have  been  desolate  and  objectless 
without  insects  to  suck  nectar  from  the  flowers,  birds  to  flit  and  war- 
ble among  its  trees  and  feed  on  their  fruits,  quadrupeds  to  browse  and 
frisk  upon  its  green  sward,  and  even  fish  and  reptiles  to  people  its 
waters  and  marshes,  so  every  garden  since  framed  by  man  has  been 
made  more  Eden-like  by  animal  accessories. 

The  domestic  animals  of  the  farm  are  naturally  the  first  to  be 
sought.  The  horse  and  the  cow,  the  sheep  and  the  goat,  that  feed 
upon  the  herbage  unfitted  for  man  but  made  for  these  his  servants, 
are  still  more  a  source  of  pleasure  and  of  pride  to  their  possessor, 
however  rustic  his  habits  and  however  uncultured  his  mind.  The 
opulent  and  cultured  proprietor  of  an  elegant  estate  has  a  yet  higher 
ambition  to  possess  the  choicest  varieties  of  useful  domestic  animals, 
such  as  the  best  breeds  of  cattle  and  of  sheep;  while  some  will  add 
superior  horses  and  dogs.  To  these  domestic  animals,  not  strictly 
the  adornment  of  an  estate,  rare  quadrupeds  such  as  the  deer,  the 
gazelle,  the  elk  or  bufialo  may  add  the  charm  of  novelty ;  while  even 


ANIMALS   TENANTS   OF   GARDENS.  745 

the  smaller  animals,  such  as  the  hare  and  squirrel,  well  domesticated, 
are  a  pleasing  accessory  to  extended  country  grounds,  or  to  an  open 
city  square.  Besides  these  animals  feeding  upon  herbage  and  run- 
ning free,  more  extended,  and  especially  public  grounds,  may  add 
beasts  of  prey  that  must  be  confined  by  a  chain  or  cage.  Native 
animals  of  America  such  as  the  fox,  the  wild-cat,  the  wolf  and  the 
bear  may  be  readily  obtained  for  ordinary  public  gardens;  while 
the  monkey,  the  leopard  and  the  lion,  the  more  common  foreign 
beasts  of  prey,  may  be  added  to  rarer  collections.  It  is  a  grand  con- 
ception which  gathers  such  a  collection  as  that  of  the  Zoological 
Gardens  at  Kegent's  Park,  London ;  worthy  to  be  ranked  in  higher 
art. 

After  quadrupeds  the  bird  tribe  are  a  desirable  accessory  to  pleas- 
ure-grounds. While  the  ordinary  farmer  prides  himself  upon  what 
he  calls  his  "stock,"  the  farmer's  wife  has  a  kindred  delight  in  her 
"poultry  yard."  Here  may  be  seen  gathered  various  species  of  hens, 
turkeys,  ducks  and  geese ;  whose  tending  and  feeding  is  a  pleasing 
daily  care,  not  simply  for  the  profit,  but  also  for  the  pleasure  they 
afford.  To  these  the  richer  land-holder  will  add  the  peacock  for  his 
barn-yard,  and  the  swan  as  the  fairy  tenant  of  his  artificial  lake.  In 
addition  to  these  tenants  of  the  low  grounds  the  pigeon,  the  swallow 
and  the  wren  are  always,  even  to  the  farmer's  family,  coveted  tenants 
of  the  eaves  of  out-buildings ;  while  also  the  caged  canary,  the  mock- 
ing-bird and  the  parrot  are  favorite  en  liven  ers  of  the  winter  parlor 
and  the  summer  piazza,  and  the  chained  owl  and  eagle  are  not  un- 
worthy accessories  to  a  public  garden.  There  is  of  course  no  limit 
to  the  extent  to  which  these  collections  may  be  carried  in  such 
grounds  as  the  Surrey  Gardens  of  London. 

Even  the  lower  orders  of  animals,  fish  and  reptiles,  have  their 
place  as  the  adornments  of  a  garden.  The  same  provident  Creator 
who  has  made  the  frogs  of  the  ditch  and  the  fish  of  the  brooks  to  be 
a  source  of  delight  to  the  juvenile  mind,  has  made  the  higher  taste 
of  mature  culture  to  find  a  pleasure  in  these  departments  of  his  per- 
fect creation.  The  land  tortoise  is  a  welcome  nestler  under  the  broad 
leaves  of  garden  vegetables;  and  even  the  lizard  on  the  wall,  and 
sometimes  too  the  serpent  in  the  grass,  is  a  source  of  interest  if  not 
pleasure.  The  tiny  gold-fish  in  the  little  glass  aquarium  of  a  modern 
piazza  is  a  development  of  that  same  taste  that  led  to  extravagant 
expenditures  of  the  Greeks  in  Aristotle's  time  and  of  the  Romans  in 
the  days  of  the  Emperors,  who  filled  their  artificial  basons  with  the 
choicest  of  the  finny  tribes.  The  ancient,  as  well  as  modern  sugges- 
03  4  T 


746 


ART   CRITICISM. 


tion  of  freezing  choice  varieties  of  fish,  and  their  winter  transporta- 
tion thus  to  distances  over  which  they  could  not  be  carried  alive  in 
summer,  is  an  interesting  illustration  of  the  taste  for  such  accessories 
to  beautified  grounds  inherent  in  man's  cultured  nature. 

Sect.  12.  The  Kegard  to  be  paid  to  Climate,  to  alternation  of  Sea- 
sons AND  TO  BLEAK  OR  SUNNY  EXPOSURES,  IN  THE  CHOICE  OF  PLANTS 
AND  IN  THE  STYLE  OP  FINISH  FOR  BUILDINGS. 

Many  writers  on  Landscape  Gardening  lay  special  stress  on  the 
regard  which  should  be  had  in  the  choice  of  plants  and  in  the  finish 
of  buildings  to  the  demands  of  climate,  the  alternation  of  seasons 
and  even  to  the  slope  or  shelter  of  a  hill-side  on  which  a  mansion  is 
reared ;  since  a  southern  exposure  in  all  northern  latitudes  is  far 
more  sunny  and  thus  invites  plants  less  hardy  and  a  style  of  building 
more  open  and  airy  than  is  fitting  in  a  bleaker  position.  This  may 
be  exaggerated ;  for  summer  is  much  the  same  as  to  degree  of  heat 
in  all  parts  of  the  temperate  zone,  while  in  the  richer  gardens  only 
occupied  by  their  proprietors  in  summer,  conservatories  may  be  built 
in  which  to  winter  tropical  or  delicate  plants.  Since  thus  disparities 
of  climate  and  the  transitions  of  the  seasons  may  be  to  a  great  extent 
neutralized,  the  chief  attention,  in  this  respect,  is  to  be  given  to  ex- 
posures, especially  northern  and  southern. 

Where  utility  is  sought,  however,  regard  must  be  paid  in  the  choice 
of  plants  and  trees  to  all  the  causes  mentioned.  The  fruit  grower 
finds  that  the  apple  and  the  pear  mature  best  in  a  northerly,  the 
peach  and  the  plum  in  a  medium,  the  fig  and  orange  under  a  more 
southerly  sky ;  as  also  among  the  cereals,  rye,  wheat  and  rice  have 
correspondent  latitudes  for  healthful  developement.  This  distinction 
in  trees  and  plants  reaches  to  oi*namental  trees;  affecting  smaller 
trees  less,  since  these  may  be  guarded  in  conservatories  during  the 
winter  and  be  brought  during  summer  into  the  open  air.  Climate 
must  be  studied  in  the  selection  of  shrubbery  for  a  hedge ;  the  haw- 
thorn, the  privet,  the  arbor  vitse  and  the  osage  orange  having  each 
their  appropriate  latitudes ;  while  farther  south,  as  in  the  gardens  of 
Syria  and  Mexico,  the  cactus,  which  is  a  hothouse  plant  in  the  north, 
grows  to  gigantic  size,  and  forms  a  strong  and  secure  hedge.  The 
stately  elm  falls  a  prey  to  insects  in  a  southerly  clime ;  while  the  fair- 
est of  the  oaks,  the  willow  or  water  oak,  never  shows  itself  in  a  north- 
ern forest,  and  cannot  endure  the  winter  exposure  of  a  northern  park. 

The  alternation  of  seasons  is  also  in  a  measure  to  be  regarded.  A 
large  class  of  trees  as  well  as  of  plants,  seem  made  for  every  clime. 


INFLUENCE  OF  CLIMATE   AND    EXPOSURE  TO   THE   SUN.     747 

This  is  beautifully  illustrated  in  the  fact  that  plants  and  trees  accus- 
tomed to  the  rest  from  growth  belonging  to  the  winter  of  a  cold  re- 
gion, learn,  so  to  speak,  in  the  torrid  zone  to  take  their  needed  repose 
in  the  hot  dry  season  and  to  push  their  growth  in  the  cool  wet  portion 
of  the  year ;  while  in  medium  or  temperate  climes  the  same  plants 
have  virtually  two  seasons  of  repose,  in  midsummer  and  midwinter. 
In  the  choice  of  plants  and  trees,  however,  the  evergreens,  belonging 
to  the  lower  orders  in  the  scale  of  perfection,  claim  chief  attention. 
A  cemetery  hedge  which  must  be  visited  alike  in  summer  and  winter, 
since  death  has  "all  seasons  for  its  own,"  should  be  of  those  classes 
of  shrubs  whose  foliage  is  ever  fresh  and  full.  An  adorned  land- 
scape, being  naturally  regarded  as  of  man's  planting,  should  secure 
always  on  a  small  stage  what  the  Creator  does  in  a  grander  theatre ; 
the  humanly  coated  acres  being  a  transcript  of  the  divinely  robed 
leagues ;  special  care  for  instance  being  taken  that  the  symmetry  of 
summer  foliage  be  preserved  by  so  interspersing  winter's  green,  that 
no  portion  may  at  any  time  look  bare  and  barren. 

Yet  more  importance  is  to  be  attached  to  southern  as  opposed  to 
northern  exposure.  The  degree  of  heat  which  the  earth  receives 
from  the  sun  depends  mainly  upon  the  perpendicularity  and  conse- 
quent directness  with  which  its  rays  fall.  Any  child  can  test  this  by 
holding  the  back,  or  more  sensitive  portion  of  his  hand  near  a  fire ; 
turning  the  hand  so  that  the  rays  of  heat  strike  it  now  in  perpen- 
dicular lines  and  now  at  an  acute  angle.  The  sun  is  much  nearer  in 
winter  than  in  summer  to  those  portions  of  the  earth  which  are  in 
northern  latitudes;  but  its  rays  warm  less  the  portion  of  the  earth 
turned  from  its  disk  because  they  fall  so  obliquely  upon  it.  For  the 
same  reason  the  summers  of  nearly  all  portions  of  the  temperate 
zone,  though  more  days  are  hot  in  a  southern  than  in  a  northern 
latitude,  are  of  about  the  same  temperature  during  the  hottest  of  the 
season.  For  this  reason,  too,  elevated  mountain  regions  have  about 
the  same  degree  of  coolness  as  a  summer  resort  in  a  far  southern 
latitude  as  in  a  high  northern.  Of  this  principle  the  ordinary 
farmer  knows  how  to  avail  himself;  planting  his  garden  for  early 
vegetables  where  the  sun  strikes-  in  directly  from  the  south  upon  their 
beds.  The  vintner  seeks  the  hill-side  because  the  sun's  rays  strike 
perpendicularly  upon  it  instead  of  obliquely  as  on  the  plain  at  its 
foot ;  and  thus  he  secures  both  the  rapid  growth  of  his  vines  and  the 
ripening  of  his  fruit.  This  principle  must  be  a  controlling  one 
with  the  skilful  gardener  in  the  location  of  very  many  of  the  pro- 
ducts of  extended  grounds. 


748  ART   CRITICISM. 

In  the  construction  of  buildings  these  same  facts  will  have  their  in- 
fluence. In  colder  climates  houses  generally  will  be  made  of  more 
durable  material  and  of  more  compact  and  close  structure.  The 
large  class  of  houses  built,  however,  for  suburban  residences,  and 
made  a  leading  feature  in  surrounding  grounds,  are  designed  for 
summer  residences  only.  While  therefore  the  permanent  dweller  in 
the  open  country  at  the  north  will  build  his  house  with  close  win- 
dows and  small  porticoes,  and  at  the  south  with  wide  piazzas  and 
large  open  windows,  suburban  retreats  will  naturally  everywhere 
take  the  light  style  of  southern  latitudes.  Special  regard,  however, 
both  for  the  sake  of  health  and  of  pleasure,  should  be  paid  to  ex- 
posure in  the  location  of  a  mansion.  A  long  range  of  edifices  should 
not,  if  possible,  front  due  north  and  south ;  since  one  entire  side  will 
in  that  case  never  see  the  sun's  light  while  the  other  will  be  blistered 
by  the  continued  beating  of  its  rays.  Especially  should  the  location 
of  a  house  upon  a  northern  slope  be  avoided ;  since  then  the  entire 
structure  will  to  a  certainty  be  shut  off  from  the  direct  influence  of 
that  orb  which  like  its  great  antitype  "  the  Sun  of  righteousness" 
has  always  literal  "  healmg  in  his  wings." 


CHAPTER    III. 

ANCIENT   AND   ASIATIC   STYLES   OF   LANDSCAPE   GARDENING. 

Gardening,  as  already  intimated,  is  the  most  ancient  of  arts. 
The  first  home  of  man,  as  tradition  and  revealed  history  assure  us, 
was  a  garden ;  man's  first  employ  being  to  dress  and  keep  it.  The 
first,  also,  of  the  family  which  was  to  people  the  restored  earth, 
Noah,  became  a  gardener.  As  the  early  home  of  mankind  was  in 
Asia  so  primitive  gardening  was  an  Asiatic  art ;  and  the  people  of 
that 'continent  have  retained  this,  as  other  arts,  from  the  earliest 
periods  of  history  in  its  pristine  stage  of  advancement. 

As  gardening  begins  with  the  works  of  nature,  not  simply  as  a 
model  after  which  to  copy  but  also  as  a  finished  work  to  be  modified 
and  repaired  by  the  hand  of  art,  so  it  is  the  art  necessarily  most  con- 
formed in  its  style  to  nature's  method.  The  leading  peculiarities 
marking  in  any  land  and  age  the  arts  of  sculpture,  architecture  and 
painting,  will  be  found  to  characterize  this  art ;  such  for  instance  as 


LOCATION   OF  THE   GARDEN   OF   EDEN.  749 

extremes  of  vastness  and  diminutiveness  in  size,  fondness  for  the  dis- 
torted and  grotesque,  and  want  of  expressiveness  especially  in  distant 
or  perspective  views.  The  extreme  antiquity  of  the  art  is  exempli- 
fied in  the  Garden  of  Eden ;  its  first  and  rudimentary  stages  in  the 
Egyptian  and  Assyrian ;  its  second  stage  of  advance  in  the  Syrian 
and  Persian ;  its  culminating  influence  in  the  Grecian  and  Roman ; 
its  lingering  sway  in  the  early  Christian  of  Southern  Europe  in  the 
Middle  Ages ;  while  its  present  type  may  at  this  day  be  studied  in 
the  Turkish  and  Chinese  gardens. 

Sect.  1.  The  Peimitive  "  Garden  of  Eden  ;"  as  the  perfection  of  Na- 
ture AND  Art. 

The  Sacred  narrative  of  man's  first  abode,  confirmed  and  illus- 
trated as  it  is  by  universal  human  tradition,  is  an  interesting  proof 
that  Landscape  Gardening  is  a  natural  aspiration  of  man ;  a  love 
for  a  union  of  the  beauties  of  Nature  and  Art  implanted  by  his  Cre- 
ator for  a  wise  purpose.  To  the  traditions  of  that  primitive  garden 
abode,  and  the  disposition  of  Asiatic  nations  each  to  claim  their  own 
land  as  its  location,  Milton  and  later  writers  refer,  not  to  set  forth 
their  differences,  but  to  add  confirmation  to  their  actual  and  con- 
cordant truth.  Milton  alludes  to  "  the  fair  fields  of  Enna  by 
gloomy  Dis ;"  to  the  "  Sweet  grove  of  Daphne  by  Orontes ;"  to  the 
"  Nyseian  isle  girt  by  the  river  Triton ;"  and  to  "  Mount  Ama- 
ra,  under  the  Ethiop  line  by  Nilus'  head;"  only  to  show  how 
"wide  and  remote  were  all  these"  renowned  gardens  both  in 
place  and  perfection,  "from  this  Assyrian  garden."^  Many  have 
commented  on  the  Grecian  tradition  of  the  Hesperides,  "  the  garden 
islands  of  the  blessed,"  often  mentioned  by  Hesiod,  Pindar,  Hero- 
dotus, Strabo,  Pliny,  Ovid  and  other  Greek  and  Latin  authors,  as 
showing  the  power  of  this  Asiatic  tradition  to  claim  the  faith  of  the 
most  cultured  and  most  practical  nations  of  the  Arian  stock.  Yet 
other  critics,  tracing  back  the  history  of  this  tradition  still  farther 
to  the  exalted  family  of  Japhetic  stock  near  whose  original  home 
Eden  seems  to  have  been  located,  have  quoted  the  Pouranas 
in  the  Sanscrit  tongue  of  the  Brahmins  of  India,  and  the  Zende- 
vesta  in  the  older  dialect  of  Persia.  According  to  the  Pouranas  in 
the  top  of  the  golden  mountain  Merou,  in  a  bason  like  the  seed  cup 
of  the  lotus  flower,  is  the  garden  abode  of  happy  spirits,  from  whose 
sweet  vales  flows  a  river  that  parts  into  four  branches  to  water  the 


'  Milton's  Paradise  Lost,  Book  IV. 
63  * 


750  ART   CRITICISM. 

earth ;  where  wave  the  cool  groves  of  Indra,  among  which  stands  the 
sacred  Jambu  Tree*  whose  flowing  sap  supplies  a  river  of  the  waters 
of  life,  of  which  the  blessed  may  drink  to  satiety.  In  the  Zend 
tradition  the  mountain  Al-Bordj  is  the  garden  home  of  good  spirits ; 
whose  fountains  are  called  "  the  navel  of  waters." 

The  intimation  of  the  sacred  record  as  to  the  location  of  this 
primitive  abode  of  man  is  sufficiently  definite;  while  historic  tra- 
dition from  the  earliest  time  down  to  the  present  day  is  in  accord. 
This  fixes  its  site  in  the  magnificent  basons  of  the  Caucasus  Moun- 
tains, whose  genial  clime  has  been  in  all  ages  the  native  home  of  the 
most  finely  developed  portion  of  the  human  family,  the  Caucasian 
or  Arian  stock.  Moses^  says  the  garden  was  planted  "in  the  east;" 
this  designation  indicating  always  in  his  narrative  the  longitudinal 
location  of  the  rich  tract  of  Asia  through  which  the  Euphrates 
flows;  while  his  mention  that  the  first  parents  of  mankind  w^ere 
driven  out  of  Eden  to  a  land  yet  farther  to  the  east,  and  that  the 
family  saved  from  their  descendants  by  the  ark  landed  upon  Mount 
Ararat  at  the  South-east  corner  of  modern  Armenia,  fixes  quite  defi- 
nitely both  the  latitude  and  longitude  of  the  region.  Yet  again  the 
naming  of  the  Euphrates  and  Tigris  as  two  of  the  four  rivers  whose 
head  waters  were  to  be  found  in  Eden  limits  more  nearly  the  special 
location.  This  definite  statement  of  the  Sacred  history  is  in  accord- 
ance with  the  tradition  recorded  as  early  as  B.  C.  550  in  the  Zenda- 
vesta  of  Zoroaster,  and  now  familiar  among  the  people  of  Armenia, 
that  Eden  w^as  located  amid  the  delightful  mountain  valleys  that 
form  the  heart  of  their  land,  now  the  home  of  the  highest  types  of 
the  Caucasian  family. 

The  great  extent  of  the  region  called  Eden,  the  broad  park-like 
character  of  its  garden,  is  recognized  from  many  particulars  cited 
in  the  Sacred  narrative.^  It  embraced  that  far  extended  range  of  the 
Caucasus,  from  whose  sides  in  Moses'  day,  as  now,  issued  the  streams 
that  fed  the  two  great  rivers  flowdng  south  to  the  Persian  Gulf,  and 
two  others,  one  of  which  seems  to  have  emptied  into  the  Caspian  and 
its  fellow  into  the  Black  Sea.  The  comparison  made  by  the  same 
writer  between  it  and  the  valley  South  of  the  Dead  Sea  before  that 
sea  was  made  to  close  over  it,  a  rich  region  not  less  than  twenty 
miles  in  length  and  eight  or  ten  miles  in  breadth,  and  again  to  the  rich 
valley  extending  eastward  from  the  Delta  of  Egypt  near  where  an- 


'  See  Gen.  ii.  8-15. 

«  See  Gen.  ii.    10-14;  xiii.  10;  Ezek.  xxxi.  8,  9. 


DELIGHTS  OF  THE  GARDEN  OF  EDEN.         751 

cient  Zoan  stood,  both  these  comparisons  indicate  a  wide  extent  of 
country.  The  mention  again  by  the  prophet  Ezekiel  of  "cedars" 
growing  in  this  garden  is  indicative  that  mountain  regions  were  en- 
closed within  its  circuit.  Milton's  varied  and  specially  accurate 
scholarship  has  led  him  to  embody  his  conceptions  in  a  picture  of 
corresponding  scope. 

The  enumerated  beauties  combined  in  this  region  of  early  loveli- 
ness suggest  many  elements  conspiring  to  its  general  effect.^  The 
mineral  riches  which  Moses  describes  as  in  the  regions  through  which 
the  rivers  issuing  from  Eden  flowed  are  by  the  prophet  Ezekiel  lo- 
cated in  Eden  itself,  as  "  delights  of  the  garden  of  God ;"  "  every 
precious  stone,  the  sardius,  the  topaz  and  the  diamond ;  the  beryl, 
the  onyx,  and  the  jasper ;  the  emerald,  the  sapphire  and  the  car- 
buncle ;  and  gold."  ^  The  waters,  as  Milton  pictures,  bursting  up  in 
under-gifound  fountains  and  dashing  in  cascades  on  the  mountains, 
"  the  grots  and  caves  of  cool  recess,"  festooned  by  creeping  vines, 
redolent  with  the  perfume  of  flowers  and  fruits,  were  doubtless  real 
elements  of  beauty.  Among  "  trees  good  for  food,"  or  fruit-trees, 
the  fig  is  mentioned  by  Moses ;  and  among  shade  or  ornamental  trees, 
"  pleasant  to  the  sight,"  the  cedar,  the  fir  and  the  chestnut  found 
only  in  the  mountains ;  to  which  mention  of  the  Hebrew,  Milton 
rightly  adds  the  pine.  Amid  the  hills,  on  broad  pastures,  the  flocks 
and  herds  must  have  fed ;  perhaps  on  Milton's  "  lawns  and  level 
downs."  There  too  must  have  bloomed,  beyond  Milton's  power  to 
fancy,  every  form  and  hue  of  grace  in  flowers. 

Above  all  these  insensate  things,  minerals  and  plants,  were  the 
animal  accessories;  birds  filling  the  groves  with  beauty  and  melody, 
and  quadrupeds,  fish  and  even  reptiles  crowning  the  circle  of  charms. 
How  near  these  were  to  man  as  pleasing  associates  is  intimated  in 
the  general  relation  assigned  to  him  as  their  lord,  in  the  passing  of  all 
before  him  and  his  naming  each  one,  and  in  his  looking  among  them 
for  companionship,  until  woman,  a  being  of  his  own  nature,  was  gra- 
ciously granted. 

In  this  garden-paragon  of  nature,  "  perfect  in  beauty,"  Adam  was 
placed  "to  dress  and  keep  it;"  while  Eve  was  to  be  "an  help  meet 
for  him."  The  thought  and  feeling  of  man,  his  science  and  art, 
were  to  be  exhausted  in  new  studies  for  the  improving  of  landscape 


•  See  Ezek.  xxviii.  13,  and  Paradise  Lost,  Books  IV.  V.  and  IX. 

*  Gen.  ii.  9,  18,20;  iii.  7. 


752  ART   CRITICISM. 

beauty  and  fertility.*     Ere  sculpture  or  architecture  were  dreamed 
of,  their  united  aim  in  forming  walks  and  bowers  for  shelter  was,  to 

"  Lop  overgrown,  or  prune,  or  prop,  or  bind ;" 
Adam's  rougher  labor  being  to  wind 

"  The  woodbine  round  the  arbor,  or  direct 
The  clasping  ivy  where  to  climb ;" 

and  Eve's  lighter  task  to  support 

"Each  flower  of  slender  stalk,  whose  head  though  gay 
Carnation,  purple,  azure,  specked  with  gold, 
Hung  drooping  unsustained." 

The  first  garden  made  for  the  abode  of  man  was  a  work  of  human 
as  well  as  of  Divine  art. 

Sect.  2.  Egyptian  and  Assyrian  Gardens  ;  controlled  in  TBfteiR  fea- 
tures BY  the  sameness  OF  SURFACE  AND  RICHNESS  OF  SOIL  BELONGING  TO 
LEVEL  RIVER  BOTTOMS. 

The  influence  of  location  on  architecture  and  sculpture  has  already 
been  noticed  in  the  effort  of  the  Egyptian  and  Assyrian  artists  to 
overcome  by  excessive  massiveness  and  elevation  the  depressing  effect 
of  the  low  grounds  on  the  Nile  and  Euphrates.  This  structure  of 
country  was  in  gardening  yet  more  controlling;  and  that  from  two 
causes.  A  land  that  has  no  upward  curve,  its  surface  presenting 
unvarying  straight  lines,  allows  only  straight  lines  in  its  borders, 
walks  and  other  leading  features ;  while  the  rank-growing  vegetation 
natural  to  a  rich  alluvial  soil  gives  a  coarseness  of  form  and  color. 
Numerous  historical  allusions,  illustrated  by  the  pictured  representa- 
tions on  the  walls  of  ancient  tombs,  and  confirmed  by  modern  cus- 
toms, enable  us  with  great  accuracy  to  reconstruct  the  Egyptian 
garden  of  the  age  of  the  Pharaohs. 

Moses,^  addressing  the  Hebrew  people  familiar  with  no  other  land 
than  Egypt,  represents  "gardens"  as  located  "by  the  river-side," 
having  " cedar  trees  by  the  water;"  and  the  whole  land  "watered 
with  the  foot  as  a  garden  of  herbs."  The  sculptures  of  the  tombs 
picture  the  river,  or  a  large  canal,  in  front  of  gardens,  and  rows  of 
dark  conical  trees,  like  the  cedar,  lining  its  banks;  while  all  the 


'  See  Isaiah  li.  3 ;  Ezek.  xxviii.  12 ;  xxxvi.  35,  and  Joel  ii.  3,  and  Paradise 
Lost,  Book  IX. 

«  Numb.  xxiv.  6 ;  Deut.  xi.  10 ;  Gen.  xli.  57  ;  Ex.  ix.  32 ;  Num.  xi.  5 ;  Exod. 
XV.  27 ;  xxviii.  33 ;  Num.  xx.  5 ;  Deut.  viii.  8. 


EGYPTIAN   AND    ASSYRIAN   GARDENS.  753 

beds  of  flowers,  clumps  of  trees,  vineyards  and  fish  pools  are  geomet- 
rically squared.  Utility  was  a  leading  object  in  these  gardens ;  the 
whole  land  even  for  wheat  being  divided  into  beds ;  vegetables  as 
"melons,  cucumbers,  onions,"  and  a  celery-like  grass,  rendered 
"  leeks,"  were  interspersed ;  while  the  palm,  the  fig,  the  pomegranate 
and  the  vine  formed  borders.  On  the  walls  of  the  tombs  these  fruit 
trees,  and  especially  all  the  processes  of  culturing,  gathering  and  em- 
ploying the  grape,  are  pictured ;  and  in  the  fruit  vases  deposited  with 
the  dead  the  fig,  prune  and  various  nuts  are  found  preserved. 
Among  ornamental  trees  were  found  the  grand  cedar,  beautifal 
in  its  conical  form  and  ever-green  hue,  and  the  lign-aloes  with  its 
spicy  fragrance;  and  on  the  tomb  walls  marked  skill  is  shown  in 
grouping  small  trees,  especially  those  of  stiff"  conical  forms  beneath 
and  between  those  having  spreading  and  waving  tops. 

At  frequent  intervals  in  the  old  Egyptian  gardens  appear  pools  of 
water,  which  seem  to  have  a  triple  purpose.  On  the  surfaces  of  many 
are  clustered  the  flowers  and  buds  of  the  water-lily  family,  the  lotus 
and  papyrus ;  the  root  stalks  of  the  former  serving  as  a  common  food 
in  Herodotus'  day,  and  those  of  the  latter  when  stripped,  pressed  and 
made  to  adhere  by  their  own  gluten  being  the  common  Egyptian 
paper;  while  the  flowers,  as  the  tomb  sculptures  everywhere  show,  were 
an  acceptable  offering  to  deities  and  to  rulers,  as  well  as  a  favorite 
female  ornament  on  festal  occasions.  Along  the  sides  of  these  pools 
were  bred  the  varied  and  beautiful  water-fowl  now  so  common  on  the 
Nile;  the  crane,  the  pelican,  the  swan,  the  duck  and  the  princely 
little  ibis;  while  within  their  waters  abounded  the  sweet  fish  admired 
by  the  ancient  Hebrews  and  by  modern  travelers,  whose  capture 
in  nets,  as  sculptures  show,  was  a  favorite  amusement.  Finally,  as 
architectural  accessories,  small  temples  or  shrines  of  deities,  little 
lodges  for  the  guard  of  the  vineyards,  arbors  for  noontide  shelter, 
and  little  round  towers  for  the  shelter  of  pigeons,  beautified  then  as 
now  the  Egyptian  garden.^ 

The  Assyrian  gardens  seem  to  have  been  of  the  Egyptian  inodel. 
The  banks  of  the  Euphrates  are  level  like  those  of  the  Nile;  its 
canals  for  irrigation  are  kindred ;  the  style  of  sculpture  and  architec- 
ture on  both  these  streams  is  of  the  same  type ;  and  these  controlling 
causes  naturally  led  to  corresponding  features  in  Landscape  Garden- 
ing.    The  earliest  mention  of  gardens  in  Assyria  is  found  in  the 


'  Num.  xi.  5;  Isa.  xix.  6,  7,  10;  Ps.  Ixviii.  13. 
4U 


754  ART  CRITICISM. 

book  of  Job ;  ^  who,  as  a  Chaldean,  probably  represents  the  Japhetic 
stock,  in  the  age  when  Melchisedek  adorned  the  Hamitic,  and  Abra- 
ham the  Shemitic  families.  From  the  allusions  of  this  early  drama 
bearing  his  name  the  gardens  on  the  Euphrates  seem  to  have  been 
traversed  by  streams;  water-plants  and  rows  of  trees  along  the 
streams,  clumps  of  hardy  trees  in  rocky  places,  shade  trees  as  the 
willow,  and  fruit  trees  as  the  olive  and  vine,  were  cultured  with 
care;  while  lodges  to  guard  the  fruit  and  presses  for  wine  were 
erected  within  garden  enclosures.  From  Hebrew  writers'^  we  learn 
that  the  Assyrian  gardens  bordered  as  the  Egyptian  on  the  river- 
side; that  those  about  Babylon  and  Nineveh,  were  attached  to 
palaces,  and  enclosed  within  the  city  walls,  thus  adding  to  their  extent, 
as  Diodorus  and  Layard  also  mention ;  that  rows  of  cedars  and  willows 
served  as  borders,  the  latter  tree  being  a  special  ornament  in  the 
East;  and  that  the  fragrant  lign-aloes  and  the  rapidly  growing  arbor- 
sheltering  Palma  Christi,  were,  as  Herodotus  confirms,  Assyrian  as 
well  as  Egyptian  delights.  The  allusions  of  early  writers  have  how- 
ever in  Assyria  no  monumental  records  such  as  those  of  Egypt  to 
confirm  and  illustrate  their  statements. 

The  great  writers  of  the  age  of  Augustus,  Diodorus  and  Strabo 
dwell  with  special  interest  on  the  hanging  gardens  erected  by  Nebu- 
chadnezzar king  of  Babylon  to  please  Amytis  his  favorite  Median 
wife;  who  in  the  unvarying  plains  of  Babylonia  sighed  for  some- 
thing like  her  native  hills.  Those  gardens  rose  in  terraces  like  the 
Sakhara  pyramid,  having  a  base  four  hundred  feet  square  and  a  per- 
pendicular central  height  of  three  hundred  and  fifty  feet.  The  foun- 
dation walls  of  stone  were  of  immense  thickness;  strong  arches 
sustained  each  successive  range  of  terraces;  and  broad  and  easy 
flights  of  steps  mounted  from  one  stage  to  another.  The  floor  of 
each  terrace  was  made  strong  and  water-tight  by  first  laying  down 
flat  stones  sixteen  feet  long  and  four  feet  broad,  then  bricks  laid  in 
cement,  next  reeds  saturated  with  bitumen  and  finally  a  lining  of 
sheet  lead;  on  which  the  mould  was  deposited.  Upon  the  upper 
terrace  was  a  hydraulic  machine  for  raising  water  to  irrigate  the 
whole;  and  from  the  parapet  of  the  higher  terraces  projected  balco- 
nies and  latticed  summer  apartments  where  the  royal  pair  could 
enjoy  the  fresh  breeze  and  the  broad  prospect. 


'Job  vi.  15;  viii.  11-17;  xiv.  7-9;  xxiv.  6-11;  xxvii.  18;  xxix.  19. 
"  Num.  xxiv.  6 ;  Ps.  cxxxvii,  1,  2 ;  Jonah  iv.  5,  6. 


GARDENS   OF  SOLOMON   AT   JERUSALEM.  755 


Sect.  3.  Syrian  and  Persian  Gardens  ;  ii^lustrated  specially  at  Jeru- 
salem AND  Persepolis;  allowing  the  variety  of  features  belonging 

TO  A  rocky  hill  COUNTRY. 

Though  in  sculpture  and  architecture  the  Egyptian  had  formed 
Hebrew  taste,  in  landscape  gardening,  controlled  by  face  of  country 
and  productions,  the  association  of  these  two  nations  exerted  less  in- 
fluence. Though  in  some  respects  like  the  Egyptian  the  leading 
characteristics  of  the  Syrian  gardens  were  like  the  Persian.  Two 
distinct  classes  of  gardens  appear  at  an  early  day  in  Syria.  One 
was  limited  in  extent;  and  in  this  respect  like  the  Egyptian  and 
intramural  Assyrian  gardens.  The  other  covered  a  wide  area  of 
diversified  surface,  and  in  this  respect  corresponded  to  the  "  Paradise" 
or  park  of  the  Persian;  a  Persian  word  used  by  Xenophon  the 
classic  Greek  biographer  of  Cyrus,  to  describe  the  Persian  parks 
which  he  saw  in  his  march  through  Asia  Minor  and  Syria  to  Babylon ; 
the  name  adopted  by  the  Greek  translators  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures 
for  the  primitive  garden  abode  of  man  as  well  as  for  larger  Persian 
and  Hebrew  gardens ;  and  borrowed  also  by  Luke  the  finished  Greek 
scholar  to  designate  the  abode  of  happy  spirits  after  death.  The 
smaller  gardens,  were  in  the  neighborhood  of  towns  and  cities ;  the 
parks  were  at  some  distance  from  large  cities  in  districts  wild  and 
uncultured. 

In  the  days  of  the  kings  of  Israel,  particularly  of  Solomon,  mi- 
nute details  as  to  smaller  gardens  are  given.^  These  are  called 
"gardens"  of  "herbs,"  of  "spices,"  of  "nuts,"  of  "cucumbers," 
evidently  indicating  the  special  products  for  which  they  were  de- 
signed. The  fences,  unlike  the  mere  dykes  that  enclosed  an  Egyp- 
tian garden,  were  sometimes  walls  of  stone,  this  material  being 
abundant  and  used  to  this  day  in  terracing  and  fencing  in  the  hill 
country  of  Judea ;  and  sometimes  "  hedges,"  probably,  as  in  later 
days,  of  the  giant  cactus  which  grows  to  the  height  of  eight  or  ten 
feet,  and  also  of  prickly  thorn.  The  plants  reared  in  gardens  were 
primarily  garden  vegetables,  herbs,  cucumbers  and  other  esculents ; 
Pliny  remarking,  "  Syria  is  most  laboriously  cultured  for  gardens ; 
and  thence  the  proverb  among  the  Greeks,  '  The  many  garden  vege- 
tables of  the  Syrians.'  "     Among  herbs  were  "  mustard,"  and  other 


'  1  Kings  xxi.  2 ;  Cant.  v.  13 ;  vi.  11 ;  Isaiah  i.  8 ;  Prov.  xxiv.  31 ;  Prov. 
XV.  19 ;  Isaiah  v.  5 ;  Mic.  vii.  4 ;  Cant.  i.  14 ;  ii.  1,  3,  12,  13 ;  iii.  12-16 ;  v.  1 ; 
vi.  2,  11 ;  vii.  8 ;  viii.  5,  13. 


756  ART  CRITICISM. 

"  spicy  shrubs ;"  among  flowers  the  rose  or  narcissus,  and  the  lily  ; 
and  among  fruit  trees  the  apple,  the  fig,  the  pomegranate,  the  date- 
palm,  the  pistachio  nut,  the  grape-vine,  and  the  olive.  In  addition 
to  these  natural  products  the  smaller  gardens  were  furnished  with 
fountains,  pouring  refreshing  streams  around,  at  once  to  fertilize  and 
refresh.  Of  this  class^  were  the  gardens  in  the  narrow  valley  of 
Jehoshaphat  on  the  East  side  of  Jerusalem,  called  the  "  King's  gar- 
dens ;"  and  also  the  garden  of  Ahab  violently  taken  from  Naboth  at 
Jezreel.  At  the  later  period  of  Christ's  day,  two  gardens  of  this 
nature  are  mentioned  in  the  suburbs  of  Jerusalem.  The  garden  of 
Gethsemane,  Christ's  favorite  resort  for  prayer,  was  a  small  enclosure 
now  shaded  by  aged  olive  trees,  lying  in  the  valley  of  Jehoshaphat 
nearly  half  a  mile  higher  up  than  the  ancient  king's  garden.  The 
garden  in  which  Jesus  was  crucified  and  in  which  also  his  body  was 
laid,  an  area  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  feet  from  east  to  west  and 
two  hundred  and  fifty  from  north  to  south,  lying  in  the  depression, 
bounded  on  the  south  by  the  northern  slope  of  Mt.  Zion,  on  the  east 
by  the  western  slope  of  Millo  or  Akra,  and  on  the  north  and  west  by 
the  "  sides  of  the  Northern"  Mountains,  is  now  entirely  covered  by 
the  Church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre,  three  hundred  feet  long  and  two 
hundred  feet  wide. 

The  larger,  or  park  garden,  of  Syria  is  illustrated  by  many  allu- 
sions in  the  writings  of  Solomon  and  of  Xenophon.  In  Ecclesiastes, 
the  composition  of  his  ripe  age  Solomon  pictured  the  park-garden, 
one  of  his  "  great  works ;"  as  in  the  Song  of  his  youth  he  pictured 
the  quiet  garden  of  flowers,  spicy  shrubs  and  of  fruit.  This  ex- 
tended enclosure  of  associated  palaces  and  vineyards,  is  called  "  para- 
dise," both  in  the  Hebrew  original  and  the  Greek  translation  of  the 
Ptolemies;  a  word  originating  in  the  Sanscrit,  Persian  and  other 
Japhetic  tongues,  and  adopted  in  all  the  Shemitic  languages,  as  the 
ancient  Hebrew  and  modern  Arabic,  Syriac  and  Armenian.  In  this 
enclosure  orchards  of  fruit  trees,  nurseries  of  forest  trees,  both  for 
shade  and  for  building  purposes,  were  cultured ;  "  garden-houses"  or 
summer  palaces  were  reared;  and  streams  of  water,  supplied  irriga- 
tion, bathing  pools  and  ponds  for  fish.^  In  the  groves  of  these 
parks  seem  to  have  been  confined  the  apes  which  Solomon  received 


'  2  Kings  XXV.  4 ;  1  Kings  xxi.  2 ;  John  xviii.  1,  26 ;  John  xix.  41 ;  xx.  15 ; 
Psalm  xlviii.  2. 

"  1  Kings  iv.  23 ;  Eccles.  ii.  4-6 ;  2  Kings  ix.  27 ;  Cant.  vii.  4 ;  Isaiah  xix.  10. 


PARKS   OF   JUDEA,   SYRIA   AND   PERSIA.  757 

from  farther  India;  and  in   the  open  field  strutted  the  peacocks 
brought  from  the  same  clime. 

The  chief  park-garden  of  Solomon  was  located  in  a  valley  sur- 
rounded with  hills  full  of  springs  situated  about  seven  miles  south 
of  Jerusalem.  Three  immense  pools,  built  with  massive  walls  of 
stone  laid  in  cement  varying  from  about  four  hundred  to  six  hundred 
feet  in  length  and  from  two  hundred  to  three  hundred  feet  in  breadth, 
now  remain  as  relics  of  the  "great  works''  of  that  park-garden. 
The  water  was  brought  into  these  pools  by  digging  down  around  the 
natural  springs  and  covering  them  in  by  arched  passages  under 
ground ;  while  from  these  pools  the  water  was  conducted  in  a  mas- 
sive aqueduct  three  miles  northeast  to  Bethlehem  and  thence  six 
miles  north  to  Jerusalem.  The  abundant  springs  still  gushing  from 
the  hills  and  watering  numerous  gardens  around  the  old  site,  now 
called  Wady  Urtas,  attest  the  beauty  which  a  prince  like  Solomon 
might  give  to  such  a  locality ;  while  the  native  name,  still  preserved, 
"Mountain  of  Paradise,"  keeps  alive  the  memory  of  its  ancient 
glory.  Besides  this  park  south  of  Jerusalem  this  rich  monarch 
erected  a  palace  called  "  the  house  of  the  forest  of  Lebanon,"  near 
Baalbeck,  in  the  valley  between  the  two  ranges  of  Lebanon,  which 
belonged  to  Israel ;  while  Phoenicia  was  on  the  west  and  Syria  on  the 
east.  Thither  Solomon  seems  to  have  transplanted,  importing  it 
from  India,  the  Almug,  or  gandal  wood,  already  obtained  and 
grown  in  Lebanon  by  the  Phoenicians,  who  acted  as  Solomon's  sailors 
and  merchantmen  in  his  trade  with  India  ;^  a  rich-colored  wood,  still 
bearing  its  old  Sanscrit  name,  and  still  a  favorite  article  of  export 
trade  from  India.  From  a  similar  park  in  the  land  of  Israel,  pos- 
sessed by  the  Persian  conqueror  ninety  years  after  the  first  return 
of  the  Hebrew  people  to  rebuild  their  city  under  Ezra,  Nehemiah 
was  permitted  by  a  letter  to  the  keeper  of  the  "  paradise,"  to  cut  the 
timber  needed  in  his  work.^  In  the  days  of  Augustus  and  of  Herod 
the  Great,  Strabo  mentions  a  "  paradise,"  or  park,  of  balsam  trees  in 
the  valley  of  Jericho  about  fourteen  miles  east  of  Jerusalem. 

As  intimated,  these  park-gardens  of  Syria  seem  to  have  been 
copied  from  those  of  India  and  Persia ;  since  the  names  given  both 
to  the  park  and  to  the  exotic  trees,  birds  and  animals  brought  from 
India  to  adorn  the  park,  as  the  almug,  the  peacock  and  the  ape,  re- 
tain in  the  Hebrew  scriptures  their  Sanscrit  form.  The  only  classic 
Greek  author  who  uses  the  word  paradise  or  park  is  Xenophon ;  and 


1  Kings  vii.  10 ;  x.  11,  12;  2  Chron.  ii.  7;  ix.  10,  11.         »  Neh.  ii.  8. 
64 


758  ART   CRITICISM. 

then  chiefly  in  reference  to  those  he  saw  in  his  expedition  in  Asia 
Minor,  Speaking  in  his  Cyropsedia  of  the  fondness  for  hunting, 
of  Cyrus  when  in  boyhood  he  visited  his  grandfather,  Xenophon  de- 
scribes the  park  in  which  he  was  allowed  to  hunt ;  whose  enclosure, 
however,  seeming  to  the  daring  youth  to  make  the  sport  unmanly, 
because  secure,  he  insisted  upon  dashing  into  the  thick  forest  and 
attacking  there  the  fleet  wild  stag  and  the  fierce  wild  boar  with  his 
spear.  Again  in  his  Anabasis,  mentioning  several  parks  on  his 
march,  he  describes  one  in  Phrygia  thus :  "  Here  Cyrus  had  a 
palace  and  an  extensive  park  full  of  wild  beasts,  in  which  he  was  ac- 
customed to  hunt  whenever  he  wished  to  give  himself  and  his  horses 
exercise.  Through  the  wildest  of  this  park  the  river  Meander  runs." 
In  his  Hellenics  he  speaks  thus  of  parks  in  Asia  Minor :  "  There 
was  also  excellent  hunting  there,  both  in  the  parks  and  the  open 
country ;  while  a  river,  full  of  all  sorts  of  fish  surrounded  the  en- 
tire enclosure,  and  there  were  also  plenty  of  birds  for  those  fond  of 
fowling."  This  meeting  of  the  Greeks  and  Persians  in  the  enjoy- 
ment of  the  peculiar  Persian  garden,  the  park,  prepares  the  way  for 
the  consideration  of  the  Grecian  art. 

Sect.  4.  Ancient  Grecian  and  Eoman  Gardens;  characterized  by 
geometric  exactness  of  outline  and  elegance  of  forms  in  adorn- 
MENT. 

Gardening  as  an  art  has  so  much  to  do  with  the  real,  and  so  little 
with  the  ideal,  that  the  Greeks  seem  never  to  have  regarded  it  a  high 
art.  No  originating  genius  in  Greece  was  devoted  to  gardening  ; 
and  no  comprehensive  principles  in  this,  as  in  the  plastic  arts,  were 
developed  by  Grecian  intellect.  Most  of  their  methods  in  gardeniug 
seem  to  have  been  the  natural  suggestions  of  practical  horticulturists 
in  every  age  and  land ;  and  the  plans  of  their  gardens  and  parks  de- 
signed for  pleasure,  ministering  so  greatly  to  the  lower  senses  and  but 
indirectly  to  the  eye  and  ear,  were  borrowed  from  the  effeminate 
Orient,  whose  ruling  race  most  in  contact  with  the  Greeks  was  the 
Persian.  The  practical  Komans  made  gardening  more  of  an  art 
than  had  the  Greeks ;  and  among  them  the  characteristics  of  geo- 
metric exactness  in  outline  and  richness  of  ornamentation,  kept  alive 
-in  Southern  Europe  to  this  day,  were  fully  developed  and  fixed  in 
their  type. 

The  gardens  of  the  Hesperides  are  the  first  mentioned  in  Grecian 
legends.  These  gardens,  simply  alluded  to  by  Hesiod  and  later 
Greek  writers,  were  situated  far  west  on  the  Southern  or  African 


IDEAL   GARDENS    OP   THE   GREEK    POETS.  769 

shore  of  the  Mediterranean ;  or,  as  some  infer  from  Strabo's  men- 
tion, in  Islands  West  of  the  African  coast,  perhaps  the  Isle  of  Ma- 
deira noted  for  its  rich  and  tropical  fruits  and  magnificent  shade 
trees.  From  these  Hesperian  gardens,  watched  by  a  sleepless 
dragon,  it  was  one  of  the  labors  of  Hercules  to  bring  away  the 
golden  apples  of  the  tree  specially  guarded ;  which  Atlas,  the  bearer 
of  the  world  at  its  Western  side  beyond  the  Pillar  of  Hercules,  as- 
sisted him  in  doing.  Strabo  calls  the  Hesperides  the  islands  of  the 
blessed  ;  their  very  name  from  espera,  evening,  speaks  of  the  West- 
ern sky  glorious  with  the  setting  sun,  and  of  "  the  cool  of  the  day," 
so  delightful  even  in  Eden ;  and  all  these  legends,  the  apples,  the  for- 
bidden fruit,  the  home  of  the  blest  and  the  delight  of  the  summer 
evening,  have  seemed  to  make  this  early  picture  of  the  Grecian  imagi- 
nation at  once  the  re-echoing  of  a  traditional  voice  resounding  from 
the  earliest  times,  and  the  outspeaking  of  Grecian  taste  turned  to 
this  art. 

The  gardens  of  Alcinous,  pictured  by  Homer  in  the  wanderings 
of  Ulysses,  seem  to  be  a  real  instead  of  an  ideal  creation ;  though 
their  author  in  his  description  perhaps  wrote  as  an  Asiatic  Greek, 
picturing  what  belonged  to  the  Orient  rather  than  to  Greece  proper. 
Their  proprietor  resided  in  the  Island  of  Corfu  ;  and  the  poet's  fancy 
probably  put  together  the  beauties  that  art  had  given  to  gardens  in 
his  day  and  land.  This  garden  Homer  describes  as  in  front  of  the 
palace  of  the  prince.  It  contained  four  acres,  and  was  surrounded 
by  a  hedge.  Its  chief  charms  were  its  tall  fruit-trees ;  among  which 
the  apple,  pear,  olive,  fig,  pomegranate  and  grapes,  the  most  luscious 
fruits  of  the  temperate  regions,  are  mentioned.  The  peculiar  mild- 
ness of  the  climate,  softened  by  a  prevailing  western  breeze,  gave 
perpetual  verdure  and  fruitage  ;  the  trees  and  vines  being  covered  at 
the  same  time  with  buds  and  flowers,  unripe  and  mature  fruit.  The 
plants  were  arranged  in  beds  or  parterres ;  among  which  jetted  two 
fountains,  one  watering  the  garden,  the  other  the  palace.  Other 
kindred  spots  of  beauty,  pictured  by  the  early  Grecian  and  later  Ro- 
man poets  as  belonging  to  that  age,  such  for  instance  as  Calypso's 
fairy  grotto,  present  an  ideal  that  was  suggested  to  Greek  minds. 

When  however  we  pass  the  age  of  poetry  and  come  to  the  days  of 
the  perfection  of  Grecian  art  and  philosophy  gardening  seems  not  to 
have  taken  rank  as  a  sister  in  the  train  of  the  Muses ;  the  only  ap- 
parent exception  being  the  grove  of  Academus.  At  an  early  era  in 
the  history  of  Athens  a  public  spirited  citizen  of  this  name,  as  Pausa- 
nias  mentions,  gave  a  lot  of  ground,  about  three-fourths  of  a  mile 


760  ART  CRITICISM. 

from  the  city,  to  the  citizens  for  a  gymnasium.  The  gymnasium  of 
Greece  as  we  know  from  Vitruvius  was  an  extended  enclosed  campus 
with  porticoes,  and  groves  distributed  through  the  area.  Hippar- 
chus,  as  Suidas  states,  tyrant  of  Athens  about  B.  C.  520,  surrounded 
the  grounds  thus  given  with  a  wall.  Cimon  the  popular  general  and 
civil  leader  before  Pericles,  besides  opening  his  own  gardens  to  the 
public,  greatly  improved  the  garden  of  Academus ;  Plutarch  stat- 
ing of  him,  "  He  too  first  adorned  the  city  with  those  elegant  and 
noble  places  for  exercise  and  disputation  which  a  little  after  came  to  be 
so  much  admired.  He  planted  the  forum  with  plane  trees ;  and  whereas 
the  Academy  was  before  a  dry  and  unsightly  plat  he  brought  water 
to  it  and  sheltered  it  with  groves,  so  that  it  abounded  with  neat  ave- 
nues and  shady  walks."  Diogenes  Laertius  in  his  life  of  Plato,  states 
that  a  small  enclosure  within  the  bounds  of  the  Academy  was  de- 
voted exclusively  to  his  School. 

The  apparent  fact  as  to  the  Grecian  taste  for  gardening  seems  to 
be,  that,  while  the  art  was  to  a  good  degree  appreciated,  it  was  not  es- 
teemed a  high  art,  and  never  studied  or  practiced  as  such.  No  Phi- 
dias or  Apelles  in  this  art  ever  appeared ;  and  neither  in  the  dreams 
of  Plato's  Republic,  nor  in  the  sober  reasonings  of  his  Laws,  though 
he  urges  that  for  music  and  sculpture  and  architecture  Government 
should  make  special  provision,  has  the  sage  any  suggestion  as  to 
gardens  for  public  or  private  resort ;  the  groves  of  Academus  hav- 
ing for  him  no  charm  except  their  shade  and  seclusion.  The  gar- 
dens of  Athens  along  the  Ilissus  and  about  suburban  retreats,  so  far 
as  we  can  gather  from  slight  allusions  of  the  Classic  authors,  were 
but  plain  mathematically  squared  court  yards.  The  park  that 
Xenophon  pictures  in  the  conclusion  of  his  Anabasis  as  constructed 
by  himself  in  Elis  on  the  West  coast  of  Greece  is  manifestly  copied 
from  the  notions  he  had  gathered  among  the  Persians ;  the  description 
of  the  two  streams  flowing  through  it,  of  the  fresh  fish  in  the  lake 
and  shell-fish  on  the  sea-shore,  of  the  hunting  grounds  for  the  boar, 
the  antelope  and  the  deer,  and  above  all  the  mention  that  the  beau- 
tiful little  temple  in  it  with  its  statue  of  cypress  instead  of  gold,  was 
after  the  model  of  that  at  Ephesus,  shows  that  the  model  of  this 
Grecian  garden  was  from  Asia.  The  mention  however  of  the  grove 
of  fruit-trees  around  the  temple,  and  of  parts  of  the  grounds  devoted 
to  horses,  oxen,  goats  and  swine,  indicates  that  utility  was  not  for- 
gotten in  the  effort  after  beauty.  The  casual  mention  by  the  his- 
torian of  Alexander,  that  Dinocrates,  the  architect  of  the  temple  of 
Diana  at  Ephesus  and  of  Alexander's  Egyptian  city,  proposed  to 


ROMAN   VEGETABLE   GARDENS   AND   VILLAS.  761 

carve  Mount  Atlios  into  a  bust  of  the  monarch,  making  one  hand  to 
rest  on  a  lower  peak  and  in  its  hollow  a  lake,  while  the  other  stretched 
to  an  opposite  peak  and  held  a  city  upon  its  palm,  is  one  of  the 
grandest  conceptions  of  art  as  applied  to  the  face  of  nature ;  though 
belonging  to  the  degenerate  day  when  mere  massiveness  began  to 
take  the  place  of  elaborate  finish. 

The  Romans  made  gardening  to  take  a  higher  place  than  the 
Greeks ;  a  fact  sufiiciently  manifest  from  the  devotion  of  time  given 
by  Cicero  and  other  philosophic  men  of  his  age  to  their  suburban 
villas ;  it  is  illustrated  in  the  many  suggestions  as  to  its  principles 
introduced  by  the  philosophic  Vitruvius  into  his  "  Civil  Architec- 
ture ;"  and  it  is  confirmed  above  all  by  the  eminent  popularity  of 
tlie  Georgics  and  Bucolics  of  Virgil,  whose  dry  detail  at  our  day  would 
fail  to  awaken  an  interest  kindred  to  that  called  forth  among  the 
Romans  of  the  Augustan  day.  The  fullest  exhibition  of  the  classes 
of  plants  familiar  to  the  Romans  is  found  in  the  ten  books  of  the  Natu- 
ral History  of  Pliny  the  Elder,  devoted  to  this  topic ;  while  the  life- 
like picture  which  the  younger  Pliny  has  given  in  his  letters  of  two 
of  his  own  villas,  aflTords  a  complete  idea  of  the  methods  of  orna- 
menting grounds  employed  in  his  time. 

The  Roman  writers  describe  two  kinds  of  villas;  the  "villa  rus- 
tica"  or  country  and  the  "villa  urbana,"  or  suburban  villa.  The 
former  was  surrounded  by  a  farm ;  the  latter  was  only  a  garden  and 
grounds  laid  out  for  pleasure,  not  profit.  The  farm  villa  had  two 
large  courts,  or  shaded  yards;  one  for  servants  and  laborers' quarters, 
store-houses  and  other  out-buildings;  the  other  for  the  stables  of 
horses  and  cattle.  The  private  residence  had  its  own  enclosure  cor- 
responding to  the  "villa  urbana."  Two  of  these  latter,  belonging 
to  himself,  Pliny  the  younger  describes  at  length;  one  called  his 
"Laurentine"  being  his  winter,  the  other  called  his  "Tuscan"  serv- 
ing as  his  summer  residence. 

His  Laurentine  villa,  Pliny  states,  is  seventeen  miles  from  Rome 
on  the  sea-coast;  so  near,  he  says,  "that  having  finished  my  profes- 
sional duties  I  can  pass  my  evenings  here  without  interfering  with 
the  business  of  the  day."  The  road  was  sandy  and  heavy  for  a 
carriage,  "but  easy  and  pleasant  to  those  riding  on  horse-back."  The 
pleasant  features  of  the  drive  thither  were  the  diversified  landscape, 
wood  and  open  grounds,  and  especially  meadows  covered  with  cattle 
brought  down  from  the  Appenines  during  the  snows  of  winter  to 
pastures  kept  green  near  the  sea.  The  house  itself  was  close  built 
for  winter  and  sufficiently  large.     It  was  entered  through  a  semicir- 

64  *  4  V 


762  '  AKT   CRITICISM. 

cular  projecting  porch ;  back  of  which  was  a  portico,  whose  sides  were 
enclosed  by  windows  for  winter  protection  and  sheltered  by  a  project- 
ing roof;  and  back  of  this  was  the  atrium,  or  central  hall,  radiating 
from  which  were  rooms  including  a  gallery  of  curiosities,  banquet 
halls  and  the  kitchen  in  the  rear.  One  of  the  rooms  looked  out  on 
the  sea,  another  on  a  terrace  covered  with  violets,  and  the  principal 
hall  on  the  garden  and  gestatio,  or  play-ground.  The  garden  was  in 
the  centre  of  the  gestatio,  separated  from  it  by  rows  of  grape-vines; 
and  its  chief  fruit-trees  were  the  fig  and  mulberry,  to  which  alone 
the  soil  was  favorable.  The  surrounding  gestatio,  a  border  of  grass 
land  on  three  sides  of  the  garden,  with  paths  and  open  space  for  gen- 
eral exercise,  was  without  shade-trees  to  admit  the  winter  sun;  and 
was  enclosed  by  a  hedge  of  box,  injured  in  some  cases  by  the  salt 
spray,  and  its  intervals  filled  in  with  rosemary.  The  great  want  of 
the  villa  was  a  running  stream;  but  water  was  obtained  in  wells 
easily  dug,  the  water  rising  near  to  the  surface  and  perfectly  sweet 
though  close  by  the  sea.  Pliny  dwells  on  the  grand  sea-view  during 
a  winter  storm  as  its  chief  charm. 

Pliny's  summer  villa,  north  of  the  Tiber  "in  Tuscany"  is  described 
with  yet  more  minuteness  and  enthusiasm.  It  was  under  the  Appe- 
nines,  in  an  amphitheatre  of  hills ;  the  approach  from  Rome  being  a 
gradual  prolonged  rise.  The  soil  was  stiff*,  streams  of  water  abounded, 
but  there  were  no  marsh-lands.  The  air  was  pure,  cooled  by  breezes 
from  the  Appenines.  The  winter  was  somewhat  severe,  too  cold  for 
the  myrtle  and  the  olive;  though  the  bay-tree,  often  killed  by  frost  in 
the  latitude  of  Kome,  flourished  in  perfection.  The  mansion  fronted 
south  with  a  wide  portico  "after  the  ancient  mode;"  before  it  was 
the  xystus,  or  court-yard,  the  gestatio  for  general  exercise,  the  amhu- 
latio  or  promenade,  and  the  hippodrome  or  circus  for  riding,  and  be- 
hind the  kitchen-garden,  etc. 

The  mansion  had  a  rich  dining-room  with  a  portico  in  front  over- 
looking the  hippodrome ;  before  which  was  a  spring-house  shaded  by 
four  plane-trees,  having  in  its  centre  a  fountain  emptying  into  a 
marble  bason.  Over  this  fountain  was  a  bed-chamber,  whose  sides 
were  sealed  with  marble  to  half  their  height;  above  which  the  ceil- 
ing was. frescoed  with  rural  scenes,  "the  birds  among  the  branches 
producing  an  effect  quite  as  agreeable  as  carving."  From  a  side- 
chamber  a  cascade  was  in  view,  falling  from  a  rocky  height;  a 
feature  " pleasing  to  both  the  eye  and  the  ear;"  and  adjoining  was 
the  bath-room  having  three  basons  one  of  hot,  another  of  cold,  and 
a  third  of  tepid  water;  the  latter  heated  by  the  sun.     Another  side- 


VILLAS   OF   PLINY   AND   HORTICULTUEE   OF   VIRGIL.        763 

chamber  looked  out  on  the  vineyard,  having  the  hippodrome  also  in 
view.  In  the  rear  of  the  mansion,  in  a  warm  exposure,  was  the 
kitchen;  adjoining  which  was  the  vegetable  garden;  and  on  the 
north  side,  remote  from  the  sun,  was  an  open  portico,  under  whose 
floor  was  an  enclosed  low  and  cool  grotto  for  resort  in  extreme  heat. 
In  front,  the  court-yard  was  enclosed  by  a  hedge  of  box,  cut  into 
the  shapes  of  various  animals ;  within  which  athletic  exercises  re- 
quiring little  space  were  practiced ;  and  around  it  was  a  promenade 
enclosed  by  a  border  of  clipped  evergreen.  Beyond  this  were  the 
gestatio  and  hippodrome ;  the  w^hole  of  whose  area  was  enclosed  by  a 
bank  wall  with  a  box-hedge  rising  in  stages.  The  hippodrome  had 
three  rectilinear  sides  bordered  by  plane-trees  covered  with  ivy;  be- 
tween which  were  clumps  of  box,  and  back  of  these  bay-trees;  "the 
plane-trees  blending  their  shade  with  the  bays."  The  fourth  side, 
farthest  from  the  mansion,  was  semicircular,  bordered  by  tall  dark 
cypress,  which,  he  says,  "vary  the  prospect  and  cast  a  deeper  gloom." 
The  inner  walks  around  the  circle  of  the  race  course  were  bordered  by 
low  rose-bushes ;  which,  says  Pliny,  "correct  by  a  delightful  contrast 
the  coolness  of  the  shade  with  the  warmth  of  the  sun."  Beyond  the 
hippodrome's  bank-walls  was  a  series  of  fields  and  meadows,  which 
he  writes,  "owe  as  many  beauties  to  nature  as  that  within  the  wall  to 
art."  A  broad  avenue  bordered  by  box,  cut  in  fantastic  forms, 
among  others  into  the  letters  forming  the  name  of  the  proprietor,  led 
by  lateral  paths  to  several  fields.  The  first  field  was  dotted  with 
fruit-trees  interspersed  with  obelisks  and  statuary.  Passing  to  the 
next,  "suddenly  in  the  midst  of  this  elegant  regularity  you  are  sur- 
prised with  an  imitation  of  the  negligent  beauty  of  rural  nature  in- 
the  contrast  presented  by  a  knot  of  dwarf  plane-trees."  A  pathway 
here,  bordered  by  trees  cut  in  fantastic  shapes  and  festooned  with  the 
soft  twining  acanthus,  led  to  an  alcove  of  white  marble,  supported  by 
four  slender  columns,  shaded  with  vines,  furnished  with  a  seat,  beneath 
which  a  fountain  gushed  up,  with  a  bason  in  front  having  a  broad 
brim  and  filled  from  the  fountain ;  where  Pliny  says  he  often  took  a 
noonday  repast,  making  the  bason-rim  his  table,  having  his  dishes  in 
the  shape  of  ships  and  water-fowl  floating  on  the  water  which  cooled 
their  contents.  Fronting  this  alcove  was  a  summer  retreat  of  exquisitely 
carved  marble,  furnished  with  seats  and  jetting  fountains  with  rills 
running  round,  having  doors  opening  on  one  side  into  a  green  arbor- 
escent enclosure,  and  on  another  side  into  a  small  sleeping-room  dark 
with  overhanging  vines.  Pliny  closes  thus:  "I  have  given  this 
minute  description  to  show,  why  I  prefer  my  Tuscan  villa  to  those 


764  ART  CRITICISM. 

which  I  own  at  Tusculum,  Tibur  and  Prseneste;"  these  three  other 
villas  of  his  at  modern  Frascati,  Tivoli  and  Palestrina,  showing  the 
excess  to  which  landscape  gardening  was  carried  by  the  Romans. 

Virgil  in  his  Georgics  and  Bucolics  adds  much  to  our  knowledge 
of  Roman  horticulture.  Among  shade  trees  he  mentions  the  branch- 
ing elm,  oak,  walnut,  chestnut,  willow,  ash,  beech,  poplar,  and  plane 
trees;  the  evergreen  fir,  pine,  myrtle,  yew,  cypress  and  juniper;  the 
flowering  laurel  or  bay,  the  arbute  and  the  almond ;  and  the  dwarf 
tamarisk,  alder,  broom  and  osier.  Of  fruit  trees  he  names  the  apple, 
pear,  quince,  cherry,  cornel  and  plum  belonging  to  a  cool,  and 
the  olive  and  palm  to  a  warm  climate;  also  the  grape  and 
strawberry  flourishing  in  both  temperatures.  As  creeping  vines  he 
notices  the  acanthus,  ivy,  ladysglove,  and  Egyptian  bean;  among 
flowers  the  rose,  narcissus,  poppy,  hyacinth,  marigold,  daflbdil,  and 
violet;  of  spicy  shrubs,  the  spikenard,  lavender,  dill  and  thyme; 
among  garden  vegetables  the  bean,  vetches,  millet,  and.  Egyptian 
lentile;  while  even  furze  and  sea-weed  are  not  unnoticed.  The  fences 
commended  are  "hedges  of  box,  lowly  broom,  or  flowering  willow;" 
whose  branches  are  to  be  so  intertwined  that  the  withering  frosts  and 
browsing  herds  may  not  thin  them  too  much.  Location  requires 
choice  among  the  many  species  of  the  elm,  willow,  apple,  olive, 
berries  and  grapes,  the  varieties  of  which  latter  Virgil  poetically  de- 
clares to  be  "  numerous  as  are  the  sands  on  the  Libyan  sea-shore 
tossed  by  the  Zephyr ;  or  as  the  waves  of  the  Ionian  sea  breaking  on 
the  shore  when  the  southeast  gale  with  most  terrific  sweep  dashes  the 
ships."  .  As  garden  accessories  Virgil  alludes  to  statuary,  and  to  water 
fowl  as  the  crane,  goose  and  swan;  and  to  fountains,  groves  and 
grottoes.  Order  and  skill  in  grouping  plants,  like,  he  says,  to  the 
wise  massing  of  the  parts  of  an  army,  is  required  "  not  only  that  the 
prospect  may  give  delight  to  the  mind,  but  also  that  the  earth  may 
supply  proportionate  strength  to  all."  Climate  demands  trees  and 
shrubs  adapted ;  for  though  "  the  dark  ebony  of  India,  the  sweet  gum 
of  Sabsea,  the  wool-bearing  shrub,"  or  cotton,  "  of  Ethiopia,  and  the 
apple  of  Media,"  are  garden  treasures,  yet  none  of  these  "  can  match 
the  glories  of  Italy."  Soil  must  be  studied;  for  naturally  "willows 
grow  by  rivers,  elders  in  marshes,  and  the  wild  ash  on  rocky  moun- 
tains; the  sea-shore  rejoices  in  myrtle  groves,  and  the  vine  loves  open 
hills,  and  the  yew  the  north  wind  and  the  cold ;  lean  clay  and  gravel 
fields  woo  the  long-lived  olive,  the  wash  of  the  mountain  rocks  feeds 
vines  abounding  in  wine,  while  loose  crumbling  mould  nourishes  best 
the  corn."     Exposure  must  be  regarded  ;  for  "  vineyards  should  lie 


REMAINS   OF   ROMAN   VILLA   GARDENS.  765 

towards  the  settiug  sun."  ^Esthetic  and  moral  principles,  too,  have 
influence ;  for,  "  the  ash  is  fairest  in  the  forest,  the  pine  in  gardens, 
the  poplar  by  rivers,  and  the  fir  on  lofty  mountains ;"  while  "  the 
poplar  is  most  grateful  to  Hercules,  the  vine  to  Bacchus,  to  lovely 
Venus  the  myrtle,  to  Apollo  his  own  laurel,  while  Phyllis  loves 
even  the  hazels."  With  the  spirit  of  true  art  the  poet  urges  that 
whatever  be  undertaken  in  gardening  be  perfected  ;  contempt  being 
heaped  on  "  the  keeper  of  a  poor  ill-furnished  garden ;"  while  the 
maxim  is  commended,  "  Admire  a  large  farm ;  cultivate  a  small 
one." 

Vitruvius,  the  architect,  treats  of  grounds  and  gardening  as 
subordinate  to  buildings.  Healthfulness  in  location  should  first  be 
sought :  due  light  and  heat  for  both  man  and  beast,  the  chief  requi- 
site demanding  a  north  front  in  a  warm  and  a  south  front  in  a  cold 
site ;  that  the  kitchen  and  stable  be  always  in  a  warm  situation ;  that 
to  granaries  and  store-houses  the  air  have  free  admission;  and  that 
in  tenements  ample  arrangements  for  light  and  air,  always  easy  to 
attain  in  the  country  though  not  in  the  city,  should  be  made.  The 
importance  of  this  is  urged  by  the  eflTect  of  climate  and  sunlight  on 
the  character  of  nations ;  the  "  Ruler  of  the  Universe"  having  es- 
tablished "  a  harmonious  progression"  in  physical  and  intellectual 
development  among  men,  of  which  the  depth  and  strength  of  the 
voice  is  ordinarily  an  index  ;  the  Romans  being  placed  "  in  the  region 
mediate  between  extremes,"  and  thus  having  both  the  "  strength  of 
body  and  mind"  which  makes  them  naturally  fitted  "for  the 
sovereignty  of  the  world." 

The  remains  of  ancient  villas,  now  visited  near  Rome  and  Naples, 
illustrate,  also,  their  structure.  The  villa  of  Cicero  at  Tusculum 
seems  to  have  been  afterwards  occupied  by  that  of  Tiberius ;  and  his 
sea-side  retreat  is  covered  now  by  a  modern  tower.  Even  the  site  of 
the  famed  villa  of  Mecsenas  at  Tivoli,  immortalized  by  Horace,  is 
lost  to  tradition ;  of  Pompey's  at  Albano  some  masonry  in  more 
modern  structures  are  relics ;  while  that  of  Cassius  has  furnished 
from  its  extensive  ruins  most  valuable  contributions  to  later  collec- 
tions of  statuary.  Of  the  Roman  villas  of  the  Emperors  some 
ruins  of  Domitian's  are  traceable,  mingled  among  modern  dwellings  ; 
but  grandest  of  all  these  relics  is  the  villa  of  Hadrian  at  old  Tibur. 
This  vast  work  covered  an  area  of  eight  or  ten  miles  in  circuit,  lying 
between  two  streams ;  it  comprised  in  its  grounds  fac-similes  of  the 
ancient  Grecian  Vale  of  Tempe,  the  Elysian  Fields,  Tartarus  and 
the  river  Euripus ;  and  among  its  buildings  copies  of  the  Serapion 

V^  Of 

^  ?  w n» la  er  w  tf  ir 


766  ART   CRITICISM. 

of  Alexandria,  of  the  Poicile  of  Athens,  of  Plato's  Academy  and  of 
Aristotle's  Lyceum,  besides  temples,  palaces,  theatres,  amphitheatres 
and  hippodromes ;  designed  to  be  a  complete  reconstruction  of  all 
past  art  in  gardening  and  architecture.  Finally  the  environs  of 
Naples  from  Baise  to  Pompeii,  mountain-sides,  plains  and  sea-shore, 
are  heaped  with  villa  remains  of  Roman  patricians  and  emperors. 
The  town  villa  of  Diomed  at  Pompeii,  and  the  country  villas  of 
Hortensius  by  the  sea-side  at  Baise,  are  sufficiently  preserved  to 
make  the  ancient  past  live  in  their  ruins ;  while  the  actual  recon- 
struction in  later  times  of  the  villas  about  Rome  and  Naples  links 
them  to  the  gardens  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

Sect.  5.  Gardens  of  the  Middle  Ages;  Christian  and  Muhammedan; 
Roman  in  arrangement,  and  Asiatic  in  adornment. 

Varied  influences,  originating  in  civil,  ecclesiastical  and  social 
connections  with  Rome  tended  to  give  shape  to  thought  and  life  in 
the  Middle  Ages ;  thus  controlling  art.  The  Roman  civil  dominion 
pervading  the  world  six  centuries  after  Christ,  and  the  subsequent 
ecclesiastical  domination  both  in  the  east  and  the  west,  Roman 
in  its  character,  influenced  the  form  of  gardening,  as  of  other  arts. 
Thus  Charlemagne  in  the  eighth  century  established  gardens  for  im- 
provement in  horticulture,  prescribing  by  a  royal  edict  the  plants 
that  should  be  reared  in  them ;  while  in  later  times  cardinals  who 
had  gathered  large  wealth  lavished  their  treasures  in  the  planting 
and  adorning  of  gardens  around  Rome,  arranged  after  the  ancient 
model,  the  Cardinal  Alphonso  d'  Este  in  the  sixteenth  century 
being  a  leader  in  this  improvement.  At  the  same  time  the  gorgeous 
ceremonials  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  reverence  for  the  Oriental 
shrines  of  the  Christian  faith  in  the  Holy  Land  retained  in  the 
Western  as  well  as  Eastern  Church,  led  to  Asiatic  richness  of 
adornment  in  all  the  arts.  In  the  Northern  spread  of  Christianity, 
the  life  of  feudal  lords  in  strong-walled  castles  and  of  learned  monks 
in  close-built  convents  made  the  common  castle  and  convent  gardens 
perfect  counterparts  of  the  old  Roman  court-yards  in  city  resi- 
dences. 

The  Castle  Garden  had  as  its  enclosing  bounds  the  walls  of  the 
fortress.  Without  this  bound  there  was  usually  a  moat,  a  few  feet 
distant  from  the  Castle  walls ;  whose  banks  were  carpeted  with 
a  nicely  kept  grass-sward,  decorated  with  flowering  plants  and 
shrubs,  and  sometimes  overhung  both  for  health  and  pleasure  witli 
the  willow  and  other  shade  trees.     The  interior  enclosure  of  the  Cas- 


MEDIEVAL   CONVENT,    AND   MODERN   CHINESE   GARDENS.     767 

tie  yard  was  laid  off  in  small  parterres  and  flower-beds ;  from  which 
nosegays  for  gala  occasions  were  furnished.  The  ruined  palace  of 
the  Caesars  on  the  Palatine  Hill  at  Kome  over  which  still  are  heaped 
as  Byron  says, 

"  Cypress  and  ivy,  wood  and  wall-flowers  grown. 
Matted  and  massed  together," 

keeps  alive  as  a  sad  relic  the  green  around  the  old  Roman's  city 
mansion ;  while  the  Farnese  gardens  close  by  this  ruin,  are,  in  com- 
parison a  striking  example  of  Medieval  taste  repeating  the  Roman 
style.  In  striking  unison,  too,  many  of  the  old  Castles  in  England  yet 
suggest  in  their  ruins  the  structure  of  the  gardens  which  once  graced 
their  interior  and  encircled  their  exterior. 

The  Convent  gardens,  still  repeated  in  every  portion  of  Christian 
Europe,  Asia  and  Africa,  are,  even  more  than  the  Castle  gardens,  an 
embodiment  of  the  Medieval  Spirit  in  this  art.  The  celebrated 
White  Monastery  of  Coptic  or  ancient  Egyptian  monks,  below  Gir- 
geh  in  Egypt,  has  now  its  few  acres  on  the  edge  of  the  Desert  sur- 
rounding the  Convent  cultured  as  a  rich  garden ;  while  the  neigh- 
boring Latin  or  Roman  Convent  in  its  palmy  days  supplied  esculents 
and  fruit  not  only  for  its  two  hundred  resident  monks,  but  for  number- 
less travelers  visiting  it.  The  garden  of  the  Greek  Convent  at  Mount 
Sinai,  an  "oasis  in  the  desert,"  is  built  in  terraces  on  the  Western 
slope  of  the  Sacred  Mount,  well  watered  from  the  mountain  springs, 
and  thickly  strewn  with  fruit-trees,  as  the  apple,  pear,  apricot,  quince, 
fig,  mulberry,  pomegranate,  the  olive  and  also  the  grape ;  at  its  foot 
vegetable  beds,  flower  borders  and  spicy  shrubs  mingle  their  odors 
and  flavors ;  while  the  tall  blank  outer  wall  is  relieved  by  towering 
cypresses,  and  creeping  ivy.  In  Greece  the  numerous  convent  gar- 
dens on  the  mountain-sides,  still  fragrant  with  ancient  memories, 
with  their  cool  grottoes  and  arbors,  with  their  fruit-trees  and  vines, 
and  their  fragrant  flowers,  are  sweet  retreats  ministering  to  the  de- 
lights of  sense  and  sensibility.  In  Italy,  France,  England,  and  even 
America,  the  modern  Convent  garden  is  everywhere  found  to  be 
modeled  after  the  ancient  type,  and  to  furnish  an  illustration  of  gar- 
dening in  the  Middle  Ages. 

Sect.  6.    Modern  Chinese  Gardens  ;  Characterized  by  fondness  for 
the  diminutive  in  dimensions  and  the  grotesque  in  forms. 

Lord  Karnes  speaks  of  gardens  as  "being  in  China  brought  to 
greater  perfection  than  in  any  known  country."     Regarding  garden- 


768  ART  CRITICISM. 

ing  as  a  useful  art  this  remark  is  important ;  for,  as  no  nation  has  so 
dense  a  population  as  China,  compelling  extreme  improvement  of 
every  foot  of  arable  land,  so  in  productiveness,  no  gardens  surpass 
the  Chinese.  Regarding  again,  the  amount  of  genius  devoted  to 
this  their  study  and  effort  to  render  gardens  attractive  as  well  as 
productive,  Lord  Kames'  statement  is  of  value.  A  careful  ana- 
lysis however,  of  the  elements  of  this  art  as  practiced  among  the 
Chinese,  Avill  give  it  the  same  rank  as  their  architecture,  sculpture 
and  painting,  in  the  Asiatic  stage  of  advance. 

Many  of  the  features  of  a  Chinese  garden  are  dependent  on  their 
use  of  horticulture  as  a  means  of  livelihood.  All  the  lands  from 
necessity  are  divided  up  into  small  fields  and  each  man  cultivates 
his  own  with  such  crops  as  he  prefers.  The  smallness  of  those  indi- 
vidual fields  forbids  the  introduction  of  either  fences  or  hedges ;  for 
which  there  is  really  no  room  in  China,  since  each  little  farmer  is 
truly  a  gardener,  his  patches  of  rice  and  wheat,  as  well  as  of  beans 
and  beets  being  worked  with  the  spade ;  while  the  hundreds  of  such 
patches  devoted  to  individual  culture,  lying  side  by  side  and  unsepa- 
rated  by  fences,  make  the  suburbs  of  towns  one  continuous  garden. 
Every  corner  that  can  be  made  to  take  a  fertilizer  and  give  root  to 
any  species  of  plant  is  appropriated  and  forced  to  its  utmost  strength 
of  production ;  and  thus  gardening  is  pre-eminently  with  the  China- 
man a  useful  art.  Where  wealth  permits  garden  ornamentation  the 
Chinese  show  skill  in  mere  imitation,  with  a  taste  for  the  lower  effects 
of  novelty  and  grotesqueness  instead  of  grandeur  and  beauty.  With 
rare  limitation  the  beds  and  banks  of  artificial  lakes  and  rills  are  made 
perfect  counterparts  of  nature ;  having  gravelly  or  sandy  bottoms,  ser- 
pentine and  quiet  flow,  or  dashing  falls  over  precipices  and  a  bub- 
bling rush  from  cavern-mouths.  Every  rock  and  even  stump  is 
taken  advantage  of  to  form  a  contrast  to  the  surrounding  verdure; 
islands  in  artificial  lakes  are  completely  rocky  and  barren,  or  clothed 
with  an  exuberance  of  verdure  and  flowery  shrubs.  Trees  are  skil- 
fully combined  according  to  shapes  and  depth  of  green ;  and  some- 
times the  effect  of  perspective  vista  views  is  attempted.  The  chief 
effort  is  at  sudden  transition,  a  striving  for  novelty,  and  a  heaping 
of  g];otesque  and  pigmy  forms  in  architecture  and  sculpture,  such  as 
miniature  mills  in  the  streams  and  boats  on  the  lakes,  wooden  quad- 
rupeds, clay  reptiles  and  canvas  birds;  which  seem  collections  of 
child's  toys  rather  than  the  dignified  ornaments  of  a  manly  work.  It 
is  this  universal  feature  which  forms  the  type  of  Chinese  Landscape 
Gardening. 


AND  THE  MUHAMMEDAN   PARADISE.     769 


Sect.  7.  Modern  Turkish  Gardens  ;  distinguished  by  luxuriance  in 

NATURAL  adornment  AND  VOLUPTUOUSNESS  IN  ARTIFICIAL  ACCESSORIES. 

The  Turks,  though  of  a  hardy  original  stock,  are  a  people  given 
to  sensual  rather  than  intellectual  delights.  In  all  that  relates  to 
the  fine  arts,  as  gardening,  specially  revealing  this  characteristic, 
luxury  rather  than  sentiment  is  the  controlling  aim.  No  one  can 
visit  a  Turkish  garden  without  being  impressed  with  the  palpable 
evidence  that  an  elevated  appeal  to  the  eye  is  but  secondary,  and 
that  even  the  natural  features  as  plants,  trees  and  waters,  and  much 
more  the  artificial  accompaniments,  are  directly  designed  to  minister 
to  corporeal  pleasures. 

From  the  banks  of  the  Nile  quite  round  to  the  shores  of  the  Bos- 
phorus  the  richest  Turkish  gardens  are  located  where  the  aid  of 
flowing  waters  can  be  secured  to  give  coolness  to  the  atmosphere  and 
to  stimulate  the  grow^th  of  trees  with  dense  foliage  affording  a  thick 
shade.  The  flat  river  bottom  where  the  palace  of  Shoobra,  the  favor- 
ite residence  of  the  pasha  of  Egypt,  is  located  is  perfectly  hidden 
amid  spreading  acacia  and  willow;  the  rankness  of  whose  growth  is 
promoted  by  the  waters  of  the  Nile,  diverted  into  canals  and  forced 
into  jets  whose  sparkling  curves  form  a  central  feature  in  the  garden. 
The  clustered  palaces  of  the  pashas  of  all  the  Turkish  provinces 
lining  the  shores  of  the  Bosphorus,  are  made  to  crown  points  on  the 
highlands  where  the  cool  breezes  best  reach  them,  and  where  moun- 
tain rills  bathe  the  feet  of  the  0113"  and  cool  the  soil. 

The  voluptuous  character  of  the  oriental  garden  is  set  forth  in 
allusions  and  descriptions  of  Muhammed  in  the  Koran ;  the  sacred 
authority  in  art  and  general  philosophy  as  well  as  in  morals  and  re- 
ligion among  the  nations  who  have  embraced  its  faith.  "  This  is  the 
description  of  Paradise,  which  is  prepared  for  the  pious;  it  is  watered 
by  rivers,  its  fruit  is  perpetual,  and  its  shade  ever  green."  In  the 
later  and  fuller  visions  it  is  pictured  as  flowing  with  "rivers  of  incor- 
ruptible waters,"  "rivers  of  milk  whose  taste  changes  not,"  "rivers 
of  wine  pleasant  to  him  that  drinks,"  rivers  of  clarified  honey,"  and 
"abundant  fruit  of  every  kind."  There  are  "pavilions"  with  "couches 
adorned  with  gold  and  precious  stones"  curtained  with  "fine  silk  in- 
terwoven with  gold,"  trees  overshadowing  of  "dark  green"  and  "ex- 
tended shade,"  the  "date-tree  free  from  thorns"  and  the  "mauz  loaded- 
with  fruit  from  top  to  bottom,"  "palm-trees  and  pomegranates"  and 
other  fruits  "hanging  low  and  near  at  hand;"  "fountains  pouring 
forth  plenty  of  water;"  and  attended  by  "damsels  having  complex- 
es 4  w 


770  ART  CRITICISM. 

ions  like  rubies  and  pearls,  and  large  black  eyes  like  pearls  hidden 
in  their  shells,  reposing  on  cushions  of  green  and  flowery  carpets." 
Every  feature  pictured,  and  every  expression  in  each  picture,  given 
as  a  type  of  the  perfect  garden  by  the  sacred  authority  is  purely  of 
sensual  aspect. 

The  true  idea  of  a  Turkish  public  garden  is  perhaps  best  seen  in 
those  two  shaded  resorts  a  little  above  Constantinople ;  the  one  on 
the  west  of  the  Bosphorus  called  the  "  Valley  of  the  Sweet  Waters 
of  Europe"  and  the  other  the  "Valley  of  the  Sweet  Waters  of  Asia;" 
almost  as  hallowed  in  the  lays  of  the  Irish  Moore  as  in  those  of  Ara- 
bian and  Persian  minstrels.  Watered  by  streams  from  the  mountains 
the  grounds  are  chiefly  devoted  to  plain  green  sward,  shaded  by  large 
trees,  beneath  which  on  nature's  carpet  groups  of  men  and  women 
can  sit  or  recline  with  unrestrained  ease.  Numerous  kiosks,  or  orna- 
mented summer-houses,  stand  on  terraced  hillocks  or  by  the  side  of 
and  projecting  over  rills  from  the  main  stream.  The  walks  are  few 
and  irregular  in  their  contour.  The  streams  that  come  down  through 
the  valleys  are  left  for  the  most  part  as  nature  has  made  them ;  the 
banks  being  simply  cleared  of  undergrowth  and  the  green  sward 
trimmed  so  as  to  be  thickened.  At  some  points  the  stream,  is  made 
to  flow  over  marble  beds,  to  fill  marble  basons,  and  to  jet  from  marble 
fountains.  The  trees  most  common  on  the  open  lawns  are  the  beech, 
the  plane,  the  sycamore  and  willow. 

Occasionally,  and  especially  within  the  last  century,  a  more  artifi- 
cial and  European  taste  has  displayed  itself  in  newly  planted  gar- 
dens. In  the  early  part  of  the  eighteenth  century  Sultan  Achmet 
III.  employed  a  French  gardener  to  adorn  a  portion  of  the  Valley  of 
the  Sweet  AYaters  of  Europe ;  who  transferred  some  of  the  features 
of  Fontainebleau  to  the  stream  coming  down  through  the  valley. 
Again  near  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century  Selim  III.  employed 
a  German  gardener ;  whose  onslaught  upon  the  old  cypresses,  cutting 
straight  avenues  through,  soon  brought  a  speedy  end  to  the  invasion 
of  Dutch  art.  Still  more,  European  influence  has  been  displayed  in 
the  garden  of  Shoobra,  the  favorite  residence  of  Muhammed  Ali 
Pasha  of  Egypt  from  about  1820  to  1848 ;  in  which  rose-beds  and 
borders  of  various  flowers,  paths  radiating  in  French  style  from  a 
centre,  a  magnificent  kiosk  on  an  artificial  terraced  hillock,  and  a 
gorgeous  fountain  of  Carrara  marble  were  introduced.  Turkish  taste 
however  soon  calls  back  the  grassy  lawn  and  spreading  shade-trees 
as  the  favorite  feature  of  a  public  garden. 


ITALIAN   VILLA  GARDENS.  771 

CHAPTER   IV. 

MODERN   EUROPEAN   LANDSCAPE   GARDENING. 

The  general  influence  of  Sculpture,  Architecture  and  Painting 
to  develope  each  other,  becomes  special  in  Landscape  Gardening ;  the 
same  order  of  advancement,  the  same  cast  of  improvement  being  ob- 
served in  these  associated  arts.  In  Italy  as  the  early  painting  was  a 
perfection  of  the  old  classic  type,  but  afterwards  became  a  transcript 
of  nature  in  her  rarest  beauty,  so  gardening  was  originally  modelled 
after  the  old  classic  standard ;  but  became  more  natural  and  there- 
fore more  truly  artistic  than  the  ancient  Roman.  In  France  the 
exuberance  of  fancy  of  the  operatic  artists  is  put  into  positive  form 
in  the  more  elaborate  gardens.  In  Holland,  again,  the  square  forms 
of  the  garden  are  fit  counterparts  of  the  square  rooms  of  the  low- 
life  painters,  and  the  heavy  darkness  of  lowland  foliage  the  reflec- 
tion of  the  dark  shading  of  the  Dutch  colorist.  Finally  in  England 
the  special  advance  made  in  Landscape  Painting  was  a  developement 
going  hand-in-hand  with  the  gradual  growth  of  taste  in  Gardening 
which  culminated  in  the  Picturesque  style. 

Sect.  1.  Italian  Landscape  Gardening  ;  villa  and  palace  gardens,  as 
influenced  by  climate  surface  of  country,  and  by  fondness  for 

ancient  forms  and  architectural  ACCESSORIES. 

The  genius  of  Italy,  balanced  between  reverence  for  the  past  and 
the  spirit  of  true  originality  and  love  of  nature,  has  developed  two 
tendencies  in  the  art  of  gardening.  The  most  costly  and  extensive 
modern  gardens  about  Rome  are  made  to  cover  the  sites  of  ancient 
villa  enclosures,  and  even  to  be  conformed  to  their  limits ;  while 
about  Naples,  as  at  Caserta,  new  points  of  wild  natural  beauty  have  been 
selected  for  adornment,  and  old  sites  also  have  been  made  to  take  on 
new  features.  The  controlling  feature  in  Italian  gardening,  however, 
is  its  artificial  rather  than  its  natural  adornment.  So  much  is  this 
the  case  that  both  at  Rome  and  Naples  the  tourist,  as  well  as  his 
guides,  in  the  absorbing  interest  of  ancient  sculptural  and  modern 
architectural  adornments  almost  forgets  the  landscape  which  as  a 
back-ground  is  the  chief  work  of  beauty. 

The  gardens  of  Italy  are  chiefly  those  of  villas,  or  princely  estates, 
of  limited  extent  in  the  neighborhood  of  cities;  those  of  country 
palaces  allowing  a  wider  range  and  greater  diversity  of  scenery; 


772  ART  CRITICISM. 

and  Convent  gardens,  the  counterparts  of  those  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
The  natural  causes  influencing  the  features  of  Italian  gardens  are 
peculiarities  of  climate  and  soil.  The  mild  summer  breezes  from  the 
sea  favor  the  culture  of  fruits  of  the  middle  temperate  zone,  such  as 
the  vine  and  the  fig ;  the  shade  trees  are  of  the  class  bearing  foliage 
of  a  lighter  or  yellowish  green ;  and  this  light  foliage,  receiving  the 
soft  and  rich  blue  tints  of  the  clear  air,  takes  on  a  hue  of  subdued 
but  fascinating  loveliness.  The  chill  winds  that  sweep  in  winter  from 
the  Appenines  give  a  sere  and  barren  aspect  to  the  season  of  fallen 
foliage ;  and  make  the  architectural  features,  unrelieved  to  any  great 
extent  by  evergreens,  a  needed  attraction  during  a  large  portion  of 
the  year.  The  volcanic  nature  of  the  country,  with  its  sharp  moun- 
tain ranges,  its  steep  hill-sides  and  undulating  plains,  give  a  variety 
of  surface,  now  covered  with  the  richest  soil,  now  cased  in  lava  and 
scoriae,  and  varied  in  productions.  Here  is  seen  the  old  forest  growth 
of  centuries,  there  the  vineyard  covered  with  the  green  of  only  two 
or  three  years  growth  ;  here  a  spot  lately  buried  with  the  cinders  of 
a  recent  eruption,  and  there  again  a  black  dark  line  of  desert  which 
no  amount  of  labor  can  redeem  from  the  brand  stamped  on  it  by  the 
Creator's  scourge. 

As  intimated,  however,  the  architectural  and  sculptural  accessories 
of  an  Italian  garden  are  its  predominant,  indeed  its  absorbing 
characteristic.  The  entire  area  is  surrounded  by  a  high  close  wall 
of  stone,  quite  unlike  the  airy  hedge  or  picket  fence ;  while  too  this 
wall  is  often  capped  with  an  ornamented  parapet,  and  is  always 
made  an  architectural  rather  than  a  landscape  feature.  Similar 
walls  divide  and  even  subdivide  the  extended  enclosure;  against 
and  between  these  are  arranged  colonnades  and  summer-houses, 
statuary  standing  exposed  and  statues  under  canopied  roofs  like  the 
old  hero  deities  in  their  shrines.  Finally,  and  as  the  chief  work,  is 
the  villa  mansion  itself;  most  often  in  the  style  of  architecture  fa- 
miliarly known  in  the  suburbs  of  American  cities  as  the  Italian  villa 
style. 

The  villas  on  the  hill-sides  encircling  the  walls  of  Rome  of  which 
the  Albani  and  Borghese,  the  Madama  and  the  Doria  are-  noted  ex- 
amples, present  the  true  type  of  the  Italian  Landscape  Garden ;  while 
the  circlet  on  the  foot  of  the  Appenine  range,  sweeping  round  at  a  dis- 
tance of  from  twelve  to  fifteen  miles  through  about  a  quadrant  from  Ti- 
voli  on  the  North-east  to  Albano  on  the  South-east,  are  equally  interest- 
ing as  works  in  which  nature  refuses  to  be  rivalled  by  the  power  of  art. 
Of  these  richly  adorned  villas,  twelve  in  the  environs  of  Rome,  and 


GARDENS  OF  ROMAN  CARDINALS  AND  NEAPOLITAN  KINGS.    773 

fifteen  or  more  in  the  distant  circle,  originated  in  the  taste  of  cardi- 
nals resident  at  Rome  after  the  era  of  revived  art.  These  men, 
brought  from  distant  portions  of  Europe  under  the  sway  of  the  Ro- 
man Church,  generally  gaining  their  position  on  account  of  superior 
intellectual  and  aesthetic  culture,  having  no  families  to  share  the  ex- 
penditure of  their  large  pecuniary  income  or  to  inherit  it  if  hoarded, 
very  naturally  sought  in  art  both  their  own  gratification  and  honor 
among  their  contemporaries.  Introduced  into  the  land  of  art,  they 
found,  as  Vasari  intimates,  art-loving  monks  who  were  studying  the 
science  of  horticulture,  and  the  methods  of  improving  fruits  by  breed- 
ing and  crossing,  by  pruning  and  fertilizing ;  while  even  the  Convent 
gardens,  as  that  of  St.  Guisto  at  Florence,  were  taking  on  forms 
of  arborescent  grace  and  trellised  beauty,  which  only  needed  a  fitting 
expansion  to  realize  the  grandeur  of  the  villa.  A  leader  in  this  re- 
vived art  was  the  Cardinal  Hippolito  d'  Este  who  conceived  the  idea 
of  reconstructing  at  Tivoli  Hadrian's  villa;  and  who  from  the  de- 
signs of  the  artist  Pirro  Ligorio  completed  in  1549  the  villa  still 
bearing  the  name  Villa  d'  Este. 

Among  the  modern  Italian  villas  which  may  be  regarded  as  types 
of  their  class  the  following  are  prominent.  The  villa  Albani,  nestled 
under  the  walls  of  Rome,  named  from  its  originator  a  Cardinal  of 
the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  began  with  an  effort  on  the 
part  of  the  proprietor  to  provide  tasteful  open  colonnades  for  the 
treasures  of  exhumed  statuary  which  he  had  gathered  at  Rome;  a 
collection  in  which  Winckelmann  became  so  able  a  critic.  The 
villa  Borghese,  similarly  located  and  equally  rich  in  sculptural  trea- 
sures, was  designed  to  present  in  tastefully  shaded  grounds  a  com- 
plete reconstruction  of  ancient  art  in  architecture ;  here  the  Egyp- 
tian with  its  varied  types,  there  the  Grecian  with  its  three  complete 
orders,  and  there  the  Roman  with  its  expansion  of  form  and  exu- 
berance of  ornament.  The  Madama,  more  distant  from  the  city 
walls  and  on  the  hill-side  towards  them,  has  as  its  chief  distinguish- 
ing feature  its  terrace-garden  opening  down  from  the  arcade  balcony 
of  the  villa ;  the  grand  view  of  Rome  and  the  Tiber's  banks  above 
and  below  the  city  being  its  great  charm.  The  Doria,  very  exten- 
sive and  including  an  area  of  four  miles  in  circuit,  is  more  truly  a 
park-garden ;  its  dark  pine  groves  and  avenues  of  evergreen  oaks 
being  a  charm  novel  about  Rome,  and  especially  in  keeping  with  the 
columbaria,  or  shrines  for  funereal  urns,  scattered  through  its  wide  ex- 
tent along  the  line  of  the  ancient  Aurelian  Way. 

The  modern  villas,  successors  to  the  ancient,  sweeping  Southward 

65* 


774  ART   CRITICISM. 

and  Westward  from  ancient  Tivoli,  present  at  once  the  excellences 
and  defects  of  Italian  taste  in  gardening.  The  clipped  hedges  and 
squared  fields  seem  hardly  in  keeping  with  the  wild  luxuriance  of 
the  ilex  and  the  cypress  and  the  rugged  roughness  of  the  uncul- 
tured head-lands,  spared  by  the  spoiling  hand  of  doubtful  art.  The 
too  apparent  machinery  of  artificial  water-works  seems  a  child's  de- 
vice alongside  of  the  grand  cascades  nature  has  caused  forever  to 
fall  along  the  cliflTs  overhanging  the  Anio.  From  both  the  princi- 
pal villas,  d'  Este  and  Braschi,  the  view  is  distant  and  panoramic. 
At  Frascati,  further  South  on  the  range,  the  fine  hills  commanding 
a  view  of  the  immense  extent  of  the  Roman  Campagna  have  been 
improved  for  villa  residences.  The  most  noted,  the  villa  of  Aldo- 
brandini,  the  counterpart  of  the  ancient  Tusculan  near  by,  rich  in 
natural  scenery,  carries  back  the  visitor  to  the  Roman  degeneracy 
by  the  fantastic  use  to  which  its  water-fall  is  subjected,  as  a  power 
to  W'Ork  an  immense  hand  organ.  Still  farther  on  in  the  circlet, 
quite  to  the  South  and  some  fourteen  miles  distant  from  Rome,  the 
villas  of  Albano  are  the  great  summer  resort  of  the  modern  as  they 
were  of  the  ancient  Romans,  mainly  because  of  delightful  and  ex- 
tended views  of  the  lake  close  by,  of  the  Mediterranean  some  fifteen 
miles  West,  and  of  the  domain  of  old  Latium,  narrow  in  extent  but 
mighty  in  the  place  it  bore,  stretching  to  the  South.  The  vine-clad 
hill-sides  are  as  luscious,  if  not  so  rich,  the  pine  groves  on  the  moun- 
tain peaks  are  as  dark,  if  not  as  dense,  as  when  Horace  sang  of  them 
for  Maecenas ;  while  the  flower-beds  of  Genzano,  the  rose  and  the  lily- 
buds  now  attractive  as  the  supply  for  Christian  festivals,  are  as  sweet  as 
when  they  decked  the  head-dress  of  Horace's  Lydia  or  strewed  the 
bier  of  Virgil's  Daphnis ;  only  the  formal  stiflf  outline  of  the  beds 
detracting  from  their  grace. 

The  palace  gardens  of  Caserta,  thirteen  miles  north  of  Naples, 
planted  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  by  the  first  of  the 
Spanish  Bourbons,  present  an  interesting  contrast  to  the  villa  gar- 
dens about  Rome ;  and  prepare  the  way  for  the  transition  to  French 
Landscape  Gardening.  An  idea  of  the  extent  of  these  grounds  is 
gained  when  from  the  Casino,  or  the  summer  retreat  on  a  fine  open 
height  towards  the  Southern  limit  the  eye  ranges  over  three  miles  of 
hill  and  vale,  of  grove  and  water-fall,  to  the  palace  on  the  north,  and 
then  stretches  at  least  a  mile  Southward  to  the  limit  in  that  direc- 
tion. On  one  side  is  an  English  garden,  fitted  up  by  the  romantic 
Queen  Caroline,  and  on  the  other  side  is  a  relic  of  the  dense  old 
forest  of  the  Middle  Ages  which  formed  a  knightly  hunting  ground. 


FRENCH  GARDENS;  THEIR  CLASSES  AND  CHARACTERISTICS.    775 

Behind  is  a  dense  ilex  forest  still  full  of  game  of  various  sorts ;  and 
before,  meandering  for  miles  in  extent,  skirted  by  lawns,  flower  bor- 
ders, groves  and  arbors,  flows  a  stream  brought  from  springs  at  the 
north  through  an  aqueduct  twenty-seven  miles  long,  which  pierces 
two  mountains  in  its  course,  and  spans  valleys  on  arches  of  dizzy 
height;  which  stream  is  tortured  into  every  conceivable  form  of 
fountain  and  cascade,  and  is  delayed  in  broad  basons  supplied  with 
fish  of  rare  variety  and  of  rich  quality.  The  chief  fountain  is  a 
truly  artistic  representation  of  Diana  and  her  nymphs  of  life-size 
bathing,  while  Actseon  beholding  is  taking  the  form  of  a  stag.  This 
most  extensive  and  costly  garden  of  Italy  exhibits  a  taste  more  fully 
developed  in  France. 

Sect.   2.    French    Landscape  Gardening;   Metropolitan,   Suburban 
AND  Chateau  Gardens  ;  Modified  from  the  Italian  by  a  naturally 

WOODED     country,     AND     BY    NATIVE     TASTE    FOR     LIVELY    FORMS      AND 
COLORS. 

Landscape  Gardening  in  France  as  in  other  countries  has  followed 
the  other  arts  in  its  developement.  Not  until  the  age  of  Louis  XIV. 
can  gardening  be  said  to  have  been  an  art ;  the  French  gardens  pre- 
ceding that  era  belonging  to  the  Middle  Ages.  The  grand  scale  on 
which  the  gardens  of  Versailles  were  conceived,  and  the  skill  in  their 
general  execution  must  be  regarded  as  an  era  in  the  history  of  the 
art,  not  only  in  France  but  in  Europe. 

The  public  gardens  of  France  are  of  three  classes  ;  the  Metropoli- 
taii,  Suburban  and  Chateau  gardens,  or  parks.  Of  the  former  class 
the  garden  in  the  enclosure  of  the  Luxembourg  palace  on  the  left  bank 
of  the  river  Seine,  and  the  more  recent  and  extensive  garden  in  front 
of  the  Tuileries  on  the  right  bank,  are  specimens.  To  the  Second 
class  belong  the  old  palace  garden  of  St.  Cloud,  on  the  Seine  near 
Paris  and  the  Bois  de  Boulogne,  a  short  ride  also  out  of  the  city.  To 
the  third  class  belong  the  old  hunting  park  of  Compiegne,  and  the 
grand  works  of  Versailles. 

The  general  aspect  of  gardens  in  France  is  measurably  controlled 
by  the  surface  of  the  country ;  which  is  generally  more  gently  undu- 
lating than  that  of  Italy,  allowing  therefore  a  wider  extent  of  com- 
plete view  and  greater  variety  of  scenery.  This  feature  the  French 
have  availed  themselves  of  to  secure  the  efiects  of  the  curved  line  in 
ground-plot  and  elevation;  introducing  serpentine  foot-paths  and 
winding  avenues  wherever  the  surface  allows  it,  and  also  seeking  the 
effects  of  contrast  in  rugged  rockeries  covered  with  wild  vines,  and 


776  ART  CRITICISM. 

knolls  tangled  with  the  undergrowth  of  the  native  forest.  This 
characteristic,  specially  alluded  to  as  a  natural  feature  by  Rapin,  an 
English  rhymester  on  Gardening,  who  contrasts  the  extended,  forest- 
clad,  undulating  coast  of  Northern  France  with  the  chalky  cliffs  of 
the  English  and  the  volcanic  steeps  of  the  Italian  shore : 

"  Thus  Normandy  extends  her  guards  of  trees, 
Against  the  winds  that  blow  from  British  seas ; 
High  sylvan  avenues  the  coast  surround, 
Divide  large  farms  and  ample  lordships  bound." 

The  natural  suggestion  to  the  French  landscape  gardener,  that  he 
avail  himself  of  this  feature,  and  even  create  it  when  absent,  is 
manifest  in  the  laying  out  of  the  Bois  de  Boulogne  now  in  progress ; 
where  not  only  the  forest  giving  name  to  the  park,  which  in  itself  has 
a  surface  slightly  undulating,  but  also  an  extensive  level  meadow 
now  enclosed  with  it,  has,  by  ditching  and  mounding  of  the  soil  ex- 
cavated, and  by  immense  piles  of  rough  rock  transported  from  a  dis- 
tance, been  converted  into  a  succession  of  hills  and  vales  that  already 
smile  with  a  beauty  like  to  that  of  nature. 

Another  feature  of  French  gardens  seen  at  Versailles,  is  the  at- 
tempt to  represent  fable  and  allegory.  The  taste  of  the  French, 
lively  even  to  sportiveness  and  gay  even  to  absurdity,  has  undoubtedly 
gone  to  an  extreme  in  gardening  as  in  other  arts ;  but  the  criticisms 
of  Lord  Kames  are  too  sweeping,  as  the  practice  of  genuine  artists 
opposed  to  his  view  attests.  The  attempt  to  represent  in  clipped 
clumps  of  box  animals  conversing  together  after  the  manner  of  JE- 
sop  is  absurd,  since  neither  in  form,  color  or  expression  can  there  be 
even  the  shadow  of  an  approximation  to  reality ;  and  the  sense  of 
the  ludicrous  awakened  by  such  an  attempt  is  too  strongly  mixed 
with  the  conviction  of  failure  not  to  be  changed  to  contempt  for  the 
artist.  The  conceit  of  representing  jets  of  water  spouting  from  the 
nostril  of  a  whale,  or  the  proboscis  of  an  elephant,  is  but  a  copying 
of  nature ;  and  its  issue  from  the  trumpet  of  a  bugler,  or  the  bill  of 
a  goose  or  swan,  is  not  a  device  to  be  condemned  as  unnatural,  since 
the  swollen  cheek  of  the  bugler  and  the  stretched  neck  of  the  hissing 
water-fowl  are  in  position  perfectly  natural,  while  the  issue  of  water 
instead  of  air  from  their  throats  is  a  pleasing  not  a  disagreeable  sur- 
prise. When,  however,  as  Lord  Kames  urges,  lions  and  wolves 
rushing  on  their  prey,  and  deers  and  lambs  flying  from  their  pursu- 
ers are  breathing  out  water  instead  of  air  from  their  panting  chests, 
there  is  an  unpleasant  feeling  awakened  in  the  beholder ;  probably 


GARDENS   AND   PARKS   OF   PARIS   AND   VERSAILLES.       777 

because  the  inhalation,  not  the  exhalation  as  in  the  bugler  and  the 
swan,  is  the  vital  act  most  to  be  noted.  That  conceit  not  noticed  by 
Lord  Karnes,  and  perhaps  not  seen  at  his  day,  so  common  in  modern 
Paris,  of  urinating  Cupids  supplying  water  from  a  fountain  to  the 
neighboring  families  who  come  to  fill  their  pitchers,  is  objectionable 
in  its  moral  as  well  as  its  aesthetic  expression. 

The  gardens  of  the  palaces  of  the  Luxembourg  and  of  the  Tuile- 
ries  in  Paris,  of  St.  Cloud  and  of  the  Bois  de  Boulogne  in  the  en- 
virons of  the  city,  and  the  parks  of  Compi^gne  and  of  Versailles  are 
types  of  French  gardens.  That  of  the  Luxembourg  palace  is  about 
a  quarter  of-  a  mile  square,  level  in  surface  and  necessarily  artificial 
and  even  mechanical  in  its  entire  aspect,  since  there  is  no  natural 
feature  to  be  worked  in  as  a  contrast  to  the  square  flower-beds  and 
oval  and  serpentine  box  borders.  The  garden  proper  of  the  Tuile- 
ries  is  level  and  rectangular,  admitting  only  a  geometrical  plotting 
since  it  has  no  natural  variety ;  but  its  avenues  of  shade  trees  among 
which  the  horse-chestnut  is  favorite,  its  groves  of  fruit-trees  including 
the  exotic  orange,  its  beds  and  borders  of  flowers  and  shrubs  inter- 
spersed with  statuary  and  fountains,  make  it  a  charming  retreat.  The 
Champs  Elysees,  or  Elysian  Fields,  into  which  the  Garden  of  the  Tui- 
leries  opens,  a  strip  of  land  about  a  mile  and  a  quarter  long,  with  its 
central  avenue  of  shade  trees,  its  side  parterres  of  flowers  and  shrubs, 
its  circus,  summer  houses  and  cafes,  its  circle  and  star-shaped  radi- 
ations, and  its  crowning  architectural  ornament  the  "Arch  of  Tri- 
umph," unite  some  of  the  features  of  the  park  with  those  of  the  gar- 
den. A  radiating  Avenue,  named  after  the  Empress,  having  a  hard 
carriage-drive,  a  soft  bridle  path  and  shaded  foot- ways,  leads  to  the 
Bois  de  Boulogne,  an  old  royal  forest  of  about  two  thousand  acres, 
lying  a  mile  distant.  This  expansive  wood  and  the  broad  meadows 
stretching  to  the  Seine  beyond,  have  been  converted  into  a  delightful 
park ;  one  of  whose  lakes  alone  is  three-quarters  of  a  mile  in  length. 
The  forest,  though  mainly  of  level  surface,  allowed  natural  windings 
in  the  avenues ;  while  the  meadows,  as  mentioned,  have  been  so  modi- 
fied in  surface  by  the  ditching  and  mounding  of  the  natural  soil  and 
by  rock  transportation,  as  to  give  the  picturesque  variety  of  an  Eng- 
lish garden.  Into  the  outskirts  numerous  varieties  of  hardy  trees  as 
the  oak,  beech  and  pine  have  been  introduced,  also  tropical  plants  as 
the  banana.  The  allegorical  idea  and  operatic  execution  of  the  main 
rock-work,  including  the  grotto,  cascade  and  fountains,  wrought  into 
an  extravagance  of  fairy-like  and  grotesque  forms,  are  characteristic 

4X 


778  ART  CRITICISM. 

of  French  taste ;  not  entirely  conformed  to  the  gravity  of  concep- 
tion belonging  to  a  less  mercurial  people. 

The  famed  St.  Cloud,  about  five  miles  from  Paris,  for  generations 
a  favorite  summer  residence  of  the  French  king^,  is  the  type  of  all 
old  Chateau  gardens.  Situated  on  the  sloping  hill-side  overlooking 
the  Seine  a  fine  opportunity  is  offered  by  its  location  for  that  variety 
which  an  extended  view  from  below  offers.  The  age  and  size  of  its 
trees  overshadowing  artificial  constructions,  the  necessary  resort  to 
winding  avenues  compelled  by  the  steepness  of  the  hill-side  and  the 
dense  and  dark  growth  of  the  dells  contrasted  with  the  knolls,  make 
it  a  genuine  embodiment  of  Kames'  idea  of  an  artistic  garden  as 
"nature  itself  adorned." 

The  forest  of  Compiegne,  about  sixty  miles  north-east  of  Paris, 
was  one  of  the  earliest  as  it  is  the  latest  hunting-park  of  France. 
Here  the  warlike  monarchs  of  the  middle  ages,  nurtured  by  the  chase 
introduced  by  William  the  Conqueror  into  England,  gained  that  har- 
dihood which  made  them  noted  for  military  prowess.  Here  for  con- 
venience to  the  royal  household  when  visiting  the  town  of  Compiegne 
for  hunting  purposes  Louis  IX.,  called  the  Saint,  built  during  the 
crusades  the  first  royal  residence.  Here  Louis  XIV.,  the  great 
builder,  reared  a  costly  palace  which  became  a  famous  summer  re- 
treat for  his  enervated  successors,  a  lodge  in  his  oft-frequented  shooting- 
ground  for  the  sportsman  Charles  X.,  and  a  resting-place  for  the 
war-worn  Napoleon;  as  it  is  now  the  fixed  sojourn  at  the  appointed 
season  for  the  active  Napoleon  III.  when  seeking  respite  from  execu- 
tive care  and  for  his  Spanish  consort  fond  of  horsemanship  and  the 
excitement  of  the  chase.  The  forest  contains  over  thirty-six  thousand 
acres ;  and  the  numerous  roads  through  it  measure  more  than  six 
hundred  miles. 

The  palace  and  park  gardens  of  Versailles,  in  some  respects  with- 
out rival  in  the  world,  embrace  a  variety  of  features  seldom  brought 
together  into  one.  Here,  where  in  the  dense  forest  eleven  miles  from 
Paris  his  father  had  a  small  hunting  chateau,  Louis  XIV.  determined 
to  erect  a  palace  and  park  which  in  extent  and  in  richness  of  adorn- 
ment should  surpass  anything  in  the  past.  Such  was  his  success 
that  for  one  hundred  years  the  Court  residence  was  removed  from 
Paris,  until  a  complete  city  of  aristocratic  residences  separate  from 
the  busy  haunts  of  working-men  grew  up  ;  destined,  however,  to  teach 
the  lesson  that,  though  an  Asiatic  may  separate  himself  from  his 
people  as  a  being  of  a  higher  order,  no  European  sovereign  can  with 
safety  attempt  this.     The  halls  of  the   palace,  now,  like  a  chain 


DUTCH  GARDENS  AS  INFLUENCING  GERMAN  AND  RUSSIAN.     779 

doubled  on  itself,  are  so  many  parallel  ranges  of  picture  galleries, 
not  less  than  a  mile  in  entire  length.  The  grounds  of  the  Palace 
comprise  three  parts;  the  garden  proper  immediately  in  front,  the 
small  park  and  the  large  park.  At  the  head  of  the  garden  before 
the  palace  gushes  out  through  different  fountains  and  basons  a  small 
river  brought  from  the  neighborhood;  whose  waters  flow  from  these 
basons  in  a  central  channel  throughout  the  entire  grounds.  In  the 
garden  is  an  orangery,  a  conservatory  of  foreign  plants,  and  taste- 
fully formed  beds  and  parterres  of  flowers  and  grass-sward.  The 
small  park  is  about  twelve  miles,  and  the  large  park,  which  contains 
several  small  villages,  is  about  sixty  miles  in  circuit.  Numerous 
fountains  and  basons  receive  the  waters  traversing  the  grounds ;  the 
largest  of  which  is  that  of  Neptune.  Around  these,  and  forming  a 
part  of  them,  are  the  numberless  allegorical  figures  criticised  by 
Lord  Kames ;  Neptune  and  Apollo  attended  by  nymphs  and  tritons ; 
dragons,  dolphins  and  varied  figures  spouting  jets  of  water ;  Latona 
praying  to  Jupiter  for  revenge  on  the  peasants  of  Libya  who  denied 
her  water  when  thirsty,  and  these  peasants  turning  into  frogs  and 
spouting  torrents  of  water  over  her.  The  avenues  and  groves  of 
yews,  willows  and  other  shade-trees,  and  the  numberless  statues  and 
summer-houses  in  the  grounds  are  an  endless  source  of  interest  for 
the  frequent  visitor. 

Sect.  3.  Dutch  Landscape  Gaedening  ;  controlled  by  lowland  scen- 
ery ;  characterized  by  straight  lines  in  roads  and  canals,  in 
field-bounds,  bank-terraces  and  shaded  avenues. 

As  the  lowland  scenery  of  the  Netherlands  gave  form  to  Dutch 
painting,  directing  it  to  landscape  of  low  horizon  and  quiet  rural 
life,  so  Dutch  gardening  took  its  general  characteristics  from  the 
same  level  scenery.  Its  main  features,  derived  from  the  structure 
of  the  lowland  country,  were  only  partially  modified  by  intercourse 
with  other  countries.  The  two  peculiarities  of  a  flat  river  bottom  or 
sea-marsh  country,  are,  first  destitution  of  native  forest  trees,  the 
meadow  being  more  favorable  to  cereal  and  annual  than  to  arbo- 
rescent and  perennial  growth ;  and,  second,  a  tendency  to  straight 
lines  in  paths,  roads,  avenues  of  trees  and  even  in  artificial  water- 
courses, arising  from  the  fact  that  naturally  animals  and  men  take 
the  shortest  course  in  a  level  country  where  no  rising  grounds  or 
forest  thickets  turn  them  from  their  course.  In  Holland  not  only 
the  streets  of  the  chief  cities,  but  also  the  high-roads  and  even  the 
canals  which  connect  distant  towns  and  the  moats  which  served  as 


T80  ART   CRITICISM. 

ancient  defences  outside  of  city  walls,  were  straight  and  unbroken ; 
hence  the  line  of  shade-trees  which  taste  as  well  as  comfort  demanded 
along  their  borders  were  planted  in  straight  lines.  The  same  style 
of  division  was  naturally  adopted  in  the  early  Dutch  gardens.  The 
trees  on  the  lowlands  were  with  few  exceptions  not  a  native  growth, 
but  transplants  from  an  upland  soil  to  which  they  were  indigenous ; 
and  hence  a  fondness  for  exotics  was  early  awakened.  The  wide 
commerce  of  the  Dutch,  which  carried  their  merchants  and  men  of 
adventurous  ambition  to  the  Indies  and  China,  stimulated  this  native 
taste ;  and  Dutch  gardens  became  noted  for  exotics,  especially  for 
tuber  and  bulbous  roots  capable  of  long  transport  and  furnishing 
nutriment  of  peculiar  richness  and  flowers  of  rare  beauty. 

The  public  grounds  of  the  lowland  cities  are  chiefly  wide  avenues 
with  rows  of  trees  serving  as  drives  and  promenades ;  a  peculiarity 
which  the  Germans  have  copied  from  the  Dutch.  The  towns  of 
Amsterdam  and  Eotterdam,  named  from  the  rivers  at  whose  lower 
dams  they  are  built,  and  Hamburg  similarly  located,  have  moats 
outside  of  the  old  walls  and  canals  forming  streets  with  broad  walks 
on  the  sides  bordered  with  green  sward  and  shaded  with  lines  of  trees. 
At  the  inland  town  of  Utrecht,  and  at  many  German  towns  as  Frank- 
fort, Leipsic  and  Vienna,  the  old  walls  of  the  middle  ages,  rendered 
useless  as  a  defense  by  the  introduction  of  gunpowder  into  modern 
warfare,  have  been  removed,  leaving  the  foundation  as  a  broad  car- 
riage road;  and  this  foundation,  called  in  the  French  Boulevard, 
together  with  the  moat  and  intervening  bank,  have  been  lined  with 
avenues  of  trees  enclosing  foot-paths  and  carriage-drives.  Through 
the  influence  of  William  III.,  whose  early  life  gave  him  Dutch  ideas 
in  art,  this  style  of  gardening  was  introduced  into  England;  while 
also  the  German  origin  and  family  alliance  of  the  princes  of  northern 
Europe  has  caused  its  spread  even  into  Kussia. 

In  quite  modern  times  a  more  comprehensive  style  has  prevailed 
both  in  German  and  Russian  cities.  The  city  of  Munich  boasts  of 
its  magnificent  park  four  miles  long  and  half  a  mile  wide,  whose  un- 
dulating and  wooded  surface  has  been  laid  out  in  winding  drives  and 
foot-paths,  making  one  of  the  most  picturesque  parks  on  the  conti- 
nent. At  Berlin  and  other  Prussian  towns  the  old  gardens  are  still 
a  flat  surface  laid  out  in  rectangles  of  geometric  strictness ;  while  the 
newer  parks  are  in  their  ground-plot  conformed  to  natural  undulations 
of  the  soil.  The  grand  park  of  Tsarkoe  Selo,  the  imperial  Russian 
residence  about  two  hours'  ride  from  St.  Petersburg,  enclosing  an 
area  of  three  hundred  and  fifty  acres,  has  a  surface  beautifully  diver- 


EXGLISII    GARDENING   A   SPECIALLY    NATIONAL   ART.     781 

sified  with  hill  and  dale,  forest  and  lawn;  it  contains  besides  the 
palace  and  its  surroundings,  a  Chinese  village  with  its  pagoda,  a 
Turkish  town  in  miniature  with  kiosks  and  a  mosque,  a  Grecian  city 
Avith  temples  and  statues  of  classic  grace,  and  an  Egyptian  temple 
Avith  its  pyramids  and  obelisks;  while  in  the  mountain-sides  are 
caves,  in  the  forest  hermitages,  and  on  the  plains  monuments  of  civic 
and  military  glory  commemorating  Russian  history.  While  thus 
Holland  itself  retains  the  true  features  of  native  Dutch  gardening 
the  transition  to  a  more  comprehensive  style  becomes  gradually  more 
manifest  in  the  traveller's  progress  eastward. 

Sect.  4.  English  Landscape  Gakdening;  characterized  specially  by 
lawns,  parks  and  animal  collections;  in  style  the  early  kom an, 
modified  by  the  ancient  dutch,  and  then  superseded  by  three 

SUCCESSIVE   NATIVE    SCHOOLS  THE     BAL^   OF   KeNT,    THE    PICTURESQUE   OP 

Price  and  the  gardenesque  of  Eepton. 

There  are  marked  peculiarities  in  the  soil  and  climate  of  Great 
Britain,  in  the  history  and  tastes  of  the  people,  which  have  made 
Landscape  Gardening  the  art  of  Britain,  as  sculpture  was  of  Greece, 
architecture  of  Rome  and  painting  of  Italy.  The  surface  of  Great 
Britain,  generally  undulating,  varies  in  contour  from  the  plains  in  the 
South  of  England  to  the  highlands  of  Scotland ;  its  soil,  though  often 
thin,  drenched  with  the  damp  from  the  Gulf  Stream,  is  everywhere  cov- 
ered with  a  coat  of  the  darkest  green ;  making  grass-sward,  hedges  and 
every  variety  of  trees  to  take  on  special  richness  and  denseness  of  foliage. 
The  peculiar  history  of  the  British  people,  subject  for  ages  to  Roman 
domination  civil  and  ecclesiastical,  then  successively  influenced  by 
Danish,  Dutch  and  German  ascendency,  and  yet  again  half  trans- 
formed by  a  prevailing  French  cast  given  to  their  laws,  language, 
customs  and  tastes,  has  introduced  various  conflicting  styles  in  all  the 
arts.  This  influence  has  shown  itself  most  in  architecture  and  gar- 
dening ;  since  the  insular  and  independent  position  of  the  British 
people,  the  hardy  and  sturdy  stock  from  which  they  had  their  origin, 
have  made  them  always  fond  of  an  out-door  stirring  life,  and  their 
genius  in  art  has  naturally  sought  to  add  beauty  and  grace  to  the 
wilds  of  their  out-door  haunts. 

These  causes  have  controlled  the  characteristic  features  given  to 
English  public  grounds,  as  well  as  the  progress  of  taste  in  archi- 
tecture. When  William  the  Conqueror  introduced  the  chase  into 
England  it  was  a  successful  effort  to  win  popular  favor ;  because  the 
spirit  of  the  nobles  and  of  the  people  was  already  prepared  for  its 

6t) 


782  ART  CRITICISM. 

appreciation.  The  luxuriant  grass-fields  of  England  make  the  rear- 
ing of  domestic  animals  upon  the  open  meadows  and  lawns  adapted 
to  their  grazing  a  favorite  pursuit  with  the  quiet  farmer ;  while  the 
hunting-park  stocked  with  deer,  and  the  wilds  frequented  by  the  fox, 
afford  a  manly  recreation  to  the  country  gentry,  and  the  zoological 
gardens  enlivened  by  wild  animals  of  every  clime  are  a  never  ending 
source  of  delight  to  the  populace  of  the  great  city.  To  the  improve- 
ment of  the  public  grounds  the  best  intellect  of  England  has  turned 
its  attention;  able  and  philosophic  minds  have  discussed  different 
theories,  and  skilful  gardeners  have  practiced  different  methods  of  pro- 
moting the  advance  of  the  art;  so  that  the  succession  of  schools  in 
gardening  has  been  in  England  as  marked  as  have  successive  schools 
of  painting  in  Italy. 

The  early  style  of  Gardening  was  derived  from  the  Romans,  and 
had  the  peculiarities  already  noticed  as  characterizing  the  Roman 
art ;  a  little  square  court-yard,  with  beds  of  cramped  proportions, 
constituting  all  the  garden  proper.  An  innovation  was  made  upon 
this  style,  long  fostered  and  kept  alive  through  Roman  ecclesiastical 
influence,  by  Charles  II. ;  who  employed  the  celebrated  French  land- 
scape gardener  Le  Notre,  who  laid  out  the  grounds  of  Versailles  for 
Louis  XIV.,  to  plant  the  Parks  of  St.  James  and  of  Greenwich.  As 
a  specimen  of  the  little  appreciation  of  the  law  controlling  the  new 
art,  it  is  related  that  when  Lord  Bathurst,  in  directing  the  wid- 
ening of  a  brook  in  his  grounds,  had  ordered  the  workmen  not  to 
depart  from  the  natural  windings  of  the  stream.  Lord  Stafford,  imag- 
ining that  a  regard  to  economy  had  prompted  the  direction,  inno- 
cently inquired,  "What  would  have  been  the  additional  expense  to 
make  the  banks  of  this  piece  of  water  straight?"  The  new  style, 
thus  introduced  by  Le  Notre,  suffered  a  reaction  again  under  AVil- 
liam  III. ;  whose  early  life  in  the  Netherlands,  as  well  as  his  eccle- 
siastical leanings,  led  him  to  favor  the  old  Roman  and  the  Dutch 
styles.  A  striking  illustration  of  this  fact  was  given  in  the  succeed- 
ing reign  of  Queen  Anne,  when  upon  the  splendid  victory  of  the 
Duke  of  Marlborough  at  Blenheim  in  Bavaria,  the  estate  called 
from  that  date  "  Blenheim,"  was  purchased  for  Marlborough  by  the 
grateful  English  people,  and  a  mansion  built  upon  it  which  cost 
£500,000;  upon  whose  grounds  the  rows  of  shade  trees  were  ar- 
ranged in  straight  parallel  lines,  corresponding  to  files  of  soldiers 
drawn  up  in  the  order  of  Marlborough's  line  of  battle,  each  row 
taking  the  name  of  the  regiment  whose  position  it  occupied.  To  the 
end  of  the  Stuart  dynasty,  foreign  influence  controlled ;  but  under 


Hogarth's  line  of  beauty  applied  to  gardening.   783 

the  house  of  Brunswick,  gardening  became  pre-eminently  an  Eng- 
lish art. 

In  the  time  of  George  III.,  so  entire  a  revolution  had  come  over 
the  style  of  gardening  in  England,  that  Sir  William  Chambers  is 
said  to  have  remarked,  "  If  this  mania  be  not  checked,  there  will  not 
be  remaining  three  trees  standing  in  a  line  throughout  the  kingdom." 
At  this  era,  Hogarth's  "  Analysis  of  Beauty,"  whose  main  idea  is 
that,  "  the  curve  is  the  line  of  beauty,"  began  to  have  such  influence 
as  to  lead  to  an  injurious  extreme.  In  gardening,  Kent  and 
Brown,  virtually  though  not  formally,  adopted  the  principle  that  no 
line  is  beautiful  except  the  curve.  The  architectural  adornments  of 
grounds,  whose  lines  are  of  course  in  the  main  straight  lines,  were 
made  too  entirely  subordinate.  The  mansion,  plain  in  structure, 
without  projecting  piazzas,  was  situated  on  a  rising  ground;  no  ter- 
race was  allowed,  since  it  would  break  up  the  rounded  outline  of  na- 
ture ;  no  enclosed  court-yard  appeared  in  front  since  this  enclosure 
must  take  a  rectangular  shape ;  the  natural  green  sward,  closely  cut 
by  the  scythe,  extended  unbroken  quite  up  to  the  foundations  of  the 
building ;  the  carriage-way  wandered  winding  by  an  easy  gradation 
up  the  ascent  to  the  mansion ;  and  trees  were  left  standing  or  cut 
away  according  as  they  conspired  to  or  interfered  with  the  general 
design.  This  style  was  called  the  "Natural"  by  those  who  saw  only 
its  excellencies,  since  it  adhered  strictly  to  the  forms  Nature  had  be- 
forehand prepared  for  the  artist  to  adorn ;  it  was  entitled  the  "  Bald  " 
by  those  who  saw  also  its  defects,  since  it  left  the  exterior  of  the 
mansion  and  the  lawn  skirting  its  outline  entirely  bare,  like  a  bald 
man's  hairless  head.  It  was,  doubtless,  though  an  extreme,  a  real 
advance  in  art ;  and  was  the  more  important  since  it  was  the  first 
truly  native  English  style  of  gardening,  as  Hogarth's  was  of  paint- 
ing, and  prepared  the  mind  of  British  artists  for  future  independ- 
ence in  design,  which  was  afterwards  to  take  on  more  comprehensive- 
ness. An  impulse  was  given  to  the  popular  taste  for  gardening  by 
the  fact  that  numerous  critical  writers  then  directed  their  attention 
to  its  principles ;  while  the  poets  Cowper,  Shenstone  and  Mason,  the 
two  latter  of  whom  warmly  advocated  the  theory  of  Kent,  threw 
around  the  art,  as  Virgil  had  in  the  age  of  the  Roman  Augustus, 
the  charm  of  poetic  picturing. 

As  Hogarth's  independent  spirit  aroused  in  his  own  day  minds 
equally  vigorous  in  thought,  and  more  comprehensive  in  culture,  so 
was  it  with  Kent.  The  able  landscape  painters,  called  out  while 
Hogarth  was  yet  the  leader  in  the  English  School  of  painting,  con- 


784  AET   CRITICISM. 

tended  that  gardening,  the  art  susceptible  of  such  perfection  under 
the  sky  of  Great  Britain,  should  conform  to  the  features  of  land- 
scape painting  as  then  practiced.  The  main  idea  had  in  view  at  this 
stage  of  progress  in  English  art,  was  the  attaining  of  contrast  be- 
tween the  finish  of  the  architectural  features,  including  the  portions 
of  the  landscape  immediately  surrounding  the  buildings  introduced 
into  the  picture,  and  the  untrimmed  thickets  and  unbroken  wilds 
presented  upon  its  sides  and  in  the  back-ground.  This  style  was  a 
reaction  against  the  extreme  of  that  proposed  by  Kent ;  but  in  some 
respects  tended  to  a  greater  extreme.  It  laid  great  stress  upon  rich- 
ness in  the  architectural  accessories ;  it  urged  that  wild  grounds  be 
dotted  with  spots  on  which  the  highest  culture  should  be  lavished ; 
while  it  would  leave  the  main  portion  of  the  landscape  in  a  state  of 
nature  more  untouched  than  that  of  Kent's  proposing.  This  style 
called  the  "Picturesque,"  from  the  relationship  to  Landscape  Paint- 
ing already  mentioned,  gained  the  favor  of  many  men  of  culture 
from  the  fact  that  it  had  as  its  theoretic  advocates  the  ablest  of  the 
English  School  of  Landscape  Painters,  and  as  its  practical  support- 
ers such  men  as  Gilpin  and  Sir  Uvedale  Price.  Lord  Kames  seems 
to  have  approved,  in  principle  at  least,  the  leading  features  of  both 
these  somewhat  conflicting  styles ;  commending  in  his  Elements  of 
Criticism  "  Kent's  methods  of  embellishing  a  field  *  *  with  beautiful 
objects,  natural  and  artificial,  disposed  as  they  ought  to  be  on  a  can- 
vas in  painting;"  while  he  speaks  of  the  Chinese  method  of  garden- 
ing, a  style  perfectly  allied  to  the  "Picturesque  of  Price,  as  brought 
to  greater  perfection  than  in  any  other  known  country  of  the  world." 
The  practical  advance  in  the  true  science  of  Gardening  made  by 
Price,  was  seen  in  its  influence  in  arresting  the  crusade  against  hoary 
avenues  of  trees,  unspared  by  the  ruthless  axe  simply  because  Kent 
had  taught  that  the  nurses  of  their  youth  erred  in  planting  them  in 
straight  rows ;  while  it  awakened  a  theoretical  study,  illustrated  in 
Lord  Kames'  "  Gentleman  Parmer,"  which  led  philosophic  minds  to 
"test  proposed  improvements  in  agriculture  by  rational  principles." 
The  failure  of  thorough  analysis  in  Price's  system  was  the  overlook- 
ing of  the  fact  that  men  never  from  natural  suggestion  are  led  to 
leave  a  portion  of  their  grounds  utterly  untouched,  while  adjoining 
portions  are  subjected  to  the  highest  possible  culture.  It  is  natural 
for  man  to  show  a  gradation  of  improvement  instead  of  wide  con- 
trasts in  his  labors  upon  uncultured  lands ;  giving  more  care  to  the 
clearing  of  certain  portions,  but  neglecting  none,  and  especially  re- 
moving every  appearance  of  slovenly  carelessness  from  the  edge  of 


THE   GARDENESQUE   DISTINCT   FROM   THE   PICTURESQUE.     785 

an  exposed  thicket.     It  was  this  principle  which  led  to  a  third  style 
of  native  English  gardening. 

As  in  early  Landscape  painting,  individual  trees  were  hid  in  the 
picturing  of  a  thicket,  so  in  the  method  of  planting  trees  only  in 
close-set  clumps  and  irregular  thickets  the  form  of  the  noblest  was 
hidden  and  marred  by  its  surroundings.  As  the  impression  made  by 
a  single  human  figure,  a  master-piece  of  Phidias  or  Apelles,  is  a  more 
attractive  work  than  a  confused  group,  so  a  single  noble  oak  stand- 
ing alone  on  the  plain,  fully  and  evenly  developed  in  all  its  parts,  is 
an  object  more  admired  than  a  forest.  The  acknowledged  head  of 
the  third  stage  in  the  developement  of  English  gardening  is  Repton ; 
whose  works,  presenting  an  extended  analysis  of  the  principles  of 
taste  entering  into  this  art,  and  adding  details  as  to  the  practical  ap- 
plications of  these  principles  in  the  gardener's  task,  are  among  the 
ablest  treatises  extant.  The  two  leading  aims  he  would,  harmonize 
in  gardening  are,  congruity  in  grouping  and  elegance  in  individual 
forms;  his  own  statement  of  these  two  principles  suggesting  that 
"  relative  fitness  "  should  be  regarded  since  gardening  is  a  useful  art, 
and,  again,  "comparative  proportion"  since  it  is  a  fine  art.  The 
former  principle  is  opposed  to  the  crowding  of  trees  in  thick-set 
clumps ;  since  this  forbids  the  design  of  their  Creator  by  restricting 
their  full  developement  according  to  manifest  appointment  in  mak- 
ing man  their  transplanter,  and  by  hiding  their  complete  beauty  from 
the  eye  made  to  admire  them.  •  The  second  requires  that  single  trees 
in  their  arrangement  as  respects  each  other  be  set  at  proportionate 
distances,  regard  being  paid  to  resemblance,  and  contrast  and  grada- 
tion in  form,  color  and  size.  This  style  introduced  single  shrubs  as 
well  as  trees  as  ornaments  of  a  grass-plot;  it  invited  exotics 
to  emerge  in  summer  from  the  stifled  heat  and  damp  of  the  conser- 
vatory, and  to  rejoice  as  long  as  the  hot  months  of  a  northern  clime 
would  allow  in  the  open  sun-light,  the  free  air  and  the  fresh  dew  and 
shower.  This  style  was  designated  by  the  title  "  gardenesque,"  be- 
cause, whatever  it  touched,  it  gave  the  character  of  a  garden  to  all 
its  parts ;  a  small  court-yard  of  a  town  residence  with  its  narrow 
foot-paths,  its  box  hedges,  its  well-rolled  grass-plot  dotted  with  low 
but  thrifty  shrubs,  being  a  miniature  of  the  broad  field  in  front  of  a 
country  mansion  with  its  wide  drives,  its  tall  hedges,  its  extended  lawn 
and  its  towering  oaks  or  elms  scattered  over  its  face.  The  advance- 
ment of  this  style  was  greatly  promoted  by  the  progress  of  the  kin- 
dred art  of  landscape  painting  which  suggested  new  principles  for 
the  gardener's  design,  and  by  the  yet  greater  progress  made  in  the 

66*  4Y 


78(j  ART    CRITICISM. 

science  of  Agricultural  Cliemistry,  together  with  the  improved  meth- 
ods it  has  suggested  for  the  rearing  of  plants. 

Sect.  5.  American  Landscape  Gardening  ;  affording  a  field  for  un- 
limited VARIETY,   AND  REQUIRING  A  NATIVE  THOUGH  CHASTENED  TASTE. 

Colonies  have  usually  emulated  if  not  rivalled  their  mother  coun- 
tries in  art;  since  colonists  are  usually  the  more  aspiring  and  ener- 
getic of  the  parent  stock.  This  is  especially  observable  in  the  arts 
that  minister  to  utility  as  well  as  to  beauty.  Homer  in  Poetry,  and 
Protogenes  in  Painting,  were  Grecian  leaders;  while  in  Architecture, 
Landscape  Gardening  and  Decorative  Art,  Ephesus,  Ehodes  and 
Thyatira  were  in  advance  of  Sicyon  and  Athens.  America  ought 
to  equal,  if  not  surpass  in  Gardening,  the  countries  of  Europe  from 
which  her  people  have  sprung ;  since  her  artists  have  the  combined 
and  therefore  comprehensive  methods  of  all  Europe,  while  the  field 
for  their  art  is  unmarred  by  the  error  in  workmanship  of  former 
generations. 

Very  early  in  the  history  of  the  American  colonies,  gardening,  not 
simply  for  utility,  but  as  the  first  of  the  arts  for  which  a  field  and 
ample  material  was  prepared,  was  introduced  both  by  the  French 
and  English  settlers.  English  taste  early  prevailed  in  Carolina  and 
Massachusetts.  In  the  former  the  system  of  the  earlier  English 
methods  has  maintained  its  sway  to  modern  times;  the  Battery  of 
Charleston,  and  the  public  grounds  of  Columbia  and  of  other  towns 
being  as  marked  as  the  wig  and  robe  retained  by  the  judges  of  their 
Superior  Court.  About  Boston  the  modification  of  English  improved 
systems  are  equally  apparent ;  as  may  be  seen  in  the  lawn  of  the  Ly- 
man, the  oak-groves  of  the  Perkins  and  the  flower  and  fruit-beds  of 
the  Cushing  estates.  From  Louisiana  as  a  centre,  the  French  style 
of  Louis  XIV.  has  extended  along  the  border  of  the  Gulf  to  Florida, 
and  up  the  Mississippi  to  Missouri;  the  immense  box-hedges  and 
clumps  clipped  into  the  form  of  vases  and  sofas,  and  also  the  lettered 
names  of  proprietors,  being  a  marked  indication  of  this  influence  in 
the  towns  even  of  Alabama  and  Georgia,  as  well  as  north  to  St. 
Louis. 

The  geological  structure  of  the  United  States  territory  furnishes  an 
unlimited  field  for  the  most  comprehensive  methods  of  Gardening,  cut 
as  it  is  by  a  mountain  range  extending  along  its  eastern  border  which 
runs  farther  back  from  the  shore  in  passing  from  Maine  to  Louisiana; 
and  presenting  in  every  Atlantic  State,  though  farther  to  the  West 
in  proceeding  southward,  the  features  of  three  zones,  the  steep  peaks 


AMERICAN   GARDENS   AND   WRITERS   ON   HORTICULTURE.    787 

and  the  dark  firs  of  the  frigid,  the  undulating  hills  covered  with  the 
maple  and  apple  of  the  higher  temperate,  and  the  level  savannas 
adorned  with  the  willow-oak  and  fig  of  the  lower  temperate  regions. 
Being  of  virgin  soil,  untainted  by  rude  hands,  its  garden-spots  may 
be  made  to  take  any  form  which  genius  and  culture  may  suggest. 
The  able  treatises  of  Kenrick  in  the  Eastern,  of  Downing  in  the 
Middle,  and  of  Kern  in  the  Western  States  are  indications  of  the 
amount  of  intelligence  and  native  originality  in  taste  already  devoted 
to  this  art. 


BOOK   VII. 

THE    DECORATIVE  ARTS;   ARTIFICIAL  ACCESSORIES   AND   ORNA- 
MENTS  OF   OBJECTS   IN   NATURE   AND   OF   WORKS   IN   ART. 

The  designation  Decorative  Arts,  made  up  of  two  terms,  in- 
volves two  ideas.  The  end  sought  in  them  is  "  decoration ;"  not  the 
forming  of  a  principal  object  but  the  adding  of  some  outside  adorn- 
ment to  such  an  object.  Though  subordinate,  the  methods  of  decora- 
tion deserve  the  designation  of  "Art;"  since  the  studied  design  and 
elaborate  execution  which  enter  into  higher  plastic  arts  characterize 
them. 

The  objects  legitimate  for  decoration  are  of  two  main  classes; 
beings  possessed  of  life,  and  objects  without  life.  The  principal  being 
demanding  adornment  is  man;  while  also  some  of  the  lower  animals 
employed  by  him  require  an  equipment  which  may  receive  ornamen- 
tation. It  is  a  perversion  of  art  when  lower  animals,  merely  for 
ornament,  and  even  trees  and  plants,  are  tricked  with  fantastic  deco- 
ration. Among  objects  destitute  of  life,  things  formed  by  the  Crea- 
tor's hand  and  works  executed  by  the  skill  of  man,  are  legitimate 
for  ornamentation.  The  adornment  of  rocks,  stumps,  pools  and 
other  larger  works  in  landscape  may  be  repeated  in  miniature  vases 
of  flowers,  baskets  of  creeping  vines,  aquariums,  etc.,  as  a  house 
decoration ;  while  in  man's  work  as  distinct  from  the  Creator's,  there 
is  a  limit  to  the  field  of  decoration. 

As  subsidiary  to  the  higher  arts  the  decorative  arts  hold  important 
relations.  They  propose  the  execution  of  no  entire  work  but  only  the 
framing  of  a  picture  or  the  draping  of  a  statue,  the  fastening  of 
modillions  on  a  cornice  or  the  affixing  of  a  conduit  to  a  fountain. 
Like  sculpture  and  painting,  decorative  art  ministers  to  pleasure  not 
to  utility;  to  man  sculpture  and  painting  have  their  germ  in  decora- 
tive art;  and  with  the  child  and  savage  their  maturest  develope- 
ment  is  mere  decoration.  A  consideration,  therefore,  of  the  Fine 
Arts  cannot  be  complete  without  a  notice  of  the  Decorative  Arts. 

78S 


THE   EXTENDED   FIELD   OF   DECORATIVE   ART.  789 

The  field  covered  by  the  decorative  arts,  as  the  plural  designation 
intimates,  is  of  limitless  extent.  As  human  wants  seem  to  multiply 
with  their  supply,  the  cumbered  lists  of  the  thirteen  following  sec- 
tions must  fail  to  reach  an  exhaustive  catalogue  of  the  departments 
of  this  class  of  art.  Their  extent  is  strikingly  illustrated  by  the 
amount  of  space  given  to  these  arts  by  general  critics  like  Pliny,  and 
by  descriptive  authors  like  Herodotus  in  every  age  and  land;  more 
than  half  the  pages  of  ancient  and  modern  tourists  being  filled  with 
minute  details  of  objects  coming  more  or  less  directly  within  the 
range  of  the  decorative  arts;  while  the  volumes  devoted  to  the 
minute  describing  of  single  technical  arts  are  numberless.  The  re- 
quisites in  a  Text  Book  of  Art  Criticism,  so  far  as  decorative  arts 
are  concerned,  are  limited  to  a  concise  classification  of  the  principal 
wants  of  man  which  have  called  forth  his  skill  in  this  department; 
including  a  reference  to  the  principles  of  design  employed  in  decora- 
tion ;  and  also  adding  a  brief  history  of  their  difiering  methods  em- 
ployed in  different  lands  and  ages  as  well  as  of  the  progress  made  in 
these  arts  by  the  more  cultured  nations  of  mankind. 


CHAPTER    I. 

THE  EXTENDED  FIELD  OF  THE  DECORATIVE  ARTS,  INDICATED  BY 
THE  NUMEROUS  HUMAN  WANTS  TO  BE  SUPPLIED  BY  THEM ;  AND 
THEIR  MULTIFORM  STYLES  REQUIRED  BY  THE  VARIED  MATE- 
RIAL   EMPLOYED    AND   TASTE   EXERCISED. 

It  is  human  wants  that  have  always  called  out  inventive  skill ;  and 
as  it  is  difficult  to  say  that  any  one  man  has  experienced  all  needs,  so 
it  is  hazardous  to  attempt  an  exhaustive  catalogue  of  the  Decorative 
Arts ;  whose  oflftce  it  is  to  minister  to  the  aesthetic  demands  always 
associated  with  human  wants.  The  measure  of  success  in  these  arts 
attained  in  diflEerent  nations  has  depended  on  varied  causes.  Arti- 
sans may  be  restricted  or  aided  by  the  material  employed;  one  having 
soft  wood  which  cannot  preserve  the  nice  lines  of  the  carver,  another 
hard  flint  into  which  he  cannot  cut  the  deep  lines  which  give  char- 
acter to  form,  while  another  is  furnished  with  shell  or  ivory  favorable 
in  both  respects  for  his  work.  Imperfection  of  implements  may  be 
an  obstacle ;  some  nations  knowing  only  stone  or  even  bone  for  their 
edged  tools,  and  even  cultured  nations  of  antiquity  being  limited  to 


790  ART  CRITICISM. 

copper  or  bronze,  while  the  moderns  have  easily  moulded  iron  and 
readily  hardened  steel. 

Designs  in  decorative  art  have  been  drawn  from  three  leading 
sources ;  living  forms  animal  and  vegetable  familiar  to  all  men ;  mathe- 
matical figures  matured  in  the  developement  of  material  resources; 
and  ideal  spiritual  devices  and  symbols  the  suggestion  of  intellectual 
progress.  Taste  has  always  been  divided  between  vegetable  and  animal 
forms  as  designs  in  decoration :  the  ancient  Peruvians  and  Aztecs, 
as  Humboldt  noted,  using  both;  the  Egyptians  having  the  lotus-bud 
and  flower  and  also  the  human  face  as  the  decorative  design  for  the 
capitals  of  their  columns ;  the  Grecian,  Corinthian  and  Ionic  capitals 
being  borrowed  from  the  same  two  fields ;  while  at  this  day  critics  are 
divided  between  arborescent  and  animal  designs  for  special  decora- 
tions. The  former  is  strictly  the  direct  copying  of  the  natural  use  of 
the  real  plant;  as  Virgil  illustrates  in  the  strewing  of  flowers  and 
twining  of  garlands  on  tombs  and  funeral  monuments,  and  in  the 
wreathing  of  circlets  of  palm  and  laurel  upon  helmets  and  on  victors' 
brows.  Very  early  mathematical  figures  composed  of  straight  or 
curved  lines  entered  into  ornamentation;  the  Egyptians  employing 
the  rectangle  and  the  trapezoid,  the  circle  and  the  globe;  the 
Greeks  working  out  the  beauties  of  the  ellipse  and  parabola  and  the 
volute ;  while,  in  later  mosaic  and  heraldic  devices,  forms  became  as 
infinite  as  the  combinations  possible  with  straight  and  curved  lines, 
the  Venetians  of  the  middle  ages  never  copying  a  single  form  in  glass 
vases  which  they  had  before  wrought  and  the  iron-workers  of  Nurem- 
burg  never  using  a  second  time  any  pattern  of  casting  for  architec- 
tural ornamentation.  In  the  third  field  of  design,  the  ideal,  all  na- 
tions have  conspired  to  call  the  artist's  work  a  creation;  since  like 
the  Great  Former  of  all  things  his  work  takes  a  form  existing  as  an 
original  conception  in  his  own  mind  of  which  neither  the  outline  nor 
the  principle  can  be  stated  beforehand  nor  illustrated  after  its  matur- 
ing by  comparison  with  other  existing  forms. 

Sect.  1.  Dress;  its  material  and  form  as  dependent  on  national 
customs  and  individual  taste;  its  artificial  coloring  and  elabo- 
ration by  needle-work. 

Form  and  color  are  the  elements  directing  taste  in  dress ;  and  pre- 
ferences for  one  or  another  of  these  depends  partly  on  the  external  pro- 
vision made  by  the  Creator  in  the  material  furnished  to  man's  hand, 
and  partly  on  habits  of  mind  formed  and  fixed  by  national  customs 
or  individual  idiosyncrasies.     The  work  of  giving  form  and  color  to 


791 


dress  has  from  time  immemorial  been  the  recognized  sphere  of  wo- 
man's taste  and  skill ;  Egyptian  and  Assyrian,  Greek  and  barbarian, 
all  conceding  this  office  to  be  in-door  female  employ ;  while  the  great 
Teacher  mentions  man's  sowing,  reaping  and  gathering  into  barns  to 
furnish  needed  food,  together  with  woman's  spinning  and  sewing  to 
provide  raiment  to  rival  the  lily  in  grace  of  form  and  richness  of 
hue. 

The  first  raiment  was  in  form  a  short  half  skirt  or  pinafore,  its 
color  the  simple  green  of  earth's  carpet ;  its  material  broad  fig-leaves 
stitched  into  form.  How  rapidly  circumstances  may  change  the 
form,  material  and  fashion  of  dress  is  indicated  when  immediately 
we  read  of  "coats"  or  close-fitting  tunics,  of  the  "skins  of  animals" 
made  by  the  Divine  hand  and  hence  retaining  their  color  and 
form ;  this  single  garment  being  the  common  and  sole  dress  of  both 
man  and  woman.  The  earliest  specimens  of  male  and  female  attire 
presented  on  the  monuments  of  Egypt,  as  well  as  present  customs 
among  all  nations,  show  that  this  garment,  the  tunic,  chemise,  shirt 
or  frock,  all  kindred  in  form,  is  the  universal  primitive  dress  for  male 
and  female.  In  later  days  there  came  to  be  thrown  over  this  as  a  tem- 
porary covering  to  ward  off*  cold  or  for  display,  the  robe,  mantle,  shawl 
or  cloak.  The  addition  of  the  closer-fitting  vest,  boddice  and  jacket, 
and  the  trowsers  or  pantaloons,  now  prevailing,  so  that  it  is  the  court- 
dress  even  in  Turkey,  originated  later  in  a  northern  clime  and  in  the 
Arian  or  Japhetic  family.  The  head-dress,  varying  from  the  fur  skull- 
cap of  the  north  to  the  grass  broad-rim  of  the  tropics,  from  the 
plain  kerchief  of  the  Arab  maid  to  the  gorgeous  turban  of  the  Per- 
sian grandee,  and  from  the  simple  fillet  or  hair-band  of  the  Grecian 
Phryne  to  the  gigantic  frills  and  ruffle  of  the  English  Elizabeth,  is 
hardly  susceptible  of  analysis  or  of  historic  tracing.  The  clothing 
for  the  foot  necessarily  conformed  more  than  any  part  of  the  dress  to 
the  form  of  that  part  of  the  body,  has  varied  from  the  mere  sole,  or 
sandal,  covering  the  bottom  of  the  foot  to  the  top-boots  reaching  to 
the  knees. 

The  material  of  dress,  as  we  have  seen  in  the  two  specimens  pro- 
vided for  our  first  parents,  was  not  originally  a  fabric  wrought  by  hu- 
man art ;  but  coatings  already  formed,  as  vegetable  tissues  even  of 
leaves  and  animal  membranes ;  a  material  still  seen  in  the  clothing  of 
the  American  Indians,  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  Pacific  Isles  and  of 
the  South  of  Africa,  who  use  not  only  the  bark  and  leaves  of  trees, 
and  the  skins  of  animals,  but  also  the  thin  but  strong  membranes 
which  line  the  interior  cavity  of  the  bodies  of  animals.     At  a  very 


792 


ART  CRITICISM. 


early  day,  however,  the  idea  of  spinning  the  short  fibre  of  wool  and 
soft  hair,  an  animal  provision,  then  of  vegetable  fibre,  such  as 
linen  from  hemp,  cotton  used  at  a  very  early  period  as  Herodotus 
assures  us  in  India,  and  finally  of  silk,  a  prolonged  thread,  the  pro- 
duct of  insect  formation  from  vegetable  aliment,  came  to  displace 
the  simpler  fabrics.  The  advance  of  the  art  of  spinning  from  the 
simple  spindle  with  its  circular  guard  to  the  common  spinning  wheel 
and  then  to  the  most  perfect  spinning  jenny  of  modern  times,  also 
the  parallel  advance  of  a  weaving  apparatus  from  the  two  straight 
beams  set  upon  posts,  between  which  the  warp  was  originally  stretched, 
up  through  the  common  hand-loom  to  the  wondrous  machinery  of  the 
modern  cloth  factory,  are  among  the  most  interesting  of  studies. 

As  to  the  form  of  dress  most  appropriate,  utility  and  taste  have 
both  had  a  voice ;  and  the  amount  of  time  devoted  to  this  subject,  by 
at  least  one  of  the  sexes  in  so  many  ages  and  lands,  ought,  it  would 
seem,  to  have  developed  some  consistent  philosophy.  True  taste 
would  doubtless  say,  '  since  the  human  form  is  the  most  perfect  work 
of  the  Creator,  that  is  the  true  ideal  of  dress  which  sets  off  that  form 
to  the  best  advantage.'  Utility,  however,  puts  in  her  claim  for  a 
loose  attire  hanging  distant  from  the  person ;  and  other  demands,  es- 
pecially of  woman's  nature,  have  called  for  even  widely  expanded 
robes.  In  general,  the  former  principle  has  been  allowed  control  in 
the  dress  of  youth  ;  and  utility  has  joined  with  taste  in  continuing 
the  close  fitting  dress  as  best  for  men  engaged  in  manual  employ, 
reserving,  however,  for  the'student,  the  divine,  the  judge,  or  the  king 
the  flowing  robe.  To  the  demand  of  courtly  elegance  for  lengthened 
veils  and  skirts  that  "  swept  the  ground,"  Homer  refers  in  alluding 
to  Priam's  queen  and  her  attendant.  The  striking  peculiarity  sepa- 
rating Asiatic  from  European  taste  in  dress,  is  the  love  for  ancient 
forms  as  contrasted  with  the  restless  craving  for  change  under  the 
idea  of  reform  ;  more  marked  perhaps  in  the  decorative  than  in  the 
higher  arts.  To  this  Herodotus  alludes ;  mentioning  the  changing 
dress  of  the  Greek  women,  originally  the  plain  Dorian,  then  divided 
like  the  orders  of  columnar  architecture,  into  Dorian,  Ionian  and 
Corinthian. 

The  color  of  dress  is  subordinate  to  material,  and  to  form.  When 
dress  was  made  of  naturally  furnished  material,  vegetable  and  ani- 
mal, the  color  was  already  fixed ;  as  in  the  fur  of  the  lion  or  bear. 
The  inner  side  of  skins  however,  and  the  inner  membranes  of  animal 
forms  used  for  clothing,  has  naturally  been  colored ;  as  is  seen  in  the 
buffalo  robes  of  the  American  Indian,  and  in  the  fish-skin  tunics 


PROGRESS   IN    DYE   AND   INTERWEAVING   COLORS.  793 

of  the  Sandwich  Islanders.  That  this  was  an  early  suggestion  is  in- 
timated in  the  "badger's  and  ram's  skins  dyed  red"  used  by  the  He- 
brews at  Sinai,  and  by  the  mummy  wrappings  still  found  in  Egypt. 
A  vivid  idea  of  the  extent  to  which  this  art  was  carried  in  the  early 
history  of  the  Egyptian  and  Hebrew  people,  may  be  gained  by  trac- 
ing the  use  of  the  words  "red,  blue,  scarlet,  crimson,  purple"  in  the 
Old  Testament  Scriptures.  When  woven  fabrics  came  into  use  for 
clothing,  dyeing  became  a  necessity  of  the  rudest  taste ;  and  the  rich 
dyes  constantly  met  in  the  remains  of  ancient  Egypt,  and  the  re- 
iterated mention  of  the  "Tyrian  purple"  and  other  favorite  colors 
show  how  much  human  nature  demanded  in  this  respect.  The  col- 
ors first  given  to  woven  fabrics  were  tinctures  giving  the  same  hue 
to  every  part.  Dyeing  was  improved,  when,  as  Aristotle  and  Pliny 
indicate,  a  cloth  dyed  dove-color  was  made  to  take  another  hue,  as  when 
"  purple  "  w^as  added  to  a  "  dark  rose ;"  and  it  reached  its  highest  ad- 
vance through  modern  chemistry  in  the  colors  called  "changeable" 
and  "invisible."  The  next  stage  was  the  interweaving  of  thread 
previously  dyed  of  varied  colors,  forming  a  checkered  work  of  plain 
square  figures,  the  "plaid"  or  partitioned  work  of  modern  times;  a 
method  known  in  the  patriarchal  age,  as  it  is  now  to  the  Arab  of  the 
Desert,  since  Jacob  bought  "  a  coat  of  many  colors  "  for  his  favorite 
son.  It  was  an  advanced  developement  of  taste  when  figures  began 
to  be  wrought  into  the  texture  of  the  woven  fabric ;  or  when  decora- 
tion in  dress  assumed  the  character  of  the  higher  arts. 

This  higher  art,  akin  to  drawing  and  painting,  wrought  at  first  by 
the  needle,  seems  to  have  been  the  copying  of  a  pattern  furnished 
by  an  artist.  In  the  scenes  of  Helen  meeting  her  mother-in-law  and 
of  Andromache  with  Hector  pictured  by  Homer,  the  high-born 
dames  of  Greece  and  Troy  are  not  disgraced  by  familiarity  with  the 
distaff  and  the  loom,  since  these  are  dignified  by  superior  skill  in 
embroidery  with  the  needle.  This  needle-work  alluded  to  by  both 
Homer  and  Virgil  as  a  Trojan,  Sidonian  and  Carthaginian  female 
art,  was  succeeded  by  the  higher  mechanical  work  of  inwoven 
figures.  To  these  Homer  makes  Hector  allude  when  he  dreads  for 
Andromache  the  double  shame  of  toiling  as  a  slave  at  an  "Argive 
loom"  and  as  a  captive  weaving  in  designs  of  Troy's  Fall.  Hero- 
dotus, too,  describes  a  corslet  of  Amasis  king  of  Egypt  of  linen  with 
figures  of  animals  interwoven  with  gold  thread.  This  higher  art 
had  its  stages  of  advance,  as  Pliny  has  recorded ;  who  mentions  first 
the  invention  of  spinning  and  weaving  wool ;  then  that  in  the  mak- 
er 4Z 


794  ART   CRITICISM. 

ing  of  tunics  from  its  cloth,  the  Phrygians  invented  fine  needle- 
work, that  Attalus  "  introduced,"  the  working  of  gold  thread,  and 
the  Babylonians  the  adorning  of  garments  with  various  colors;"^ 
and  that  as  the  final  step  in  the  perfected  art,  Alexandria  originated 
the  method  of  weaving  in  bars  of  colored  thread  laid  into  the  warp, 
while  Gaul  divided  up  the  web  into  diamond-shaped  checks.  The 
gorgeous  shawl  weavers  of  modern  times  have  of  course  the  advan- 
tage of  the  skill  of  the  past  and  the  science  of  the  present  day. 

Sect.  2.  Personal    Ornaments  ;    their    classes    as    rings,    bracelets, 

ANKLETS,  breast-pins,  LOCKETS,  WATCHES;  THEIR  MATERIAL  AS  SHELL, 
WOOD,  IVORY,  GOLD  AND  PRECIOUS  STONES;  AND  THEIR  WORKMANoHIP 
AS  CARVED,   WROUGHT,   POLISHED  AND  ENGRAVED. 

The  dress  of  mankind  is  necessary  as  a  covering,  utility  being  its 
chief  end ;  but  ornament  is  almost  universally  sought  as  a  secondary 
aim  even  by  the  poor  in  their  holiday  attire.  Men  wear  but  few  orna- 
ments ;  and  these  generally,  as  seen  in  the  signet  ring,  are  for  some  use- 
ful purpose.  Among  women,  ornament  is  so  completely  the  end  that 
even  the  breast-pin  and  the  watch  designed  to  be  useful  attachments 
are  pure  superfluities.  The  high  place  in  the  realm  of  art  occupied 
by  personal  ornament  is  seen  in  the  fact  that  engraving  on  precious 
stones  was  in  the  best  days  of  Greece  and  Kome  reckoned  with  sculp- 
ture and  painting ;  while  in  the  whole  history  of  art,  this  department 
of  decoration  has  called  out  some  of  the  truest  genius  and  led  it 
into  the  walks  of  those  two  highest  of  the  arts. 

The  portions  of  the  person  adorned  by  special  ornaments  are  four 
features  of  the  head,  two  of  the  neck,  two  of  the  trunk,  three  of  the 
upper  and  one  of  the  lower  extremities.  The  forehead  may  be  decked 
with  simple  wreaths  of  leaves  and  flowers,  as  in  childhood;  with  a 
fringe  of  teeth  and  shell  and  a  crown  of  feathers  wrought  by  savage 
hands ;  with  the  turban  and  its  projecting  horn  worn  in  Western 
Asia;  with  the  fillet  of  the  Greek  maiden  and  its  droplets  of  jew- 
elry ;  or  with  the  Roman  crown  adopted  by  European  Sovereigns.  The 
eyes,  which  are  beauty  itself  without  ornamenting,  the  rude  Arab 
seeks  to  adorn  by  tinging  the  inside  of  the  lids  with  a  black  vege- 
table pigment  called  "kohl,"  used  from  the  earliest  times  among 
them ;  while  the  eye-glasses  of  modern  days  are  usually  but  a  species 
of  ornament.  The  ear,  in  ruder  and  even  in  refined  ages,  has  offered 
its  muscular  pendant  beneath  the  cartilage  as  an  inviting  point  for 


See  this  mention  Ezekiel  xxiii.  15. 


ORNAMENTS;   THEIR   CLASSES   AND   MATERIAL.  795 

dangling  ornaments ;  while  in  ages  and  among  tribes  yet  ruder  the 
wings  of  the  nose  have  been  deemed  a  fit  curtain  whose  pierced  sides 
should  be  fringed  with  kindred  pendants.  The  necklace,  in  all 
ages  and  lands,  a  natural  and  favorite  ornament,  was  in  Egypt  used 
in  royal  decoration  for  the  suspension  of  a  kingly  signet,.^  and  as  a 
funereal  bond  to  support  the  images  of  the  gods  presiding  over  the 
dead;  retained  still  as  a  female  ornament  especially  fitted  for  child- 
hood, or  as  a  support  for  other  ornaments  still  common  to  man  and 
woman.  The  breast-plate,  richly  illustrated  in  that  of  the  Jewish 
high-priest,  the  girdle  about  the  loins,  a  favorite  token  of  exchange 
between  Grecian  and  Trojan  heroes,  are  still  retained  as  decorative 
apparel.  The  upper  arm  of  woman  was  anciently  girdled  with  bands 
or  bracelets,  still  illustrated  in  the  military  and  civic  mourning 
badge ;  the  wrist  was  encircled  by  a  plain  bracelet  or  an  ornamented 
band  with  droplets ;  and  the  fingers  were  heaped  with  a  profusion  of 
rings.  An  early  but  obsolete  ornament  except  among  savages  was 
the  anklet  for  bare  or  sandaled  feet,  still  retained  in  the  fringes  for 
boot-tops ;  with  which  Eastern  damsels  of  old  "  made  a  tinkling  as 
they  went."^ 

As  material  for  personal  ornament  shell  among  tribes  near  the  sea, 
in  the  interior  the  teeth,  claws  and  bones  of  wild  animals  and  birds, 
and  among  savages  human  teeth  and  bones  have  been  common.  The 
richest  of  calcareous  material  is  the  pearl,  a  coating  formed  by  the 
mollusk  over  a  grain  of  sharp  quartz  sand  that  by  accident  has  been 
washed  into  the  shell ;  the  mother  of  pearl,  so  called  because  it  is  of 
the  same  material  with  the  pearl  and  similarly  formed ;  and  especially 
the  ivory  tooth  of  the  larger  tenants  of  the  dry  land  and  of  the  sea, 
as  of  the  elephant  and  whale,  worthy  of  Solomon's  throne  and  of  Phi- 
dias' Minerva.  The  metals,  especially  silver,  have  been  wrought  into 
settings  and  embossed  work,  for  rings  and  pendants.  Finally  the 
gems  to  be  set  have  in  all  ages  been  stones  of  hard  texture  and  rich 
colors,  ground  and  polished  by  the  lapidary,  and  engraved  with  some 
motto  or  device ;  or  they  have  been  the  crystal  diamond,  cut  and  split 
in  its  cleavages  to  regular  faces,  reflecting  in  condensed  and  brilliant 
beams  the  light  caught  and  caged  by  refraction  within  its  mass  ex- 
cept at  the  rarely  presented  angle  where  the  whole  focal  condensation 
issues  in*  one  stream  from  the  moving  wearer  to  the  eye  of  individual 
beholders.  The  highest  triumph  of  ancient  art  was  reached  when 
Grecian  engravers  cut  Alexander  the  Great's  image  on  precious  stone 


See  Genesis.  *  See  Isaiah  iii.  16,  18. 


79t)  ART   CRITICISM. 

in    a   manner   to   rival   the   chisel   of  Lycippus  and  the  brush  of 
Apelles. 

Sect.  3.    Implements    of  Business    and    Household    Utensils;    their 
forms  and  material  as  of  wood,  iron,  clay,  porcelain  and  glass. 

In  hours  of  leisure,  man  and  woman  indulge  in  personal  ornament; 
but  since  the  first  man  and  woman  were  employed  together  in  the 
garden  of  Paradise,  to  "  dress  and  keep  it, "  labor  has  been  the  con- 
stant occupation  of  our  race ;  and  implements  for  man's  out-door  and 
utensils  for  woman's  in-door  employ  have  been  demanded.  What 
these  were  in  man's  primitive  condition,  when  the  trees  of  the  primi- 
tive garden  were  to  be  trimmed  and  raiment  of  leaves  and  of  skins 
to  be  wrought,  we  have  no  means  of  knowing ;  yet  implements  were 
needed  when  Cain  tilled  the  soil,  and  when  the  flesh  of  the  slaugh- 
tered lamb  was  to  be  cooked  as  food.  How  rude  and  simple  these 
may  be  to  meet  the  positive  necessities  of  human  nature,  may  be  il- 
lustrated by  a  glance  into  the  male  and  female  apartments  of  an 
Arab's  tent  or  of  an  American  Indian's  wigwam,  or  by  a  look  over  an 
army  bivouac ;  all  the  implements  of  the  Arab's  employ  after  thou- 
sands of  years  without  change  being  the  saddles  and  halters  of  his 
burden  camels,  and  all  the  utensils  of  his  wife  her  spindle,  a  sin- 
gle earthen  pot,  a  wooden  bowl  and  a  metal  plate  for  cooking. 

The  material  of  ordinary  implements  has  been  chiefly  controlled 
by  the  use  to  which  they  are  put.  In  the  soft  soil  of  Egypt  without 
stones  or  roots,  the  plough  has  al\vays  been  of  wood,  usually  only  a 
rough  limb  of  a  tree  with  a  strong  knot  for  the  share;  but  the  rocky 
valley  of  Syria  and  the  tough  grass  sward  of  Northern  Europe  has 
always  required  a  metal  tip  to  the  share,  if  not  a  coulter  of  the  same 
hard  metal.  The  Indian's  hatchet  is  of  the  hardest  flint  or  quartz ; 
but  civilization  introduced  bronze,  and  afterwards  iron  for  cutting 
instruments.  Bowls  and  spoons  are  still  made  of  wood  among  rude 
tribes,  but  advancing  society  leads  to  earthen  or  silver.  The  cook- 
ing pots  and  pans  of  the  Hottentot,  of  earthen  and  of  coarse  metal, 
can  only  be  improved  in  form  without  change  of  material.  In  this 
respect  the  implements  of  man  have  changed  far  less  than  the  uten- 
sils of  woman's  sphere.  The  tools  of  the  faianer,  of  the  carpenter 
working  in  wood,  of  the  smith  in  metal,  and  of  the  potter  in  clay, 
have  undergone  little  change  in  their  material  or  even  their  form 
from  the  earliest  times ;  for,  since  utility  was  their  main  end,  it  sought 
at  first  the  material  best  fitted  for  its  varied  purposes.  The  utensils 
for  the  household,  especially  table  furniture,  have  witnessed  an  effort 


house-furniture;  its  uses  and  styles.  797 

of  art  to  improve  in  material  most  marked  in  the  advance  of  man- 
kind. This  will  be  especially  noted  in  the  perfection  in  glass  at- 
tained by  the  Egyptians;  in  porcelain,  of  whose  manufacture  the 
Chinese  still  remain  unrivalled  masters;  and  in  earthenware  for 
whose  exquisiteness  of  finish  the  ancient  Etruscans  have  been  a 
permanent  wonder  to  the  world. 

The  forms  of  implements  and  utensils,  originating  partly  with  the 
aim  to  secure  beauty,  mark  more  decidedly  in  their  changes  the  ad- 
vance of  art.  The  enterprising  farmer,  surveys  with  delighted  eye 
the  graceful  curve  of  his  new  plough  of  improved  pattern,  and  is  as 
eloquent  upon  its  beauty  as  an  amateur  in  painting  before  the  Trans- 
figuration of  Raphael.  In  hatchets,  knives,  reaping-hooks,  and  other 
like  implements,  artizans  have  been  as  ambitious  for  improved  forms 
as  for  improved  workmanship  or  material,  though  beauty  alone  is  the 
aim  of  the  former  and  utility  of  the  latter  attainment.  In  the  house- 
hold utensils  alluded  to,  the  table  ornaments  of  glass,  of  porcelain 
and  earthenware,  the  full  glory  of  art  in  form  has  lavished  itself. 
The  exquisite  curve  of  the  Etruscan  vase  modelled  as  we  have  seen 
after  the  slope  and  bulge  of  the  human  form,  the  luscious  thinness 
of  the  translucent  Chinese  porcelain  cup  seeming  like  the  tender  pulp 
of  a  fully  ripe  fruit  ready  to  melt  in  the  mouth,  the  variety  of  tracery 
in  Venetian  glass  vessels  which  never  allowed  a  repetition  of  the  same 
form  however  graceful,  these  are  gems  of  decorative  art  worthy  to 
give  to  the  artizan  a  place  among  the  first  of  artists. 

Sect.  4.  House  Furniture  ;  its  uses  for  convenience  and  decoration  ; 
ITS  material  as  wood,  iron,  marble;  and  its  varied  styles  in 
different  ages  and  climes. 

During  the  interims  of  toil,  man  seeks  rest  at  his  home ;  and  wo- 
man is  always  there  even  in  her  toil.  The  house  must  be  furnished 
to  meet  man's  wants ;  and  these  are  varied.  The  hall  is  the  reposi- 
tory for  out-door  raiment,  and  needs  its  hooks  and  racks ;  the  saloon 
is  for  ordinary  rest  during  the  day,  and  requires  convenient  seats ; 
the  parlor  is  for  the  reception  of  special  guests,  and  demands  ele- 
gance in  sofas  and  lounges ;  the  dining-room  is  for  eating,  and  its 
seats  and  tables  must  be  fitted  for  their  offices ;  the  sleeping  chamber 
is  the  place  for  night  repose,  and  its  beds  for  rest,  its  bureau  and 
wardrobe  for  raiment,  its  light-stand,  wash-stand,  and  other  conve- 
niences, are  a  peculiar  demand.  The  furniture  of  any  single  man- 
sion, though  it  be  the  humblest  cottage,  is  a  study  for  man's  mechani- 
cal skill,  and  it  always  calls  forth  his  taste  in  art. 
C7  * 


798  ART   CRITICISM. 

In  the  rudest  and  earliest  periods  of  man's  history  these  demands 
were  realized.  In  Eden  the  grass  turf  might  have  been  a  sufficient 
seat  by  day  and  couch  by  night.  In  Egypt's  early  history,  however, 
as  seen  for  instance  in  the  life  of  Joseph,  the  bed-chamber  was  pro- 
vided and  the  banqueting  hall  furnished  as  in  later  ages.  In  Homer 
we  read  of  Agamemnon's  "gilded  throne,"  of  Juno's  " golden  couch," 
of  Helen's  "  loom  "  and  of  Hecuba's  "  odoriferous  wardrobe."  There 
is  not  an  age  in  the  chronicles  of  man's  existence,  nor  a  land  of  his 
abode  now  visited,  where  substantially  the  same  wants  as  to  household 
furniture  are  not  met,  and  where  art  does  not  seek  to  give  beauty  to 
articles  designed  to  meet  this  demand. 

In  no  department  more  than  this  did  Asiatic  taste  show  its  luxuri- 
ant richness.  The  walls  of  Egyptian  tombs,  whose  sculptures  aud 
paintings  were  designed  as  pictures  to  enable  the  spirits  of  the  dead 
there  enclosed  to  dwell  still  amid  all  the  provisions  enjoyed  by  the 
living,  indicate  that  Egyptian  artists  excelled  preeminently  in  de- 
signs for  household  furniture ;  for,  beyond  all  the  extravagance  of 
modern  French  and  American  taste,  the  unnumbered  variety  and 
unsurpassed  gorgeousness  of  these  ancient  patterns  is  one  of  the 
richest  studies  the  world  furnishes.  The  records  of  Hebrew  history, 
when  Egyptian  artists  designed  the  furniture  of  Moses'  tabernacle 
and  of  Solomon's  palace,  agree  in  their  testimony  with  the  Egyptian 
monuments.  The  same  richness  characterizes  the  taste  of  modern 
Asia ;  as  seen  in  the  gorgeous  divans  of  a  Turkish  saloon.  The  more 
chastened  taste  of  Europe  is,  however,  as  varied  as  the  spirit  of  the 
people.  The  light  open  ozier  or  willow  sedan  and  lounge  of  the 
more  Southern,  running  into  the  close  cloth-covered  chair  and  sofa 
of  Central,  and  the  dark  oak-framed  hair-cloth  seat  of  Northern 
Europe  is  the  suggestion  of  utility ;  but  taste  determines  the  myriad 
fancies  of  French  furniture  as  compared  with  English. 

Color  as  well  as  form  influences  the  ornamentation  of  furniture. 
The  exquisitely  rounded  hillock,  carpeted  with  rich  green,  is  the 
beau-ideal  of  a  primitive  seat  or  lounge;  both  the  form  and  color  of 
the  sylvan  resting-place  giving  its  charm.  The  Asiatics  heightened 
the  graceful  curves  of  the  arms,  backs  and  legs  of  ottomans  by  the 
contrast  of  blue  and  yellow  housings  which  cover  them.  The  Greeks, 
as  pictured  by  Homer  and  Virgil,  seem  to  have  borrowed  their  no- 
tions in  this  art  from  Asia  and  to  have  allowed  the  land  of  luxury 
to  rule  in  this  her  appropriate  sphere.  The  study  of  color  as  well  as 
of  form  in  modern  furniture  absorbs  genius  worthy  of  high  art. 


ARCHITECTURAL  ORNAMENTS,  EXTERIOR  AND  INTERIOR.    799 


Sect.  5.  Wall  decorations  and  architectural  ornament  ;  tapestried, 
paneled,  frescoed  and  papered  walls ;  carved  stuccoed  and  painted 

borders;   paneled,  carved  and  CAST  DOORS,  WINDOW-FRAMES  AND  BAL- 
CONY-RATLINGS. 

In  architecture  the  decorative  are  brought  into  most  intimate 
association  with  the  higher  arts.  Beside  the  furniture,  separate  from 
the  mansion,  there  are  portions  of  the  interior,  which  demand  special 
adornment.  The  doors  for  entrance  and  exit  and  their  border  cas- 
ings, the  lintel  above  the  side-posts  and  even  the  threshold,  the  win- 
dows with  their  sashes,  transoms  and  casements  designed  to  admit 
light,  and  the  fire-place  projecting  from  the  chimney-wall  with  their 
jambs  and  mantle,  all  claim  not  only  the  negative  attraction  of  true 
proportion  but  the  added  charm  of  artistic  decoration.  The  cappings 
of  the  windows  and  the  entablature  of  the  door-porch,  the  border 
separating  the  ceiling  from  the  side-walls  belong  to  architectural 
design ;  while  the  carving  of  the  door-panels  and  the  moulding  of  the 
stucco-cornice  and  the  ornamented  centre  in  the  ceiling  are  so  directly 
connected  with  the  first  lessons  in  sculpture  that  genius  for  the  higher 
art  has  often  been  brought  out  during  apprenticeship  to  the  lower. 
Still  more,  in  the  progress  of  architecture  and  sculpture,  as  is  illus- 
trated in  the  ages  of  Phidias  and  of  Giotto,  the  blank  wall  itself 
seems  to  cry  for  the  hand  of  art  to  adorn  it;  and  the  whole  blank 
space  becomes  a  broad  tablet  for  the  painter  to  whose  work  the  cor- 
nice is  but  a  frame  setting. 

The  adornment  given  to  interior  walls  has  partaken  of  three  char- 
acters according  to  the  material  employed  for  decoration.  Interior 
partitions  have  naturally  been  constructed  of  two  kinds  of  material 
as  a  ground-work ;  wood,  and  plaster  made  from  lime.  Undecorated, 
these  are  the  common  plain  board  wainscoting  and  the  simple  white- 
washed plaster.  The  first  stage  of  adornment  for  the  former  mate- 
rial is  the  panelled  wainscoting  so  favorite  in  ages  past  in  England ; 
and  for  the  latter  the  figured  and  colored  paper  so  common  in 
modern  house-building.  The  highest  stage  of  decoration  for  a  plas- 
tered wall  known  in  ancient  or  modern  times  is  fresco;  already 
described  as  one  of  the  most  important  and  coveted  fields  of  paint- 
ing. The  richest  of  all  wall  decorations  are  the  hangings  called 
tapestry ;  woven  as  a  curtain  and  inwrought  with  scenes  worthy  both 
in  design  and  execution  of  the  skill  of  the  ablest  historical  painter ; 
an  art  so  costly  in  its  material,  and  in  the  time  required  and  the 
talent  demanded  for  its  execution,  that  the  combined  patronage  of  all 


800  ART   CRITICISM. 

the  sovereigns  of  Europe  can  only  sustain  one  such  manufactory  in 
the  world. 

The  department  of  art  here  considered  includes  interior  cornices, 
doors  and  windows  with  their  borders,  and  balconies  with  their  rail- 
ings. The  more  common  cornice  is  of  stucco,  or  plaster,  pressed  into 
moulds  with  foliated  designs;  but  heavy  wood  carving  may  be  made 
to  furnish  a  more  substantial  and  richer  ornament ;  or  a  paper  border 
skilfully  shaded  may  be  made  to  give  the  relief  of  a  real  projection. 
Anciently  doors  were  made  of  massive  stone  or  of  almost  equally 
massive  wood ;  but  in  modern  times  bronze  is  made  to  rival  the  old 
oak  carvings;  while  no  works  of  sculpture  are  more  admired  than 
bronze  doors  such  as  those  of  Ghiberti  in  the  Baptistery  of  the  Flo- 
rentine Cathedral.  Window-frames  have  usually  been  finished  with 
plain  rectangular  mouldings  cut  with  the  plane  in  wood;  but  the 
more  decorated  styles  of  Gothic  have  demanded  richly  figured 
tracery-work  in  metal  thrown  upon  the  glass ;  while  the  history  of 
the  art  of  painting  upon  or  rather  in  glass  is  a  monument  of  skill  in 
decorative  art.  Even  balcony-railings,  originally  mere  rods  of  wood 
or  metal,  passed  through  epochs  of  improving  art;  which  became 
among  the  Romans  and  succeeding  Saracens  short  stout  columns  as 
complete  in  all  their  parts  as  those  of  a  portico;  while  in  modern 
times,  cast  of  iron  or  bronze,  they  present  every  form  of  design  geo- 
metric and  arborescent,  reptiles  and  birds,  squirrels  and  cherubs. 

Sect.  6.  Traveling  Equipage  ;  its  forms  as  bridles,  saddles,  harness, 
carriages  ;  its  styles  adapted  to  different  burden  animals  as  the 

horse,  the  CAMEL,  THE  ELEPHANT  ;  AND  TO  DIFFERENT  REGIONS  AS  PLAINS 
AND  DESERTS,  HILLY  AND  MOUNTAINOUS  COUNTRIES. 

As  a  moving  being,  not  always  at  home,  the  want  of  traveling 
equipage  is  peculiar  to  man.  For  this  the  power  of  living  animals 
and  mechanical  force  has  been  employed.  The  animals  selected  for 
this  purpose  have  been  chosen  with  reference  to  the  two  requisites  of 
strength  and  speed ;  the  former  predominating  in  the  ox,  the  camel 
and  .the  elephant ;  the  latter  in  the  horse  and  the  dromedary.  The 
decorative  arts  have  sought  to  provide  an  ornamental  equipage  for 
animals  thus  used ;  this  provision  being  for  two  purposes,  the  guiding 
and  controlling  of  the  animal  employed,  and  the  comfortable  carriage 
of  the  rider.  The  means  of  carriage  have  always  been  of  two 
classes ;  the  back  of  the  animal,  and  a  separate  vehicle  drawn  after 
him.  The  former  is  the  primitive  and  natural  mode  of  conveyance; 
it  is  resorted  to  in  movements  through  a  new  country  or  off  high- 


TRAVELING    EQUIPAGE;   TRAPPINGS   AND    VEHICLES.        801 

roads,  as  in  war;  and  by  force  of  circumstances  it  may  be  adhered  to 
as  in  Western  Asia  where  scarcely  any  person  except  superior  officers 
are  ever  seen  in  a  carriage. 

The  horse  is  the  noblest  and  most  favorite  animal ;  and  has  been 
employed  in  every  age  and  land  for  his  strength  and  swiftness  as  well 
as  for  grace  of  movement  and  beauty  of  form  and  color.  In  Egypt 
he  was  trained  to  draft,  not  to  the  saddle;  and  on  the  Egyptian 
monuments  he  is  seen  constantly  bound  to  the  low  open  chariot  used 
by  overseers  in  visiting  the  wheat-fields  and  in  the  stern  shock  of 
war;  while  he  is  guided  by  a  bridle  and  bit  much  like  those  of 
modern  times.  The  Greeks  early  employed  cavalry  instead  of  cha- 
riots in  war,  and  a  rude  style  of  saddle  grew  up  so  simple  that  the 
rider  and  horse  seemed  so  truly  one  that  the  fable  of  the  centaurs  be- 
came rife;  a  fable  felt  to  be  real  in  the  Indians  of  the  American 
prairie  who  cling  to  their  horse  and  guide  him  at  will  without  saddle 
or  bridle.  Among  the  Persians  the  trappings  of  the  horse,  the  hous- 
ings of  the  saddles  and  their  heavy  stirrups,  the  breast-plates 
martingale  and  tasselled  head-stall,  became  excessive  in  profusion. 
In  the  progress  of  art  the  form  of  the  saddle,  substantially  the  same, 
has  greatly  varied  in  the  prominence  of  its  pommels,  from  the  high 
rim  of  the  Mexican  which  makes  the  seat  secure  and  easy  as  a  cradle, 
to  the  low  front  of  the  English  saddle  which  gives  to  the  inexperi- 
enced rider  the  sensation  of  insecurity.  In  the  vehicles  drawn  by 
horses  the  changes  wrought  by  time  are  more  marked.  This  is  espe- 
cially impressed  on  the  traveler  as  he  tracks  the  narrow  ruts  in  the 
streets  of  the  old  city  of  Pompeii,  or  marks  them  on  the  old  Eoman 
road,  in  Syria,  as  he  stands  beside  the  relics  of  Roman  chariots  still 
preserved  in  the  museums  of  Naples,  or  scans  the  bas-reliefs  on  the 
walls  of  the  Parthenon  or  the  sculptures  in  the  Egyptian  tombs. 
Those  narrow,  low,  jolting  cars,  scarcely  larger  than  the  child's 
wagon,  on  which  the  ancient  warrior  stood  unsupported  as  his  horses, 
sometimes  four  abreast,  dashed  furiously  to  the  fight,  seem  to  have 
belonged  to  another  race  of  beings  than  those  who  now  loll  in  easy 
chariots,  in  wide  barouches  and  in  long  and  lumbering  stage- 
coaches. 

Scarcely  any  other  animal  of  speed  than  the  horse  has  ever  been 
trained  to  draft.  The  camel  with  his  plain,  strong  wooden  saddle, 
guided  by  a  slender  halter,  never  was  made  to  go  on  roads  cut  in  soft 
soil  but,  as  the  entire  absence  of  representations  of  him  on  the  mon- 
uments of  Egypt  indicate,  he  belongs  only  to  the  sandy  desert,  up  to 
whose  limits  he  comes  like  a  ship  to  the  shore  to  receive  his  lading, 

5  A 


802  ART   CRITICISM. 

•and  then  to  bear  it  for  weeks  over  the  ocean  of  sand.  He  has  seldom 
been  harnessed  for  draft;  but  from  the  earliest  ages  his  neck  has 
been  decked  with  costly  ornaments.^  The  elephant,  often  employed 
in  southern  India  for  the  transportation  of  timber  and  other  bulky 
material,  without  trappings  and  guided  by  his  keeper's  stick,  is  some- 
times also  richly  caparisoned,  bearing  on  his  back  a  howdah  capable 
of  carrying  several  persons;  while  his  breast,  short  neck  and  vast 
ears  are  tricked  with  ribbons  and  gewgaws.  The  little  donkey,  hardy 
and  easily  supported  on  the  coarsest  food,  the  poor  man's  treasure  in 
Egypt  and  Syria,  the  mule,  a  pack  animal  hardy  and  strong  under 
the  saddle  or  for  draft,  and  the  lama,  a  species  of  camel  formed  for 
the  mountain  regions  of  South  America,  all  humble  in  their  sphere, 
are  little  subject  to  decoration ;  though  David's  mule  bore  Solomon 
at  his  coronation,  and  an  ass'  colt,  decked  by  the  people,  carried  the 
King  of  kings  as  he  rode  in  majesty  into  the  city  of  Jerusalem.  The 
varying  forms  of  traveling  equipage,  seen  amid  mountains  and  plains 
on  different  continents,  everywhere  showing  skill  in  design,  are  a 
theme  of  interesting  study  to  the  observing  tourist. 

Sect.  7.  Book  Illustrations  ;  designed  to  meet  an  intellectual  want  ; 
illuminated  and   ornamental  letters  to  adorn,   and  engraved 

pictures  to   EXPLAIN   THE   TEXT. 

The  wants  heretofore  considered  as  met  by  decorative  art,  are  those 
of  the  physical  rather  than  of  the  intellectual  nature.  The  written 
page  of  the  manuscript  and  the  printed  page  of  the  book  feed  the 
mind  with  thought ;  sentiment  being  commended  by  the  charms  of 
the  most  spiritual  of  the  fine  arts.  Poetry,  which  includes  rhetoric 
and  oratoric  expression.  This  appeal  directly  to  the  mind,  art  has 
sought  to  aid  by  pictures  speaking  to  the  eye. 

Rude  savages  without  an  alphabet,  have  sought  to  address  the  ab- 
sent ear  through  the  eye,  by  rude  pictures  representing  only  things 
and  symbols  of  things,  but  not  ideas  or  connections  of  thought.  Af- 
ter the  maturing  of  written  language,  artifice,  as  among  the  Egyp- 
tian priests,  suggested  the  hiding  of  their  esoteric  doctrines  under  the 
veil  of  mystery  which  always  has  a  charm  for  the  educated,  and  ex- 
erts a  power  with  the  ignorant ;  and  picture-writing,  in  characters 
called  hieroglyphics,  or  sacred  carvings,  were  invented.  These  pic- 
tures, works  in  themselves  of  decorative  art,  belonged  to  three  classes 
so  far  as  signification  was  concerned  ;  one  strictly  pictorial,  a  cres- 


Judg.  viii.  21,  26. 


BOOK  DECORATION;  LIMNING,  ILLUMINATING,  ENGRAVING.    803 

cent,  for  example,  representing  the  object  itself,  the  moon;  another 
symbolic,  a  crescent,  or  new  moon,  suggesting  the  idea  of  a  month ; 
and  a  third  phonetic,  or  alphabetic,  necessarily  used  in  present- 
ing proper  names,  consisting  of  a  group  of  objects  clustered  in 
an  oval,  whose  first  letters  combined  in  their  order  spelled  the  proper 
name.  It  was  quite  a  distinct  idea,  however  in  decorative  art  when 
to  indicate  more  vividly  the  transition  of  chapters  or  paragraphs  the 
initial  letters  were  enlarged  in  size,  elaborated  in  form  and  decorated 
with  striking  colors. 

The  art  of  decorated  lettering  is  really  seen  on  the  monuments  of 
Egypt,  in  the  hieroglyphic  tablets ;  though  more  fully  exhibited  on 
the  papyrus  rolls  written  in  the  ancient  Coptic  tongue,  whose 
existence  must  have  preceded  that  of  the  picture-writing,  one  of 
whose  principles  presupposed  an  -alphabetic  system.  In  the  innu- 
merable hieroglyphic  inscriptions  on  the  walls  of  temples  and  of 
other  monuments,  paragraphs  commence  with  greatly  enlarged  bas- 
reliefs  of  a  seated  deity  or  king;  behind  whose  chair  in  miniature 
figures  extend  several  lines  filling  up  the  space  occupied  by  the 
height  of  the  chief  figure.  The  early  Greeks  and  Komans  had  a 
similar  method  of  decorating  manuscripts ;  the  art  however  declin- 
ing when  the  fine  arts  attained  perfection.  In  the  Middle  Ages,  this 
method  of  book  decoration  attained  the  highest  repute.  The  vol- 
umes most  numerously  copied,  in  the  hands  of  every  ecclesiastic  and 
of  the  people  who  could  afford  the  purchase,  were  the  liturgies ;  or 
small  volumes  containing  the  prayers,  anthems  and  Scripture  read- 
ings of  the  church  service.  These  liturgies  differed  in  the  Eastern 
or  Greek,  and  the  Western  or  Latin  church ;  they  were  modified  in 
different  portions  of  the  former  church,  as  in  the  Jerusalem,  Alex- 
andrian and  Constantinopolitan  liturgies,  and  in  different  ages  of  the 
latter  or  Koman  Church,  as  in  the  Gregorian  and  Ambrosian  litur- 
gies ;  but  in  both,  though  somewhat  influenced  by  the  different  styles 
of  painting  practiced  by  the  Byzantine  and  Italian  artists  the 
methods  of  decoration  were  much  the  same.  The  object  sought  in 
these  decorations  was  indicated  in  the  designation  "limning,"  from 
lumhiOy  to  illuminate.  The  works  thus  illuminated,  including  the 
"liturgies"  or  public  service  of  the  Christian  church,  and  the  "Bre- 
viaries "  or  brief  prayers  for  private  daily  devotion,  gave  to  this  art 
the  title  of  missal  painting ;  a  name  derived  as  is  the  term  mass,  from 
the  musa  or  remission  of  religious  duty  following  and  dependent  on 
the  performance  of  the  regular  service.  From  the  more  common 
color,  a  crimson  red,  employed  in  this  decoration,  the  work  itself  was 


804  ART   CRITICISM. 

called  "  rubric  ;"  and  from  the  minium,  or  red  lead  used  as  the  color- 
ing material,  the  art  became  the  germ  of  miniature  painting ;  the 
execution  of  ideal  heads  in  red  color  passing  into  the  painting  of 
portraits  in  vignette  style  with  a  very  ruddy  flesh  tint. 

The  art  was  kept  alive  after  the  Middle  Ages ;  passing  into  the 
hands  of  Protestants,  and  appearing  in  the  liturgies  of  the  German 
and  English  Churches.  In  the  early  history,  it  was  preserved  in 
form,  though  it  could  not  be  in  color ;  the  early  printed  volumes  is- 
sued from  German  and  English  presses  employing  enlarged  and  de- 
corated initial  type,  in  form  like  the  letters  before  executed  with  the 
pen  and  brush.  Occasional  essays  for  its  revival  have  been  made ; 
especially  in  those  branches  of  the  Anglican  and  American  Churches 
which  favor  a  return  to  ancient  rituals. 

In  modern  times,  however,  the  art  of  engraving,  reckoned  among 
the  Fine,  rather  than  the  Decorative  Arts,  has  more  than  filled  the 
place  of  the  ancient  limning.  The  tendency,  perhaps,  not  only  in 
light  popular  literature  but  in  text-books  of  solid  science,  is  to  dilute 
the  aliment  and  enervate  the  power  of  mental  digestion,  by  shutting 
out  all  independent  thought  in  the  profusion  of  pictured  illustration. 
The  eye  must  be  allowed  to  instruct  the  mind ;  but  not  to  fascinate 
it  from  the  path  of  independent  conception,  which  even  the  young 
student  of  art,  much  more  of  science,  must  learn  to  construct  without 
any  image  as  a  model  to  mar  the  mind's  work  by  the  eye's  in- 
terference. 

Sect.  8.  Borders  and  Picture-frames;  designed  to  supply  an  esthe- 
tic want;  gilt,  inlaid,  carved  and  stuccoed  frames  for  easel 
pieces  ;  stuccoed,  carved  and  painted  pedestals  and  niche-borders 
for  statuary. 

The  sesthetic,  distinct  from  the  purely  intellectual  wants  of  man's 
nature,  met  in  advanced  society  in  a  great  measure  by  painting  and 
sculpture,  call  for  the  aid  of  decoration  to  add  their  finish  to  the 
works  of  those  higher  arts.  The  ragged  edged  canvas  as  it  comes 
from  the  painter's  easel,  would  lose  much  of  its  beauty  from  its  want 
of  finish ;  and  some  kind  of  border  must  be  added  to  hem  it  round, 
otherwise  it  lacks  completeness.  The  statue  standing  on  the  ground, 
with  no  base  to  give  it  sensible  support,  has  an  air  of  forced  con- 
straint about  it ;  for  as  a  living  form  of  man  or  woman  has  an  air 
of  ease  and  grace  standing  temporarily  upon  a  level  spot  and  must 
be  elevated  on  a  platform  to  retain  that  aspect  for  a  protracted  time, 
so  a  statue,  fixed  in  attitude,  requires  a  base  which  shall  seem  a  part  of 


FRAMES   FOR   PAINTINGS   AND   NICHES   FOR   STATUES.      805 

itself  and  a  broad  and  sure  support  in  order  to  present  the  full  im- 
pression requisite  to  grace. 

Design  in  decorative  art  seeks  for  appropriate  and  pleasing  styles 
for  borders  and  picture-frames,  for  pedestals  and  other  supports.  The 
leading  idea  in  a  picture-frame,  is  that  it  be  cut  with  a  deep  slope  in- 
ward, so  as  to  seem  to  be  a  retreating  passage-window  or  door-way 
opening  outward,  through  which  as  in  prolonged  perspective  the  re- 
treating view  presented  by  the  picture  is  seen.  The  form  in  outline 
of  the  frame  and  of  the  picture  it  encloses,  must  vary  with  the  sub- 
ject; while  the  color  must  be  lighter  or  darker  according  to  the 
depth  of  the  border  and  retreat  of  the  indicated  aperture  through 
which  in  perspective  the  picture  is  to  be  viewed,  and  the  hue  must 
be  graver  or  gayer  to  suit  the  tone  of  the  general  design.  The  an- 
cient altar  pieces  were  executed  in  the  niches  or  compartments  fitted 
for  them,  having  the  oblong  shape  of  a  window  or  door-way,  with 
an  arched  or  scrolled  top ;  and  for  single  figures,  taken  at  full  length, 
such  is  the  natural  form  fixed  for  all  time.  For  rural  landscape  the 
rectangle  formed  when  a  window  is  half  opened  in  viewing  the 
natural  landscape,  has  always  been  preferred ;  while  for  portrait  the 
oval,  which  cuts  off  the  useless  corners  and  saves  the  artist  unneeded 
toil,  seems  in  every  respect  appropriate. 

While  the  inner  rim  of  the  frame  should  be  plain  and  sloping  so 
as  to  indicate  a  passage  in  perspective,  the  exterior  border  may  be 
cut  in  geometric  convolutions  or  arborescent  wreaths.  The  artificial 
garlands  and  chaplets  wreathed  about  pictures  in  Churches  at  reli- 
gious festivals  may  have  suggested  by  their  leaves,  flowers  and  fruits 
their  permanent  copying  by  the  artist.  The  favorite  modern  do- 
mestic manufacture  of  picture-frames  embossed  with  split  pine-cones, 
or  plant-products  of  durable  texture  and  color,  is  certainly  the  re- 
vival of  a  primitive  and  natural  idea.  The  simplest  and  cheapest 
artificial  material  for  the  copying  of  such  embossed  work  is  a  stucco 
of  plaster  easily  wrought  and  sufiiciently  durable ;  a  kind  of  work 
naturally  overlaid  with  gilding,  whose  reflected  light  gives  a  richness 
to  the  coloring  of  the  picture,  making  the  gilt  frame  the  preferred 
one  for  ordinary  painting.  The  wood  of  the  frame  plainly  cut  may 
be  painted  black  or  gilded;  or  richest  of  all  the  noble  oak  may  be 
carved  in  deeply  embossed  figures.  The  frescoes  upon  walls  and 
ceilings  may  have  a  border  without  real  depth  ;  shaded  however  by 
the  brush  so  as  to  represent  the  picture  in  a  deep  recess  between  the 
columns  of  an  open  corridor,  or  through  the  airy  top  of  an  uncovered 
dome.     The  skill  of  a  true  artist  is  called  forth  in  the  adaptation  of 


806  ART   CRITICISM. 

frames  for  easel  pieces  ranged  in  a  gallery  as  to  shape,  color  and 
depth  of  border.  This  skill  is  especially  requisite  in  mounting  pic- 
tures of  large  size  arranged  for  public  exhibition ;  not  only  that  the 
light  may  strike  the  picture  with  sufficient  force  and  at  the  right  an- 
gle, but  also  that  the  slope  of  the  border  and  its  hue,  whether  it  be 
of  wood  or  cloth,  be  adjusted  to  the  general  tone  of  the  painting  and 
to  the  amount  and  direction  of  the  light  falling  on  it. 

It  has  already  been  observed  under  Sculpture  that  the  height  and 
breadth,  as  well  as  general  form  of  a  pedestal,  should  be  carefully 
adjusted  both  to  the  size  and  posture  of  a  statue,  and  to  the  main 
point  of  view  from  which  it  is  to  be  regarded.  Thus  a  statuette 
should  stand  on  a  mantle  or  a  bracket,  and  its  foot  may  be  small  and 
oval,  of  like  material  and  attached  to  it  as  a  part  of  one  work;  a 
life-size  statue  may  have  the  pedestal  of  the  same  material,  but  it 
should  in  general  be  rectangular,  larger  and  more  elevated  propor- 
tionally than  that  of  the  statuette,  and  its  block  plainly  separated 
from  the  figure ;  while  the  colossal  figure  should  have  a  pedestal  of 
dimensions  vastly  more  exaggerated  and  of  material  in  marked  con- 
trast as  to  material  and  texture  w^ith  the  stal^e.  The  position  of 
statues,  as  in  those  ornamenting  a  cathedral,  may  vary  not  simply  on 
account  of  their  size  and  general  character  but  also  with  the  part  of 
the  building  they  are  made  to  occupy.  Thus  the  statues  tipping 
the  pinnacles  of  a  Gothic  Cathedral  stand  out  against  the  blue  sky, 
and  have  a  sufficient  relief.  Hence  again,  statues  perched  on  the 
cornice,  either  on  the  interior  coping  or  at  the  base  of  the  exterior 
tympanum,  though  the  color  of  the  wall  behind  them  be  that  of  the 
statue,  are  thrown  into  relief  by  the  dark  shade  cast  by  the  pro- 
jection of  the  cornice;  and  statues  in  niches  upon  the  exterior,  where 
light  and  shade  are  in  marked  contrast,  may  be  adequately  relieved 
by  the  same  deep  shade  behind.  In  the  interior,  however,  where  one 
common  half-shade  with  no  strong  light  prevails,  especially  if  to  be 
seen  on  a  level  with  the  beholder,  statues  require  some  color  laid 
upon  the  recess  to  give  added  shade  and  greater  contrast  of  lights. 
The  hue  selected  for  the  simple  eflfect  of  relief  should  be  the  strongest 
contrast;  harmony  requiring  a  complementary  color  when  the  statue 
is  of  colored  material ;  but  in  general,  as  the  Greeks  recognized,  an 
azure  back-ground  gives  more  nearly  the  relief  of  the  atmosphere. 
Decorative  art  may  show  its  skill  in  arching  the  niche  so  as  to  be  in 
harmony  both  with  the  building  and  the  statue.  It  may  also  add  to 
the  rim  of  the  niche  a  projecting  border;  on  the  exterior  throwing 
forward  a  projecting  canopy  over  it  in  keeping  with  the  style  of 


INSIGNIA   OF    RANK    AND   OF   NATIONALITY.  807 

architecture  whether  Grecian  or  Gothic ;  and  in  the  interior  accom- 
plishing the  same  projection  by  light  and  shade  in  a  frescoed  border. 

Sect.  9.  Insignia  of  personal  kank  and  of  nationality,  to  meet  a 
CIVIL  want;  as  crowns,  chaplets,  stars,  rosettes,  batons,  the  em- 
blems OF  personal  rank;  and  standards,  banners  and  flags  the 

symbols  of  NATIONALITY. 

As  a  social  being  man  has  wants  of  his  nature  aside  from  those 
belonging  to  him  as  an  individual ;  and  it  is  one  of  the  offices  of  dec- 
orative art  to  meet  these  social  cravings.  In  their  relations  to  each 
other  in  civil  society  officers  of  government  are  distinguished  in  their 
position  from  their  fellows ;  and  human  nature  suggests  that  some 
badge  of  office  be  provided  which  shall  make  this  distinction  palpa- 
ble to  the  eye.  The  parts  of  the  person  selected  as  by  common  con- 
sent to  bear  these  emblems  of  authority,  are  the  forehead,  the  left 
breast  and  the  hand ;  the  recognized  seats  of  intelligence,  of  affection 
and  of  power.  The  rudest  and  most  refined  ages  and  nations  have 
shown  a  marked  accordance  in  their  selections  of  emblems  appropri- 
ate for  each  of  these  suggestive  badges. 

The  first  token  of  civil  power  is  the  sceptre ;  apparently  an  Asiatic 
emblem  of  authority  introduced  from  the  East  into  Greece  and 
thence  permanently  retained  in  Europe.  The  Hebrew  rulers,  before 
their  kings,  carried  the  sceptre,  though  no  mention  is  made  of  the 
crown ;  Moses,  Aaron  and  each  of  the  Hebrew  princes  bearing  a  rod 
as  a  mark  of  authority.  In  Homer  the  sceptre  is  represented  as 
borne  by  all  the  chiefs ;  Agamemnon  quietly  leaning  on  his  as  the 
index  of  superior  rule;  Achilles  referring  to  his  own,  which  was  of 
carved  wood  studded  with  gold,  as  the  symbol  of  a  divine  commission 
to  enforce  law ;  while  Ulysses  lays  his  heavily  on  the  back  of  sedi- 
tious Thersites  in  token  of  power  to  inflict  the  penalty  of  broken 
law.  At  a  very  early  period  the  sceptre,  as  an  emblem  of  civil 
office,  was  distinguished  from  the  kerukeion  or  caduceus  borne  by 
heralds  and  ambassadors  of  peace,  and  as  such  attributed  to  Mercury 
distinct  from  his  magic  wand ;  while  also  it  was  unlike  to  the  skytale 
of  the  Spartan  general,  a  cylindrical  baton  rolled  with  paper,  on 
which  his  dispatches  as  commanding  officer  were  written.  In  later 
Christian  ages  the  ecclesiastical  ruler  bore  the  crosier ;  a  long  rod  or 
sceptre,  with  the  hook  of  a  shepherd's  staff  or  a  crucifix  at  its  apex, 
indicative  of  the  pastoral  authority  of  an  under-shepherd  over 
Christ's  flock.  In  time  the  sceptre  became  the  permanent  emblem 
of  civil  rule,  and  the  baton  of  military  leadership ;  the  great  Marshals 


SOS  ART   CRITICISM. 

of  Europe  wearing  no  arras  even  in  the  field,  but  bearing  the  plain 
rod  as  the  mark  of  their  authority.  The  extravagant  burlesque  of 
this  symbolic  idea  is  seen  in  the  fearfully  tall  horse-hair  tufted  poles 
now  borne  aloft  before  ofiScials  in  Eastern  Asia. 

The  second  badge  of  rank  seems  to  have  been  the  crown.  We  read 
of  it  in  the  age  of  royal  rule  among  the  Hebrews  as  worn  by  David 
and  his  successors.  In  the  ancient  nations  it  seems  however  to  have 
been  preceded  by  the  high  cap  of  the  Egyptian  priests  and  kings ; 
which  had  a  tall  front  leaning  forward,  arched  downward  behind,  so 
that  the  back  elevation  was  only  half  that  of  the  front.  This  again 
seems  to  have  been  copied  in  the  mitre  of  the  Hebrew  high-priest ; 
on  whose  front  was  a  gold  plate  inscribed  "  Holiness  unto  the  Lord." 
The  famed  Persian  tiara,  now  seen  on  Assyrian  monuments  as  it  was 
described  by  Xenoph on,  a  lofty  conical  cap,  sometimes  tipped  with 
ostrich  feathers,  still  presenting  its  essential  feature  among  the 
Persians  now  met  at  Constantinople,  furnished  the  type  of  the  crown 
of  modern  times  in  the  diadem,  or  encircling  band  bound  about  this 
high  cap  as  the  emblem  of  regal  dignity,  and  worn  by  Persian  kings 
on  State  occasions.  To  this  encircling  diadem  has  been  added  by 
Saracenic  rulers,  the  emblem  of  the  crescent  the  significant  symbol  of 
Muhammedan  sway;  which,  like  the  new  moon,  must  wax  but  cannot 
wane,  till  it  fills  its  round  orb.  Among  the  Greeks  it  is  recognized 
in  the  chaplets  of  laurel  and  oak  wreathed  about  the  brow  of  victors 
in  the  games.  In  modern  Europe  it  became  a  circling  band  of  silver 
or  gold  with  an  embattlement  of  points  or  stars,  and  settings  of  dia- 
monds or  other  brilliants.  In  the  days  when  feudal  lordship  triumphed 
over  monarchy,  small  circlets  taking  the  title  of  "coronets"  or  little 
crowns,  became  the  recognized  emblem  of  baronial  dignity.  In  the  days 
of  the  Papal  supremacy  the  high  cap,  or  tiara,  already  worn  by  superior 
ecclesiastical  authorities,  assumed  the  form  of  a  triple  crown,  having  a 
lofty  front  and  back  curving  upward  in  a  Gothic  arch,  with  a  central 
mound  surmounted  by  a  gilded  cross.  The  first  circlet  of  brilliants  at 
the  base  of  the  cap  was  added  by  Nicholas  L,  about  A.  D.  860,  as  the 
emblem  of  civil  power  then  established  as  belonging  to  the  Holy 
Father ;  the  second  circlet  set  within  the  first  and  rising  above  it  was 
added  by  Boniface  VIII.,  about  A.  D.  1205,  to  represent  the  claim  to 
ecclesiastical  sway  always  maintained,  as  united  with  that  of  civil 
dominion;  while  the  third  was  added  by  Urban  V.,  about  A.  D. 
1365,  to  indicate  the  third  and  complementary  power  of  the  Head 
of  the  Church,  that  of  judicial  supremacy. 

The  third  badge  of  civil  authority,  that  of  a  star  or  rosette  on  the 


DISTINCTION   BETWEEN   BANNERS   AND   ENSIGNS.  809 

breast,  is  of  later  origin  and  of  less  traceable  history.  In  the  tessera 
liospitalisj  the  signet  stone  of  hospitality,  carried  in  the  bosom  among 
Greeks  and  Romans,  there  may  be  a  slight,  but  there  is  only  a  slight 
resemblance  to  this  badge ;  for  that  seemed  to  speak  of  a  tie  of  affection 
rather  than  of  intellectual  or  social  superiority.  It  is  more  clearly 
indicated  in  the  "  latus  clavus"  worn  by  Romans  of  consular,  sena- 
torial or  equestrian  rank ;  which  Horace  says,  the  wearer  "  demisit 
peetore"  suspended  from  his  breast,  and  to  which  he  seems  to  allude 
in  the  " purpureus  pannus"  sewed  in  a  conspicuous  place  on  the 
front  of  the  toga,  pannus  being  the  original  of  the  word  "banner." 
In  the  Middle  Ages,  this  princely  badge  was  fully  inaugurated ;  the 
orders  of  knighthood  and  the  "tokens"  of  the  days  of  chivalry,  be- 
ing in  the  form  of  a  circlet,  whose  centre  was  a  geometrically 
formed  star,  or  a  floral  rose-shaped  relief;  whence  the  badge  itself 
was  called  either  a  star  or  a  rosette.  It  is  a  singular  illustration  of 
the  change  of  customs  wrought  by  the  progress  of  ideas,  that  the 
Sultan  of  Turkey,  the  representative  of  the  proudest  sovereignty  of 
Europe  and  of  Asia,  clothed  in  a  close-fitting  single-breasted  frock- 
coat  of  blue  broad-cloth  and  with  loose  pantaloons  of  the  same,  is 
distinguished  in  nothing  from  his  officers  around,  bearing  as  he  does 
no  sceptre  and  wearing  no  crown,  but  by  the  brilliants  set  in  the 
small  rosette  on  his  left  breast. 

While  individual  nations  have  their  civil  heads  distinguished  by 
their  appropriate  emblems  of  personal  rank,  different  tribes  and  na- 
tions have  their  separate  standards,  civil  or  military.  These  symbols 
are  of  different  classes  in  respect  both  to  their  office  and  form  ;  both 
in  the  idea  they  suggest,  and  in  their  mode  of  conveying  that  idea. 
A  standard,  as  its  name  implies,  is  a  fixed  elevated  symbol,  national 
or  general  in  its  character,  a  rallying  centre  seen  from  afar  by  an  en- 
tire army  or  idolized  by  a  great  people ;  while  an  ensign,  the  insigne 
of  the  Romans,  having  as  its  plural  insignia,  is  a  party  badge,  the 
signal  of  a  corps,  division,  brigade,  regiment  or  company,  special  in 
its  character,  and  varied  to  give  each  division  or  subdivision  of  an 
army  or  state  its  own  particular  symbol.  A  banner  is  properly  a 
square  or  rectangular  field,  spread,  fixed  on  a  staff  and  bearing  a  de- 
vice and  motto  which  may  be  read  on  its  open  face ;  and  it  is  the 
rallying  point  of  an  association,  clan  or  feud.  A  flag  is, as  its  name 
implies,  a  drooping  pendant  floating  and  curling  in  the  breeze ;  and 
it  may  be  either  the  standard  of  a  nation  or  the  ensign  of  a  party ; 
either  the  pennant  of  a  particular  vessel  streaming  from  the  fore  or 
main-top,  or  the  national  standard  floating  over  the  quarter-deck. 

68*  5B 


810  ART   CRITICISM. 

The  familiar  term  "  colors "  is  applied  to  either  a  national  standard 
or  associational  ensign,  because,  in  order  to  be  conspicuous,  a  banner 
or  flag  must  be  of  colors  strongly  contrasted  not  only  with  each 
other,  but  with  the  air  and  earth  on  which  they  are  to  be  seen  as  a 
back-ground ;  the  red,  white  and  blue,  for  instance,  of  the  American 
flag  being  in  special  contrast  with  each  other,  and  also  with  the  sober 
and  sombre  hues  of  earth  and  sky. 

The  standards  of  the  Egyptians,  numerously  represented  on  the 
monuments,  were  generally  fan  or  feather-shaped ;  sometimes  a  sin- 
gle plume,  sometimes  two  curved  at  the  top  outwards,  sometimes  a 
half-circle,  and  forming  the  modern  Asiatic  emblem  of  royalty ; 
while  also  animal  forms,  as  quadrupeds,  birds,  reptiles  and  even  in- 
sects often  furnished  devices.  The  ancient  Hebrews  had  both  tribal 
standards  and  family  ensigns ;  every  man  in  their  march,  being  re- 
quired to  "pitch  by  his  own  standard  with  the  ensign  of  his  father's 
house ;"  ^  but  their  confederation,  consisting  of  nine  whole  and  four 
half-tribes,  had  no  common  national  rallying  symbol  except  the  ark 
of  the  covenant,  over  which  as  a  central  standard,  seen  far  over  plain 
and  hill-country,  rose  the  celestial  ensign,  which  was  "  cloud  by  day 
and  fire  by  night."  The  form  of  the  Hebrew  standards  is  unknown, 
except  a  rectangular  tablet  fixed  on  a  pole,  the  sculpture  of  which 
is  preserved  in  a  bas-relief  on  the  Arch  of  Titus  at  Kome,  represent- 
ing the  spoils  of  the  Hebrew  Capitol,  brought  by  Titus  to  the  Im- 
perial City.  Xenophon  mentions  that  the  eagle  with  expanded  wings, 
and  gilded,  was  the  royal  standard  of  the  earlier  days  in  Persia ;  and 
Florus  records,  that  in  their  war  with  the  Eomans,  the  Persians  bore 
gilt  standard-poles  with  flags  or  streamers  of  richly-colored  silk.  Of 
Grecian  standards  we  have  slight  mention;  Thucydides  and  C.  Ne- 
pos  but  alluding  to  the  signal  raised  for  the  beginning  of  land  and 
sea  battles ;  which  we  learn  was,  sometimes  at  least,  a  scarlet  flag. 

The  Romans,  a  most  thoroughly  organized  military  nation,  with 
every  appointment  connected  with  a  government  of  force  admirably 
studied,  had  a  succession  of  symbols,  interesting  both  in  their  history 
and  practical  value.  In  the  rude  origin  of  the  Roman  power,  the  only 
national  standard  was  a  wisp  of  straw  tied  to  the  shaft  of  a  spear. 
Next,  as  Pliny  records,  animal  forms  became  standard-symbols; 
among  which  he  enumerates  five,  the  eagle,  the  wolf,  the  minotaur 
half-man  and  half-bull,  the  horse  and  the  boar ;  the  former  under  the 
consul  Marius  about  B.  C.  104,  becoming  the  sole  recognized  symbol. 


Numbers  ii.  2. 


ROMAN   STANDARDS;   THE   CHRISTIAN    INSCRIPTION.        811 

Tills  eagle,  however,  was  only  a  tip  to  the  standard  pole ;  so  small 
that  as  Floras  records  a  standard-bearer  when  in  danger  of  having 
his  ensign  taken,  wrenched  the  eagle  from  its  place  and  concealed  it 
under  his  clothing ;  beneath  which  was  the  banner  proper,  on  a  rec- 
tangular tablet.  This  banner  under  the  Republic  was  inscribed  with 
the  initials  "S.  P.  Q.  R.,"  Senatus  Populus  Que  Romanus;  but  during 
the  empire  it  bore  the  head  of  the  Emperor  impressed  as  on  the  coin, 
together  with  his  name  or  that  of  a  military  leader.  Under  the  em- 
perors, the  sculptured  eagle  was  borne  at  the  head  of  a  legion  as  the 
general  standard ;  while  a  dragon  painted  on  cloth  was  the  division  ban- 
ner of  cohorts.  The  subdivisions  of  cohorts,  as  centuries  or  com- 
panies of  one  hundred  men,  were  designated  as  in  modern  times  by 
some  peculiarity  of  form  or  color  in  helmet  and  shield.  Other  de- 
vices were  afterwards  introduced  as  standard  symbols  ;  among  others 
the  globe  as  an  emblem  of  universal  dominion :  while  the  vexillum, 
or  swallow-tailed  flag  was  permanently  adopted  as  a  cavalry  ensign. 
On  the  Arch  of  Constantino,  erected  about  the  time  when  the  Old 
Roman  Empire  began  to  assume  a  new  and  Christian  character,  a 
large  number  of  these  Roman  designs  are  preserved  in  bas-reliefs. 

The  ground-work  of  the  Roman  standard  needed  no  changes  when 
under  Constantine,  the  civil  powers  took  on  an  ecclesiastical  cast. 
The  eagle  remained ;  assuming,  at  what  era  is  not  distinctly  de- 
termined, the  double  head  still  preserved  in  the  Russian  and  Aus- 
trian coat  of  arms.  The  cross  formed  by  the  pole  and  banner-rod, 
was  fitted  as  by  anticipation  for  the  new  faith,  while  the  banner  it- 
self bore  now  on  its  face  a  cross  inscribed  in  the  Greek  tou- 
ton  nika^  and  in  the  Latin  ^^  In  hoc  signo  vinces.''  In  the  mid- 
dle ages  the  influence  of  the  feudal  system  in  multiplying  mili- 
tary and  civil  chiefs,  and  the  hiding  of  individual  features  by 
closed  helmets  made  the  distinctive  badges  of  heraldry  called 
"coats  of  arms"  to  be  a  most  extended  study;  and  these  armorial 
devices  with  their  mottoes  inscribed  on  banners  became  the  en- 
signs of  families  without  limit  of  number  and  variety  of  style.  In 
later  periods  of  the  history  of  Europe  and  of  the  world,  perhaps 
through  the  greatly  extended  commerce  of  modern  days,  national 
standards  have  become  almost  exclusively  confined  to  flags ;  whose 
form  and  color  floating  in  the  air  are  seen  at  a  great  distance  on  the 
sea ;  while,  though  in  an  army  on  the  land  less  favorable  than  a  ban- 
ner when  there  is  no  breeze  to  stir  the  drooping  folds,  they  are  orna- 
ments of  intrinsic  grace  as  they  catch  on  their  elevated  pole  the 
upper  breezes. 


812  ART   CRITICISM. 


Sect.  10.  Armor  and  Weapons  of  War;  designed  for  defense,  as 
helmets,  shields,  coats  of  mail,  greaves  and  buskins;  and  for 
offense,  as  swords,  spears,  battle  clubs  and  axes,  bows  and  fire- 
ARMS. 

The  insignia  of  personal  rank  and  of  nationality  are  associated 
with  the  weapons  of  war ;  which,  because  of  human  depravity,  man 
in  civil  society,  is  called  to  wage.  Though  rude  in  the  early  times, 
yet,  so  intently  do  men  study  and  copy  each  other's  improvements  in 
arms,  from  the  earliest  ages  of  human  developement  the  clashes  and 
character  of  weapons  have  been  much  the  same  until  the  introduc- 
tion of  fire-arms  and  gunpowder. 

Arms  for  war  have  been  of  two  general  classes ;  weapons  of  defense 
and  of  offense.  Men  seek,  first,  protection  from  bad  men;  and  the 
provisions  for  this  defense  are  suggested  by  the  parts  of  the  body  to 
be  defended.  These  parts  are  three ;  the  head  protected  by  the  hel- 
met, casque  or  cap ;  the  body  guarded  by  the  coat  of  mail,  cuirass  or 
corselet;  the  lower  limbs  sheathed  in  greaves  for  the  legs,  and  sandals, 
shoes,  buskins  or  boots  for  the  feet;  to  which  has  always  been  added 
the  larger  and  moveable  shield  used  as  an  advanced  guard  to  ward 
off  a  missile  aimed  at  any  portion  of  the  body.  Weapons  of  offense 
are  divided  according  to  the  mode  of  their  use,  the  distance  at  which 
they  are  used,  and  the  manner  in  which  they  produce  their  effect. 
The  simplest  are  those  designed  to  bruise  and  crush;  as  the 
club  used  in  hand-combat,  the  whirling  mace  or  slung-shot  at 
arm-length,  and  the  sling-stone  at  a  distance.  Others  are  for 
thrusting,  requiring  a  sharpened  point,  more  or  less  carefully 
prepared;  as  the  knife,  the  spear,  the  dagger  and  the  bayonet  to 
be  used  close  at  hand,  the  lance  to  be  hurled,  and  the  arrow  to  be 
shot;  and  yet  others  are  designed  to  cut, and  must  be  furnished  with 
a  blade  short  as  in  the  axe  or  long  as  in  the  sword.  Each  of  these 
may  have  an  ofiice  so  permanent  that  it  is  retained  in  all  ages,  and  so 
varied  in  adaptation  that  it  takes  form  according  to  the  circum- 
stances of  its  use;  as  the  spear  which  was  wielded  by  the  earliest 
roving  tribes  of  Asia  and  is  borne  by  lancers  of  modern  times,  and 
which  the  savage  and  civilized  man  adapts  in  form  to  the  piercing 
of  a  fish  or  of  a  human  foe. 


DECORATIVE  SYMBOLS  OF  RELIGIOUS  FAITH  AND  PRACTICE.  813 


Sect,  11.  Eeligious  vessei.s  and  symbols;  instruments  and  utensils 
for  sacrifices  and  offerings,  as  altars,  censers,  tripods;  orna- 
mented appliances  for  spiritual  worship,  as  choir  and  pulpit 
decorations,  candelabras  and  book-stands,  fonts,  bowls,  chalices, 
plates  and  cups. 

The  elementary  ideas  suggested  by  man's  religious  nature,  as  well 
as  by  Revelation,  forming  the  foundation  of  religious  duty  because 
of  his  religious  need,  are  two;  that  of  sacrifices  and  offerings  in  ex- 
piation of  past  transgression,  and  that  of  renovation  securing  freedom 
from  transgression  in  the  future.  These  two  ideas  manifest  them- 
selves in  religious  acts  calling  for  sacred  vessels,  and  in  religious  con- 
fessions embodying  themselves  in  sacred  symbols. 

Even  the  nations  that  without  revelation  have  recognized  a  spirit- 
ual Deity,  and  have  sought  to  worship  him  without  images,  like  the 
American  Indians,  have  some  rude  symbols  and  ceremonials  of  their 
faith.  The  Hebrews  had  no  image  of  Deity,  but  multiform  ceremo- 
nials ;  the  altar  for  animal  sacrifices,  the  table  for  vegetable  offerings 
and  the  censer  for  spicy  incense;  also  the  font  and  vases  for  purifica- 
tion, and  the  ark  for  the  deposit  of  their  sacred  books  and  other  relics. 
Even  the  Muhammedan,  most  opposed  to  all  sculptured  religious 
devices,  has  mosques  and  minarets  rich  in  decorations,  lustral  basins 
elaborately  embossed,  and  the  symbol  of  the  golden  crescent  speaking 
of  his  waxing  religious  power  everywhere  displayed. 

The  Christian  Faith  has  been  more  imperative  than  any  other  in  its 
demands  on  Decorative  Art.  In  its  more  formal  ages  the  Church  has 
added  to  the  symbols  of  the  Hebrew  dispensation,  united  with  many  of 
Grecian  and  Roman  philosophy,  others  peculiar  to  spiritual  Christian- 
ity. Among  the  latter  are  the  decorations  of  the  house  of  worship ; 
candelabras  for  light,  the  pulpit  for  the  minister,  book-stands  for  the 
choir,  and  furnished  pews  for  the  auditory;  fonts  and  bowls  for  bap- 
tism, and  plates,  ewers  and  chalices  for  the  sacred  Supper.  No 
department  of  art  has  furnished  a  wider  field  for  the  genius  of  design 
and  constructive  art  than  the  furniture  and  the  symbolism  appropri- 
ate to  Christian  worship 

Sect.  12.  Festal  and  stage  decorations;  floral  designs,  as  wreaths, 
garlands  and  hangings ;  architectural  designs,  as  geometric  and 

arborescent  ARCHES  AND  CANOPIES. 

Man  was  made  to  need  hours  of  recreation  as  well  as  of  toil  for 
the  supply  of  his  material,  intellectual,  civil  and  religious  wants. 
Festal  occasions  connected  ever  with  religion,  intellectual  pastimes, 


814  ART  CRITICISM. 

social  amusements  and  sports  have  been  his  resort  for  mental  and 
physical  recreation  in  every  stage  of  human  progress.  Esthetic 
demands  have  sought  to  add  the  charm  of  art  to  festal  occasions. 

In  its  extreme  this  demand  for  recreation  has  led  to  the  nightly 
tax  on  human  nature  of  the  theatre  and  ball-room.  In  its  more 
legitimate  action  it  originated  the  three  Hebrew  yearly  festivals,  the 
annual  games  of  the  Greeks  and  the  May-day  and  Christmas  festivi- 
ties of  modern  Europe.  Not  only  social  but  religious  claims  will 
doubtless  make  these  a  permanent  though  refining  source  of  aesthetic 
culture. 

Festal  and  stage  decorations  have  taken  two  forms  according  to 
two  natural  temperaments  ^nd  casts  of  mind  among  men,  and  to  two 
stages  of  culture  in  the  history  of  nations;  the  floral  and  architectu- 
ral types.  The  floral,  taking  its  cast  from  plant  developement,  all  of 
whose  structure  is  seen  upon  the  outside,  is  the  exuberant,  untutored 
out-showing  of  exhilaration  witnessed  among  the  common  people ; 
delighting  in  arborescent  canopies,  in  wreaths  and  garlands  for  per- 
sonal decoration,  and  permanently  living  among  the  peasantry  of 
every  age  and  nation.  The  architectural  is  the  studied  and  rounded 
embodiment  of  animal  developement;  whose  structure  is  cloaked  and 
casketed  so  as  to  be  hidden  from  view ;  seeking  the  measured  and  pol- 
ished character  of  city-life,  and  witnessed  in  the  elaborate  precision 
of  decorated  halls  where  courtly  refinement  resides.  Both  these 
styles  united,  seized  by  the  hand  of  true  genius,  may  become  masterly 
in  decorative  art.  The  latter,  scientific  in  principle  and  geometric  in 
its  practical  adaptation,  should  always  be  the  foundation  of  the 
former ;  as  the  arborescent  and  floral  decorations  of  the  Gothic  never 
reach  their  climax  of  free  and  jubilant  ornamentation  except  when 
grounded  upon  the  frame-work  that  formed  the  triangular  pediment 
of  Grecian  and  the  circular  arch  of  Roman  architecture. 

Sect.  13.  funereal  tablets  and  monuments  ;  slabs,  columns,  urns,  stat- 
ues   AND    sarcophagi,   AS    SINGLE    WORKS  ;   AND  MAUSOLEA,    TOMBS    AND 

cemeteries  as  collected  memorials. 

There  is  an  end  to  human  life  with  all  its  employment  and  enjoy- 
ment ;  and,  to  its  claims  upon  art,  every  man  looking  forward  to  his 
own  decease,  and  responsible  for  the  last  tributes  of  respect  to  those 
related  to  him,  gives  special  heed.  To  funeral  monuments  the  rudest 
of  men  cheerfully  devote  their  grateful  contributions ;  scarcely  real- 
izing the  tax  levied  upon  all  as  a  debt  due  to  their  citizenship  in  the 
realm  of  Him  who  "made  all  things  beautiful"  as  well  as  "good." 


FUNEREAL   TABLETS   AND   MONUMENTS.  815 

The  earliest  records  of  history  show  that  the  rearing  of  funereal 
monuments  is  a  natural  suggestion  of  human  nature;  Abraham  and 
the  Egyptians  burying  in  decorated  tombs,  and,  Jacob  rearing  a 
pillar  at  Rachel's  grave,  who  was  interred  in  the  open  field.  The 
simplest  mark  of  the  spot  where  loved  ones  lie  is  a  slab  laid  upon  the 
grave ;  seen  still  in  the  Arabian  desert  among  the  primitive  descen- 
dants of  Ishmael,  and  around  Hebron  and  Jerusalem  where  repose 
the  ancient  children  of  Isaac.  The  first  stage  of  progress  seems  to 
be  a  column  or  head-stone  reared  upon  the  grave.  These  columns 
becoming  more  elaborate  passed  into  statues  of  the  dead,  standing 
in  niches  of  a  temple  front  or  under  a  rotunda  as  a  shrine.  When 
burning  of  the  dead  prevailed,  urns  or  vases  were  introduced  to  hold 
the  ashes  of  the  deceased. 

While  graves  excavated  in  the  ground  seemed  a  natural  means  of 
fulfilling  the  divine  prediction  "Dust  thou  art  and  unto  dust  shalt 
thou  return,"  the  philosophy  that  early  associated  the  preservation 
of  the  body  with  the  spirit's  welfare  led  to  the  construction  of  tombs 
where  the  body  might  be  preserved.  This  led  to  the  origin  of  sar- 
cophagi or  cofl[ins  to  encase  the  body,  and  of  tombs  below  ground 
and  mausolea  above  ground.  Among  the  Egyptians  the  sarcophagus 
was  either  of  linen  saturated  with  bitumen,  pressed  into  the  form  of 
the  human  frame,  then  coated  with  plaster  and  richly  painted  with 
varied  devices ;  of  wood  carved  into  a  statue-like  form  and  then  painted ; 
or  of  granite  cut  into  the  form  of  an  ark  or  chest:  and  these  were 
ranged,  standing  upon  their  feet,  along  the  sides  of  their  dry  rock- 
hewn  tombs.  The  sentiment  of  Abraham  was  conformed  to  that  of 
the  Egyptian  cave-tomb ;  and  among  the  Greeks  and  Romans  too  the 
idea  of  tombs  above  ground,  and  suggested  in  the  pyramid,  pre- 
vailed. The  barrows  or  rude  mounds  of  the  heroes  that  fell  near  to 
Troy,  repeated  through  Asia  even  round  to  the  American  continent, 
consisting  of  a  small  stone-arched  chamber  covered  with  an  immense 
pile  of  earth  and  having  their  highest  type  in  the  pyramid  all  of 
stone,  seem  to  be  the  germ  of  the  grander  architectural  mausoleum. 
The  name  mausoleum  is  said  to  have  been  derived  from  the  costly 
monument,  one  of  the  seven  wonders  of  the  world,  reared  by  Arte- 
mesia  over  her  husband  Mausolus,  king  of  Caria,  who  died  B.  C.  353 ; 
whose  affection  led  her  to  drink  his  ashes,  then  to  rear  a  pyramidal 
structure  with  magnificent  Grecian  porticoes  at  the  base,  surmounted 
by  a  four-horse  chariot,  the  work  of  four  celebrated  artists  one  of 
whom  was  Scopas,  at  an  expense  so  immense  that  the  philosopher 
Anaxagoras  exclaimed  when  he  saw  it  "how  much  gold  converted 


816  ART  CRITICISM. 

into  stone."  The  comprehensive  influence  of  Christianity  is  seen  in 
this  department  of  art,  universally  patronized,  by  its  adoption  and 
refinement  of  every  species  of  funereal  monument.  Its  spiritual  char- 
acter, appealing  to  thought  and  sentiment,  is  especially  seen  in  its 
tablets  recording  memories  of  the  deceased  and  inscribing  words  of 
religious  devotion. 


CHAPTER    II. 


ASIATIC     DECORATIVE     ART;    RUDIMENTARY    IN     STYLE,    DEFECTIVE 
IN  FORM,  EXCESSIVE  IN  ORNAMENT,  BUT  ELABORATE  IN  FINISH. 

In  the  history  of  art,  both  intelligence  in  design  and  skill  in  exe- 
cution are  to  be  regarded.  In  Decorative  Art,  Asiatics  fall  behind 
Europeans  in  conceptions  of  style,  form  and  color;  while  they  are 
superior  in  the  patient  labor  of  the  hand.  In  style  the  excess  of 
weight  or  slenderness  seen  in  their  architecture,  in  form  the  liveless- 
ness  of  their  wooden  idols,  and  in  color  the  gaudiness  of  their 
painted  portraits  characterizes  their  decorative  art.  In  skilful  mani- 
pulation, however,  of  material,  as  in  Egyptian  glass  and  Chinese 
porcelain,  and  in  labored  polish,  as  on  Egyptian  granite  and  Persian 
papier-mache,  the  most  elaborate  European  workmanship  is  far  be- 
hind the  Asiatic  of  three  thousand  years  ago. 

Sect.  1,  Egyptian  Decorative  Art;  the  best  known  Asiatic  type. 

Though  the  most  ancient,  the  remains  of  Egyptian  art  are  the  best 
preserved  specimen  of  the  Asiatic ;  caused  in  architecture  and  sculpture 
by  the  massiveness  and  durability  of  their  material,  in  painting  and 
decoration  by  the  nice  enclosure  of  their  hidden  tombs,  and  in  all 
arts  by  the  dryness  of  the  climate.  At  the  same  time  the  location 
of  Egypt  on  the  highway  between  Europe  and  Asia  has  made  it  to 
be  constantly  visited  and  its  works  studied. 

The  style  of  Egyptian  design  in  decoration  is  well  illustrated  in 
their  sacred  symbols  and  utensils.  The  common  emblem  of  the 
globe  with  wings,  is  really  the  beetle  holding  its  ball  filled  with  its 
eggs,  indicating  apparently  the  Creator  of  the  fruitful  earth,  on  whose 
infant-born  creatures  the  Spirit  of  evil,  symbolized  by  two  asp-heads, 
is  waiting  to  prey.     The  sacred  vases  of  fruit  and  water,  deposited 


INDIAN   AND   CHINESE   DECORATIVE   ART.  817 

for  the  dead,  are  of  most  diminutive  size,  but  moulded  and  finished. 
Superior  intellect,  yielding  from  policy  to  gross  superstition,  must 
have  presided  over  Egyptian  Decorative  Art. 

Among  the  implements,  furniture  and  equipage,  pictured  on  the 
walls,  as  also  among  the  coins,  necklaces  and  other  articles  found  in 
the  tombs,  the  earthen  and  glass  ware  of  the  Egyptian  are  wonders 
of  early  art.  In  earthen-ware,  which  is  baked  aluminum  or  clay, 
the  Etruscan  vases  are  first,  and  the  Egyptian  second  in  rank. 
In  glass  which  is  silicon,  or  sharp  quartz,  fused  with  alkaline  earths 
and  metallic  oxides,  the  Egyptians  are  first.  Glass  blowing  in  all 
its  processes  is  pictured  in  Egyptian  tombs ;  while  glass  beads,  bot- 
tles and  tablets  are  still  found.  In  the  British  Museum  is  a  thick 
tablet  brought  from  Thebes,  of  white  glass  with  colored  threads 
forming  a  perfect  mosaic  running  through  its  mass.  The  figure  is 
star-shaped  with  a  rose  in  the  centre;  having  foliations  at  the  corners, 
and  birds  and  other  devices  intervening.  The  colors  introduced  are 
blue,  red  or  rose,  yellow  and  green;  and  modern  chemists  agree, that, 
*'  for  the  blue  and  green  oxide  of  cobalt  or  calcined  copper  and  zinc, 
for  the  yellow  oxide  of  silver,  and  for  the  rose  oxide  of  gold,  must 
have  been  used."  The  perfect  union,  without  intermixing,  of  the  vari- 
ous colored  threads  by  fusion  when  drawn  out  and  laid  together, 
though  attempted  in  Bohemia,  has  not  been  copied  in  modern  times. 
Enamelling,  or  the  coating  of  earthenware  with  a  vitrified  or  glassy 
surface,  is  beautifully  illustrated  in  the  small  mummy-gods  now  found 
in  the  tombs ;  and  Pliny  mentions  an  emerald,  or  enamelled  obelisk, 
sixty  feet  high,  standing  at  his  day  in  the  temple  of  Jupiter  Ammon 
on  the  Great  Oasis. 

Sect.  2.    Indian   Decorative  Art;  the  originating  source   of  the 

ASIATIC  style. 

The  records  of  ancient  .history,  already  quoted,  show  the  extended 
and  controlling  influence  of  the  science  and  art  of  the  superior  ruling 
caste  of  India  throughout  southwestern  Asia  and  the  adjoining 
regions  of  Africa.  The  history  of  the  trade  of  India  with  the 
Egyptians,  Phenicians  and  Hebrews  before  Solomon's  day,  indi- 
cates that  not  only  the  raw  material  used  in  decorative  art,  such  as 
ivory  and  sandal  wood,  but,  as  we  have  seen,  decorated  articles  made 
from  these  materials,  imported  to  Egypt  in  Moses'  day  and  to  Phe- 
nicia  in  Solomon's  age,  were  used  by  the  Hebrews.* 


*  See  B.  I.  ch.  vii.  sect.  1,  and  B.  iii.  ch.  ii.  sect.  6. 
69  5  C 


818  ART  CRmCISM. 

While  ancient  history  points  out  India  as  the  originating  source 
of  ancient  decorative  art,  the  importations  of  modern  times  show  that 
they  still  hold  this  position.  While  Herodotus  and  Pliny  concede 
superiority  in  this  department  over  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  modern 
English  residents  agree  that  in  silk  and  cotton-weaving,  Indian  ope- 
ratives show  skill  superior  to  that  of  Western  Europe.  The  elabo- 
rately adorned  boxes,  picture-borders,  &c.,  brought  by  almost  every 
ship  from  India,  makes  the  character  of  their  art  in  this  respect  too 
familiar  to  require  description. 

Sect.  3.    Chinese  and  Japanese  Decorative  Art;  the  degenebatinq 
stage  of  the  asiatic  style. 

Two  impressions  are  made  on  the  observing  traveler  as  he  surveys 
Chinese  art.  The  first,  is  surprise  at  the  amount  of  decoration 
heaped  on  all  things  around  him,  crude  in  conception,  rude  in  form, 
and  tawdry  in  ill-contrasted  hues ;  the  second  is  a  conviction  that 
could  the  native  Egyptians  be  made  to  live  again,  the  modern  Chi- 
nese would  be  their  fac-similes.  Among  varied  resemblances  of  the 
relics  from  Egyptian  tombs  to  Chinese  arts,  that  of  stereotyping  is 
specially  remarkable.  On  the  bases  of  small  cones  of  baked  clay  of 
about  four  inches  in  diameter,  several  raised  lines  of  hieroglyphics 
run  as  chords  of  arcs ;  making  together  an  extended  record.  These 
could  not  have  been  executed  except  by  the  modern  Chinese  method 
of  printing  on  the  soft  clay  with  an  engraved  stereotype  plate  of 
wood. 

Among  the  triumphs  of  Chinese  art,  is  their  superior  porcelain. 
Porcelain  is  made  mainly  of  feldspar;  partly  fusible  like  silicon,  and 
partly  infusible  like  clay ;  the  two  intermixed,  forming  a  translucent 
though  not  transparent  compound.  The  Chinese  were  for  ages  sole 
masters  of  this  art,  because  their  country  alone  was  knOwn  to  furnish 
the  material ;  the  infusible  portion  kaolin,  and  the  fusible  petuntse, 
when  mixed,  giving  the  watery  white  of  ordinary  porcelain,  which 
is  colored  at  pleasure  by  metallic  oxides.  The  art  was  known  in 
China  in  very  early  times ;  the  Greeks  called  it  keramicos;  but  even 
the  Etruscans,  who  made  enamelled  or  glazed  ware,  seem  to  have 
been  ignorant  of  this  material  fused  throughout.  The  Portuguese 
brought  porcelain  as  a  wonder  from  China  to  Europe  in  1503 ;  the 
clay  was  discovered  in  Germany,  in  1708,  in  England  in  1755,  and 
in  France  in  1765 ;  from  which  eras  the  European  art  dates. 

Japanese  art  in  decoration,  as  in  painting,  excels  the  Chinese  in 
coloring  as  well  as  in  form.     Some  branches  of  decorative  art  seem 


POLYNESIAN   AND   HEBREW   DECORATIVE   ART.  819 

to  be  peculiar  to  that  people ;  as  the  method  of  giving  adhesion  to 
colors  laid  on  tin,  called  Japanning.  The  specimens  of  the  decorative 
art  of  both  China  and  Japan,  are  met  in  every  sea-port  of  the 
Western  World. 

Sect.  4.    Polynesian  and  American   Decorative  Art;    the   lowest 
degradation  of  the  asiatic  style. 

The  European  Colonists  of  America  have  been  made  specially 
familiar  with  the  degenerate  style  of  Asiatic  decoration.  The  abo- 
rigines of  the  Western  Continent  show  such  a  devotion  to  decoration 
that  scarcely  any  article  used  by  men  or  women  is  unadorned ;  while 
the  frequent  visits  of  these  rude  natives  to  the  white  settlements  are 
chiefly  made  for  the  sale  of  their  decorated  workmanship.  Not  only 
the  extensive  collections  made  by  national  explorations,  but  the  re- 
turn of  every  vessel  from  the  Pacific,  adds  to  the  treasures  of  Poly- 
nesian decorative  art. 

A  careful  comparison  shows  a  kindred  taste,  varied  in  different 
climates  by  the  necessities  for  the  comforts  of  life,  and  the  material  fur- 
nished for  their  supply.  In  all  climes  purity  of  color  and  fineness  of 
texture  in  material  is  appreciated ;  as  is  seen  in  the  choice  for  carving 
of  black  ebony,  white  ivory  and  rose-colored  coral  of  the  warm  lati- 
tudes, and  of  polished  flint  and  of  lustrous  quartz  in  the  cold  regions. 
While  the  Northern  Indians  select  the  skins  of  the  buffalo  and  deer 
for  the  decorating  dyes  and  needle-work  of  their  dress,  the  islanders 
of  the  South  carefully  prepare  the  thin  membranes  lining  the  in- 
terior of  the  larger  animals ;  the  spirit  of  art  guiding  the  selection, 
and  prompting  the  adornment,  while  limited  culture  makes  their  ar- 
tists remain  forever  children  in  taste  and  in  execution. 

After  the  survey  already  taken  in  the  history  of  the  higher  arts 
of  the  track  by  which  these  people  reached  their  present  home,  it 
is  natural  to  recognize  their  art  as  the  degenerate  Asiatic.  The 
traveler  in  Media  and  Abyssinia,  in  Eastern  Africa,  and  in  Ceylon 
and*other  Isles  of  Southern  Asia,  meets  the  counterpart  of  this  de- 
generate taste  and  execution ;  where  its  connection  with  its  centre 
can  be  directly  traced. 

Sect.  5.  Hebrew  Decorative  Art;  the  central  and  hallowed  type 
OF  the  Asiatic  style. 

The  Hebrews  have  gained  no  fame  either  for  wealth  or  for  civil  and 
military  glory  as  compared  with  other  nations ;  but  as  the  people 
"to   whom   were   committed   the   oracles  of  God  for  the  nations," 


820  ART   CRITICIfflH. 

they  have  a  name  that  never  will  cease  to  be  glorious.  All  professed 
revelations,  the  Vedas  of  India,  the  Zendevesta  of  Persia,  and  the 
Koran  of  Arabia,  have  emanated  from  Asia  ;  for  false  coin  always 
commends  itself  by  issuing  from  a  fount  hard  by  the  source  of  the 
true.  Both  the  Old  and  New  Testament  have  come  to  the  world 
mainly  from  Hebrew  pens ;  the  unwritten  traditions  of  miraculous 
Divine  interposition  live  in  Judea,  as  do  the  surest  memories  of  the 
past  in  other  lands ;  and  sacred  symbols  hallowed  there  have  been 
reverenced  in  all  lands  and  ages.  It  was  natural  that  a  peculiarly 
sacred  character  should  be  given  to  Hebrew  decorative  art. 

This  showed  itself  directly  in  religious  emblems.  The  Hebrew 
altar  and  candlestick,  whose  dimensions  and  ornamentation  are  so 
minutely  described,  have  become  types  for  all  ages.  Given  to  decora- 
tion as  a  people,  covered  with  jewelry  as  were  the  wives  of  Abraham 
and  of  Isaac,  and  the  Israelite  matrons  who  gave  their  ornaments 
to  Moses  for  the  tabernacle  in  the  wilderness,  the  richest  of  this  out- 
lay was  expended  on  the  priest's  garments ;  to  which  such  a  sacred- 
ness  was  attached  that  even  the  golden  fringe  of  the  priest's  robe, 
with  a  bell  and  a  pomegranate  intervening,  was  copied  from  the  Di- 
vine dictation. 

Aside  from  this  direct  hallowed  character  in  religious  decorations, 
an  indirect  sanctity  attached  to  civil  and  secular  ornamentation. 
While  as  military  standards  on  their  march,  each  tribe  and  family 
had  the  banner  of  its  clan,  no  common  national  standard  was  to  be 
reared  among  them,  except  the  ark  or  chest  in  which  were  borne  be- 
fore them  the  tables  of  the  Divine  Law.  Even  the  common  utensils 
had  a  sacredness  continually  kept  in  memory  by  the  "washings"  to 
which  "pots  and  kettles,  beds  and  tables"  were  to  be  subjected;  the 
idea  of  which  is  embodied  in  the  prophet's  declaration,  that  when 
the  Hebrew  people  assumed  their  high  prerogative  as  a  religious 
people  "  Holiness  to  the  Lord  "  would  be  inscribed  "  even  on  the  bells 
of  the  horses." 

Thus  hallowed,  Hebrew  art  had  its  secular  connections  with  tjieir 
surrounding  and  kindred  Asiatic  neighbors.  As  we  have  seen  the 
model  of  Moses'  ark  was  substantially  Egyptian ;  and  Syrian  artists 
wrought  the  ornamented  vessels  of  Solomon's  temple.  As  the  true 
idea  of  sanctity  is  the  setting  apart  of  common  material,  as  wood  and 
brick  in  a  Church  edifice  and  bread  and  wine  used  at  the  Lord's 
Supper,  from  a  secular  to  a  sacred  use,  so  Hebrew  decorative  art  was 
a  hallowed,  though  in  many  respects  a  common  type. 


ARABIAN   AND   PHENTCIAN   DECORATIVE   ART.  821 


Sect.  6.  Arabian,  Phenician,  Syrian  and  Assyrian  Decorative  Art; 

THE  FIRST  stage  OE  ADVANCE  IN  THE  ASIATIC  STYLE. 

The  Arabians,  a  higher  Shemitic  family  intermediate  between  In- 
dia and  the  more  advanced  African  races  West  of  the  Red  Sea, 
having  a  language  two-thirds  of  whose  words  and  all  of  whose 
grammatical  constructions  are  Hebrew,  have  ever  had  a  quickness 
of  thought  and  practical  enterprise  fitting  them  to  be  skilful  and 
prolific  manufacturers  of  decorated  useful  articles,  though  never 
masters  in  higher  art.  Their  proximity  to  the  superior  race  of  In- 
dia and  their  scope  and  independence  of  thought  forbidding  the 
restraints  on  genius  which  controlled  Egyptian  art,  the  Arabian  ar- 
tists have  always  been  prominent  for  a  high  type  of  decorative  art. 
The  designation  Arabesque,  is  expressive  of  this  native  characteristic ; 
a  term  applied  to  the  projecting  and  almost  overhanging  tracery 
work  of  porticoes,  balconies,  cornices,  parapets  and  turrets,  heaped 
upon  the  fayades  of  Moorish  Castles,  palaces  and  mosques  in  the 
medieval  age  of  Arab  supremacy,  and  afterwards  given  to  the  high 
and  bold  embossed  work,  elaborate  in  carving,  and  rich  in  ornamen- 
tation, which  was  at  a  later  period  introduced  into  almost  every 
variety  of  decorative  art. 

The  Assyrians,  an  Asiatic  family  intermediate  between  India  and 
Asia  INIinor,  from  time  immemorial  having  as  their  wise  men  the 
sage  Chaldeans,  often  associated  by  commerce  or  conquest  with  the 
Persians,  felt  the  influence  of  three  superior  races.  While  their 
architecture,  sculpture  and  painting  thus  became  an  improvement  on 
the  Egyptian,  decoration  was  their  chief  aspiration  in  art;  the  pic- 
tures given  by  the  Hebrew  writers  of  the  Books  of  Daniel,  Ezra, 
Nehemiah  and  Esther,  as  well  as  the  records  of  Herodotus  and  Pliny 
and  other  Grecian  and  Roman  writers  illustrating  this  characteristic ; 
while  the  explorations  of  Layard  have  made  it  palpable  not  only  in 
architectural  ornamentation,  but  in  implements  and  utensils  of  every 
variety. 

Syria,  lying  East  of  the  Eastern  range  of  Lebanon  while  the  Pheni- 
cians  occupied  the  Mediterranean  shore  West  of  the  Western  range  and 
the  Israelites  in  Solomon's  day  the  intervening  valley  having  Baalbeck 
as  its  centre,  had  as  its  capital  the  city  of  Damascus;  which,  unlike 
any  other  great  mart  of  the  old  world,  has  never,  since  the  age  of  the 
patriarchs,  lost  its  peculiar  character  as  a  rich  and  thriving  com- 
mercial centre.  Through  it  passed  the  track  of  the  richest  trade 
from  India ;  the  products  of  Southern  Asia  coming  up  the  Persian 
69* 


822  ART  CRITICISM. 

Gulf  and  Euphrates  to  a  point  East  of  the  Phenician  sea-ports; 
whence,  transferred  to  the  backs  of  camels,  it  passed  over  by  Damas- 
cus as  a  half-way  depot  to  Tyre  and  Sidon,  to  be  distributed  to  every 
country  bordering  on  the  Mediterranean.  The  numerous  words 
damask,  a  silk  fabric  with  raised  or  embossed  figures,  damassin,  a 
similar  silk  interwoven  with  threads,  of  gold  and  silver,  damasking 
a  sword-blade  of  rare  tempered  steel,  and  damaskeen,  the  adorning 
of  steel  sword-blades  and  scabbards,  knives,  etc.,  with  inlaid  gold  and 
silver  thread,  all  these  terms  of  art  are  a  testimony  to  the  command- 
ing position,  still  maintained,  which  Damascus  has  always  held  as 
master  of  the  world  in  decorative  art. 

Phenicia,  again,  a  long  narrow  strip  of  coast-line  extending  along 
two-thirds  of  the  entire  Eastern  border  of  the  Mediterranean,  having 
little  in  its  ragged  strip  of  arable  land  or  even  in  its  mountain  treas- 
ures of  iron  and  marble,  cedar  and  fir,  but  everything  in  its  control 
of  commerce  on  the  Mediterranean,  to  give  sustenance  and  power  to 
its  people,  had  artisans  famed  for  their  skill  in  decorative  art.  Being 
undisputed  masters  of  the  Mediterranean,  receiving  on  that  sea  the 
wares  that  came  by  three  routes  from  India,  the  first,  or  Egyptian,  up 
the  Western  gulf  of  the  Ked  Sea  and  thence  overland  to  Khacotis 
afterwards  Alexandria,  the  second,  or  Tyrian  up  the  Persian  Gulf, 
and  the  Euphrates  and  thence  overland  by  Damascus  to  the  Phe- 
nician ports,  and  third,  the  Hebrew  of  Solomon,  up  the  Eastern  Gulf 
of  the  Ked  Sea  to  Eziongeber,  thence  overland  past  Sela  or  Petra 
and  Jerusalem  to  Joppa,  Phenician  sailors  and  merchants  called  forth 
Tyrian  artists.  Some  few,  aspiring  to  higher  art,  became  eminent,  as 
in  Solomon's  employ,  in  architecture  and  sculpture.  The  main  end 
of  Tyrian  art  was  the  ornamented  useful.  The  Hebrew  prophet 
describes  in  glowing  colors  its  treasures.  Pliny  tells  us  that  glass 
was  invented  by  Tj^rians ;  the  discovery  of  its  ingredients  first  being 
made  by  Tyrian  sailors,  who,  kindling  a  fire  to  cook  by  on  their  sandy 
shore,  observed  that  clay  and  sharp  quartz  fused  by  the  heat  mingled 
and  cooled  into  a  transparent  crystalline  compound.  The  shells  in 
which  is  deposited  the  famed  Tyrian  purple  are  still  gathered  in  abun- 
dance along  that  extended  coast.  To  such  extent  was  decoration 
carried  by  the  princely  Tyrians  that  not  only  men  and  women  but 
their  riding  camels  were  decked  with  necklaces  and  jewelry. 

When,  after  the  fall  of  the  Koman  Empire  and  the  succession  of 
the  Muhammedan  over  the  entire  Eastern  and  Southern  border  of 
the  Mediterranean,  this  trade  along  all  its  routes  with  India  was  inter- 
rupted, and  the  enterprising  mariners  and  merchants  of  Southern  Italy, 


PERSIAN   AND   GREEK-COLONIAL  DECORATIVE   ART.       823 

especially  of  Genoa  and  Venice,  making  interest  with  the  Saracens, 
got  possession  of  the  carrying  trade,  both  on  the  Mediterranean  and  on 
the  waters  of  Southern  Asia,  not  only  the  w^ares  and  material  of  India 
but  the  arts  of  Arabia  and  Damascus  were  introduced  into  Europe. 
One  of  the  most  fascinating  episodes  in  Cennini's  history  of  early 
Italian  art  is  a  description  of  his  own  enthusiasm  in  trying  to  copy 
a  splendid  specimen  of  a  Damascus  scimetar;  whose  tempered  blade 
and  soft  steel  scabbard  were  inlaid  with  exquisite  foliated  and  tracery 
work  in  gold  and  silver  thread. 

Sect.  7.  Persian  and  Greek  Colonial  Decorative  Art  ;  the  most  ad- 
vanced Asiatic,  and  the  connecting  link  to  the  Grecian  type. 

The  close  connection  between  the  Persians,  the  second  in  the 
line  of  developement  among  the  families  of  Japhet,  with  the  Greeks 
in  the  Asiatic  colonies,  has  been  noticed  in  the  higher  arts.  A  suc- 
cession of  Greek  authors,  as  Homer,  Herodotus  and  Xenophon  in 
their  descriptions  of  articles  adorned  by  art,  trace  this  connection 
far  more  fully  in  the  department  of  ornamentation.  Helen's  tapestry, 
Priam's  sceptre  and  Hector's  helmet,  are  among  the  earlier  and  richest 
memorials  of  this  art. 

The  peculiar  design  and  execution  of  this  people,  borrowing  from 
the  unchanging  Asiatic  and  the  progressive  Greek  are  preserved  in 
almost  every  department  of  art.  The  religious  symbols  of  the  pyra- 
midal tumuli  reared  as  funeral  piles  in  memory  of  Hector  and  other 
Trojan  heroes,  still  intensely  expressive  monuments  near  the  site  of 
the  early  fallen  city,  yet  tell  of  an  idea  originating  in  Egypt  and 
India.  The  insignia  of  civil  power,  embodied  in  the  sceptres  and 
crowns  described  by  Homer,  reveal  a  sentiment  called  forth  by  Gre- 
cian thought  but  speaking  of  a  rule  to  which  only  Asiatics  have  ever 
submitted.  The  architectural  ornament,  already  alluded  to,  of  the 
trefoil  cornice  relief,  is  an  original  device  suggested  by  a  taste 
approved  by  the  most  advanced  culture.  In  the  lowest  of  all  the 
walks  of  art,  that  of  dress,  personal  ornament  and  household  fur- 
niture the  Persian  made  his  indelible  impress  on  Greek  and  Roman 
customs.  The  lofty  Persian  tiara,  described  by  the  Hebrew  Daniel  * 
and  Grecian  Xenophon,  preserved  still  in  the  high  conical  cap  of  the 
Persian  noble,  show  an  early  discovery  and  fixing  of  types  of  true 
beauty.  The  necklaces  worn  by  ancient  noblemen,  depicted  in  the 
sculptures  of  Persepolis,  recall  Egyptian  ideas  illustrated  in  the  his- 


'  Daniel  v.  7. 


824  ART   CRITICISM. 

tory  of  Joseph.  The  use  of  the  couch  for  reclining  at  table  intro- 
duced from  Persia  through  the  Grecian  colonies  into  Greece  proper 
and  thence  into  Rome,  the  history  of  which  is  expressively  epitomized 
in  the  Mine  of  Matthew  the  Hebrew  addressing  Asiatics,  in  the  klinidion 
of  Luke  the  cultured  Asiatic-Greek  appealing  to  Greeks,  and  in  the 
hrabhaton  or  Latin  grabhatum  of  Mark  writing  for  Roman  readers, 
all  describing  as  biographers  of  Jesus  the  bed  of  the  paralytic,  is  a 
memorial  of  the  special  power  of  decorative  art  to  fasten  an  Asiatic 
model  in  European  esteem. 


CHAPTER    III 


EUROPEAN  DECORATIVE  ART)  CONTROLLED  BY  THE  ALTERNATING 
PROGRESS  AND  DECLINE  OF  SCIENCE  AND  ART,  OF  SOCIAL,  IN- 
TELLECTUAL, MORAL   AND    RELIGIOUS    IMPROVEMENT. 

The  traditional  reverence  for  the  past  and  prejudice  agamst  change 
of  the  Asiatic  has  caused  their  art  in  every  department  to  remain 
fixed  in  the  type  established  from  time  immemorial.  In  dress,  equi- 
page, furniture,  implements,  utensils  and  personal  ornaments,  as  well 
as  in  sculpture,  architecture  and  painting,  the  standard  of  design  and 
of  execution,  fixed  ages  ago,  still  rules.  The  spirit  of  the  European 
is  formed  to  conceive  that  his  own  are  better  than  his  father's  ideas; 
and,  aspiring  to  progress,  the  ancient  Greek  and  Roman,  in  common 
with  modern  Europeans,  would  have  change,  though  it  were  a  retro- 
grade. This  native  characteristic  is  the  clue  to  the  history  of  Euro- 
pean Decorative  Art. 

Sect.  1.  Grecian  Decorative  Art;  mathematically  exact  in  form, 

CHASTE   IN   ornamentation  AND   FINISHED   IN   WORKMANSHIP. 

In  constructing  a  pedestal  for  a  statue,  in  working  up  the  cornice 
of  a  temple,  or  in  embossing  a  vase,  the  Greek  artist  is  seen  every- 
where to  have  been  governed  by  these  three  principles.  First  in 
form  the  Greeks  conformed  every  feature  to  the  exactness  of  mathe- 
matical truth ;  as  is  seen  in  the  triglyphs  mutules  and  trefoils  of  a  cor- 
nice, perfectly  regular,  and  their  forms  delighting  in  straight  lines  and 
right  angles  in  which  the  slightest  deviation  from  accuracy  is  mani- 
fest, as  it  is  not  in  figures  bounded  by  curves  or  many-sided.  Hence 
second,  the  Greeks  found  beauty  in  simplicity;  the  Grecian  archi- 


GRECIAN   AND   ROMAN   DECORATIVE   ART.  825 

trave  serving  as  a  border  for  the  frieze  being  noted  for  its  plainness, 
while  the  grace  of  the  Grecian  vase  was  the  chasteness  of  its  perfect 
curve  unbroken  by  embossed  work.  Since,  thirdly,  this  mathemat- 
ical exactness  of  form  and  grace  of  unbroken  outline  is  impossible 
without  care  and  labor  in  execution,  the  minutest  portions  of  every 
ornament  in  Grecian  architecture  or  sculpture  was  finished  with  ex- 
treme elaborateness. 

These  characteristics  displayed  in  the  accessories  of  higher  art 
showed  their  influence  in  every  species  of  Greek  decoration.  At  Athens 
in  its  earlier  history  the  Ionic  race  predominated;  whose  females 
wore  long  flowing  robes,  and  hair  curled  or  frizzled  and  held  by  the 
fillet  decked  with  attached  jewelry,  as  embodied  in  the  Ionic  capital. 
At  a  later  period,  the  Dorians  from  the  Peloponnesus  gaining  the  as- 
cendency, and  their  simpler  customs,  which  had  always  held  sway  at 
Sparta,  prevailing,  the  short  skirt  of  the  mountains  and  the  hair  plain 
as  among  people  having  little  time  for  personal  adornment,  became 
the  Athenian  model ;  Grecian  sculpture  uniting  the  beauties  of  both 
styles,  making  female  hair  always  frizzled  or  wavy,  but  tied  in  a  sim- 
ple knot.  The  early  Ionian  custom  of  free  social  intercourse,  families 
living  in  the  open  air  by  day,  led  to  costly  expenditure  in  private 
furniture  as  is  intimated  in  Homer;  while  the  Dorian  severity  of 
manners,  restricting  women  to  greater  seclusion  and  inviting  men  to 
horde  separately,  diminished  the  demand  for  costly  private  mansions. 
The  control  of  mathematical  ideas  in  Greek  decorative  art  is  seen  in  the 
tripod  as  the  support  of  light-stands,  chairs,  etc. ;  an  idea  based  on 
the  perfection  of  the  triangle,  and  common  among  the  Greeks  despite 
its  inconvenience  and  insecurity  as  compared  with  four-footed  sup- 
ports. 

A  kindred  simplicity  in  funeral  monuments,  most  marked  as  com- 
pared with  the  pomp  of  Roman  taste,  prevailed  among  the  ancient 
Greeks.  Burning  of  the  dead,  regarded  a  disgrace  in  the  early  his- 
tory of  sepulture,  seems  to  have  been  resorted  to  as  a  necessary  safe- 
guard for  the  living ;  as  on  battle-fields  heaped  with  the  slain  and  in 
crowded  cities  where  there  is  daily  mortality.  In  the  case  of  either 
burning  or  burial,  the  vase  for  the  ashes,  or  the  tablet  at  the  grave 
was  specially  plain  and  chaste. 

Sect.  2.  Eoman  Decorative  Art  ;  varied  in  detail,  rich  in  ornament- 
ation, AND  elaborate  IN  WORKMANSHIP. 

The  same  cumbersome  detail  and  gorgeousness  of  decoration  which 
enables  the  student  to  select  Roman  from  among  Grecian  architec- 

5D 


826  ART   CRITICISM. 

tiiral  columns  and  pedestals  of  statues,  pervaded  Eoman  decorative 
art.  While  the  labor  of  the  Greeks  was  devoted  to  the  polishing  of 
smooth  unencumbered  surfaces  to  the  nicety  of  mathematical  mea- 
surement, the  Roman's  toil  was  exhausted  in  rounding  out  embossed 
decorations ;  to  which  it  was  impossible  to  give  a  true  finish. 

The  Romans,  unlike  the  Greeks,  began  their  life  as  a  nation  with 
a  severe  system  of  religion ;  of  which  Numa  was  the  representative. 
It  abjured  sculptured  images,  and  delighted  in  the  blank  rotunda 
without  portico  or  cornice.  This  early  fundamental  principle,  modi- 
fied to  an  excess  of  elegance  under  Grecian  and  Asiatic  sway,  made 
decorative  art  to  assume  a  simplicity  of  ground-work  which  became  a 
permanent  characteristic.  Roman  buildings,  furniture  and  dress  are 
formed  pre-eminently  for  utility.  The  custom  of  burning  the  dead, 
and  the  peculiar  funeral  vases  it  called  for,  were  the  exponent 
of  the  practical  spirit  of  the  Roman ;  resolutely  exacting  from  death 
itself  sanitary  regulations  which  restricted  his  sway. 

The  collections  of  Roman  decorative  art  at  Rome  and  Naples,  in 
every  department  of  human  want,  illustrate  its  character.  Their  al- 
tars and  tripods  are  heavier  than  the  Grecian,  and  for  this  reason 
more  stable ;  but  profusely  decorated.  Their  private  houses  unburied 
at  Pompeii,  have  almost  universally  frescoed  walls  and  floors  inlaid 
with  mosaics.  To  the  tuniea  or  frock-shirt,  at  first  short  without 
sleeves  and  of  wool,  afterwards  sleeved  and  of  linen  or  silk,  the  Ro- 
man added  the  toga  or  sack-coat  assumed  at  opening  youth ;  the 
kindred  garments  of  the  women  being  the  stola  or  chemise,  and  palla 
or  loose  sack ;  while  the  native  fondness  for  ornament  displayed  it- 
self in  the  rings  universally  worn  by  men,  and  in  the  profusion  of 
jewelry  decorating  their  women.  The  accumulation  of  elaborate 
furniture  in  beds,  tables,  chairs,  and  varied  conveniences,  forbids 
enumeration.  In  memory  of  the  dead,  large  heavy  vases  held  the  ashes 
of  those  cherished  by  a  family,  and  grand  mausolea  covered  the  na- 
tion's honored :  while  in  place  of  Grecian  deification  of  ideal 
heroes  the  Romans  of  later  times  ascribed  an  apotheosis  to  their  cor- 
rupt Emperors. 

Sect.  3.  Early   Christian  Decorative  Art;  marked   especially  by 
symbols  of  religiolts  ideas  peculiar  to  the  new  faith. 

Diognetus  the  instructor  of  Marcus  Aurelius  about  B.  C.  140, 
wrote  of  the  early  Christians ;  "  They  are  not  distinguished  from 
other  men  by  their  place  of  residence,  their  language  or  manners ; 
but  though  they  live  in  cities  of  the  Greeks  and  barbarians,  each, 


EARLY   CHRISTIAN   DECORATIVE   ART.  827 

where  his  lot  is  cast,  in  clothing,  food,  and  mode  of  life  following  the 
customs  of  their  country,  yet  they  are  distinguished  by  a  wonderful 
and  universally  astonishing  conduct  and  conversation."  In  the  same 
age  Tertullian  wrote,  "  If  those  are  converted  who  were  makers  of 
idols,  they  must  pursue  some  other  branch  of  their  art;  repair 
houses,  stucco  walls,  line  cisterns  or  coat  columns."  These  kindred 
statements  show  that  in  all  that  related  to  decorative  as  well  as 
higher  art,  the  early  Christians  were  transformed  in  nothing  but  in 
the  religious  themes  that  occupied  their  artists. 

Didron  in  French,  Miinter  in  German,  and  Lord  Lindlay  in  Eng- 
lish, have  brought  together  numerous  details  explanatory  of  early 
Christian  symbols ;  whose  simple  teaching  is  revealed  in  the  allusions 
of  the  Fathers  and  primitive  historians  of  the  Church.  The  em- 
blems wrought  into  their  decorative  art,  religious  in  their  themes,  re- 
late to  representations  of  the  Divine  Being,  of  leading  characteristics 
of  the  apostles  and  other  Christian  advocates,  and  of  the  doctrines 
of  Christian  truth.  The  only  representation  of  God  the  Father  was 
a  hand  and  arm  stretched  from  a  cloud  seen  to  the  elbow.^  The  Son 
was  symbolized  by  the  monogram  of  the  X  and/?  in  Christos  overlap- 
ping ;  by  a  cross ;  by  a  lamb  sometimes  with  a  halo  and  cross ;  by  a 
lamp ;  by  a  vine ;  by  a  rock ;  by  a  pelican,  supposed  to  feed  her 
young  with  her  blood  ;  and  by  a  fish  in  a  halo,  the  word  Ichthus,  fish, 
being  made  of  the  initials  of  the  Greek  lesous,  Christos,  Theos,  XJioSy 
Soter.^  The  Holy  Spirit  was  figured  by  the  dove  bearing  an  olive 
branch,  and  having  a  stream  of  water  issuing  from  her  beak ;  also 
by  a  candlestick  whose  seven  branches  represented  the  Spirit's  per- 
fect gifts.^  The  Trinity  was  pictured  by  three  beams  of  light  radi- 
ating from  Christ's  head ;  by  a  rainbow  with  three  arches,  sometimes 
encircling  Christ  and  sometimes  forming  his  seat ;  by  the  thumb,  fore 
and  index  fingers  of  Christ  raised  erect  and  straight  as  in  the  bene- 
diction ;  or  by  the  index  finger  straight  and  the  thumb  hooked,  the 
index  and  ring  finger  crossed,  and  the  little  finger  crooked,  making 
together  the  letters  I.  C.  and  X.  C,  the  first  and  last  letters  of  the  two 
Greek  names  lesous  Christos,  as  written  in  ancient  characters.  The 
four  Evangelists  were  designated  either  by  four  rivers,  or  by  the  four 
heads  of  an  angel  with  Matthew,  of  a  lion  with  Mark,  of  an  ox  with 


'  Ezek.  ii.  9 ;  viii.  3. 

=  Isa.  liii.  7;   John  ix.  5;   John  xv.  1;  Ex.  xvii.  6;  1  Cor.  x.  4;  Psalm 
di.  6. 

•  John  iv.  14 ;  Prov.  i.  12 ;  iv.  5. 


828  ART  CRITICISM. 

Luke,  and  of  an  eagle  with  John.^  The  apostles  were  indicated,  Paul 
by  a  sword,  Peter  by  keys,  and  the  remaining  ten  by  varied  symbols. 
The  faithful  redeemed  were  indicated  by  sheep  tended ;  by  fish  in  a 
net ;  by  doves  feeding  on  corn  and  grapes,  or  drinking  from  a  foun- 
tain ;  by  deer  at  a  brook ;  by  date-palms  or  cedars ;  or  by  Cupids,  or 
Cherubs  sporting  among  tree-tops.^  Sanctity  was  indicated  by  a  nim- 
bus or  cloud  encircling  the  head ;  sometimes  in  the  form  of  white 
light  radiating,  sometimes  of  a  rainbow  with  its  separate  arches,  and 
sometimes  of  a  golden  ring. 

Among  doctrinal  truths  the  spirit  of  evil,  or  Satan,  was  designated 
by  a  serpent ;  the  atonement  by  a  cross  decorated  with  wreaths ;  the 
two  covenants  by  a  wheel  within  a  wheel ;  and  the  Christian  course 
by  the  sun  and  moon.'  The  three  graces  had  as  their  emblems,  for 
faith  a  cross,  for  hope  an  anchor,  for  charity  a  heart ;  while  purity 
was  represented  by  the  lily ;  incorruptibility  by  a  rose ;  victory  by  a 
wreath  of  palm ;  and  peace  by  an  olive-branch  borne  by  a  dove.*  The 
Church  militant  was  pictured  by  a  female  with  her  hands  raised  in 
prayer,  by  a  vine,  and  by  a  ship  under  sail ;  the  Church  triumphant 
by  a  walled  city ;  and  the  Catholic  Church  by  a  mountain  rock.^ 
The  sacrament  of  baptism  was  symbolized  by  water  poured  on  the 
cross,  and  the  Lord's  supper  by  wheat  in  the  ear  and  grapes,  or  by  a 
loaf  of  bread  and  a  cup  of  wine.  The  Universe  was  typified  by  a 
globe  usually  blue ;  Heaven  by  a  segment  of  a  globe  either  blue  or 
in  three  rainbow  arches ;  Paradise  by  a  mountain ;  eternity  by  a  cir- 
cle, sometimes  surrounding  Christ ;  the  resurrection  by  a  phoenix,  or 
by  the  peacock  who  loses  his  rich  plumage  in  winter  and  has  it  re- 
newed in  Spring;  and  eternal  life  by  a  river  fed  from  a  mountain  in 
which  Cherubs  are  bathing. 

The  well-preserved  relics  of  this  primitive  Roman  Christian  Sym- 
bolism, constituting  all  which  is  distinctive  in  the  simple  ages  of 
Christianity  which  preceded  Constantino,  are  abundant  in  the  Cata- 
combs at  Rome,  in  Church  decorations  at  the  old  Italian  town  of 
Ravenna,  and  in  the  old  mosaics  of  Byzantine  origin  already  noticed. 
These  latter  form  the  transition  link  to  the  next  age. 


«  Gen.  ii.  10 ;  Ezek.  i.  10  ;  x.  14 ;  Eev.  iv.  7. 

^  John  X.  14;  Matt.  xiii.  47 ;  Ps.  i.  3;  xlii.  1;  xcii.  12;  Isa.   Ixi.   3;     Jer 
xvii.  8. 

a  Ezek.  i.  16, 

*Heb.  vi.  19;  Eev.  vii.  9 ;  1  Cor.  ix.  25. 

*  Ps.  Ixxx.  8 ;  Isa.  v.  1 ;  Rev.  xxi.  1 ;  Ezek.  xl.  2 ;  Dan.  ii.  34. 


MEDIEVAL   SYMBOLISM    AND   CHURCH   DECORATION.        829 


Sect.  4.  Later  and  Medieval  Decorative  Art  ;  secular,  sometimes  ir- 
reverent AND  UNDIGNIFIED  IN  DESIGN,  AND  EXCESSIVE  IN  ORNAMEN- 
TATION. 

In  the  decorative,  as  in  the  fine  arts,  the  secular  spirit  that  per- 
vaded the  Church  when  under  Constantine  it  became  the  State  re- 
ligion, was  for  ages  unfavorable  to  simplicity  of  design  and  truth  in 
execution.  After  the  period  of  primitive  simplicity  the  symbols  of 
Divine  beings  and  hallowed  personages,  of  revealed  truth  and  of 
sacred  things  were  converted  into  images.  God  the  Father  was 
pictured  as  an  old  man  bare  to  the  breasts,  with  arms  at  rest  on  a 
cloud  looking  down  upon  the  holy  mother  and  child ;  or  holding  up 
an  image  of  Christ  on  the  cross,  while  the  dove  hovered  above.  At 
the  Council  of  Trent,  A.  D.  692,  it  was  ordered  that  images  of 
Christ  should  be  made  for  Churches  in  place  of  the  symbol  of  the 
Lamb ;  when  for  a  season  till  the  eighth  century,  master-pieces  of 
design  in  Mosaic  and  painting  were  produced.  Then  symbolism  again 
arose ;  alternately  reviving  and  declining  till  the  able  artists  of 
Italy  re-established  them  on  a  permanent  basis.  During  these  ages, 
Jesus  was  not  pictured  alone ;  but  to  meet  the  yearning  of  human 
nature  for  feminine  adoration,  regarded  as  belonging  to  true  religious 
reverence,  the  mother  of  the  Divine  Son,  never  introduced  prior  to 
Augustine's  day  as  he  intimates,  was  constantly  made  the  companion 
of  her  son,  maternal  in  aspect  and  employ.  To  oppose  the  heresy 
of  Nestorius  she  was  by  a  decree  of  the  Council  of  Ephesus,  A.  D. 
431,  represented  with  the  child  on  her  knees;  from  Solomon's  men- 
tion "I  am  dark  yet  comely,"  she  was  sometimes  pictured  as  a  dark 
brunette ;  and  in  the  twelfth  century  she  became  majestic  in  mosaic, 
preparatory  to  the  matchless  Madonnas  of  Raphael.  Symbols  and 
decoration  appropriate  accompanied  these  improvements  in  this 
higher  art ;  particularly  in  the  dress  of  the  head  and  person  of  the 
virgin. 

Architecture  now  assumed  a  distinct  ecclesiastical  type ;  and  deco- 
rative art  found  a  limitless  field.  The  word  Church,  in  German 
kirche  and  in  Scottish  kirk,  is  from  the  Greek  kyriakS,  or  Lord's  house ; 
being  understood.  The  Church  edifice,  having,  as  observed,^  for  its 
ground-plot  a  cross,  had  as  its  three  principal  parts  the  choir  at  the 
head  of  the  cross  or  rear  of  the  building,  the  transept  or  arms  of  the 
cross,  and  the  nave,  which  was  the  body,  or  foot  of  the  cross,  and  the 


•  Book  IV.,  cli.  V.  Sect.  1. 
70 


830  ART   CRITICISM. 

great  gathering  place  of  the  congregation.  In  front  was  the  portico 
or  entrance ;  within  which,  formed  of  a  narrow  section  of  the  nave 
near  the  door-way,  was  the  place  for  penitents  and  those  under 
Church  censure,  called  in  the  Greek  narthex  or  oblong  from  its  shape. 
The  choir  was  the  chief  centre  of  decoration.  The  walls  were  fres- 
coed or  hung  with  oil  paintings  and  had  niches  for  statuary.  The  floor 
had  a  raised  platform  called  beyna,  with  steps  for  ascent ;  in  front  of 
which  was  a  railing  called  cancelli  or  chancel.  Upon  the  hema  was 
the  altar,  before  which  was  the  cathedra  or  bishop's  chair ;  whose  po- 
sition was  called  from  its  Divine  sanctity  liierateion,  from  its  human 
unapproachableness  adyton,  and  from  the  authority  of  the  utterances 
announced  ex  cathedra  or  from  the  chair,  denominated  presbyterion. 
The  altar  was  decorated,  as  now  in  the  Greek  and  Roman  Churches, 
with  candle-sticks,  chalices,  crucifixes,  &c.,  and  the  chair  was  carved 
with  a  crosier,  a  mitre  and  varied  devices. 

Back  of,  or  at  one  side  of  the  altar,  was  the  singing  choir;  aided 
in  the  early  Church  by  various  instruments,  and  as  early  as  the  days 
of  Charlemagne,  seen  in  the  Cathedral  of  Aix  la  Chapelle,  by  the  or- 
gan ;  though  in  the  Greek  Church,  and  in  some  ages  and  portions 
of  the  Roman  Church,  instruments  of  music  were  discarded  on  the 
principle  of  Thomas  Aquinas,  who  wrote  A.  D.  1250,  "Our  Church 
does  not  use  musical  instruments,  as  harps  and  psalteries,  in  the 
praise  of  God,  lest  she  should  seem  to  Judaize."  The  organ  and 
choir  gallery,  afterwards  moved  to  the  side  of  the  Church  and  tran- 
sept, and  then  to  the  front  or  bottom  of  the  nave,  was  always 
a  point  for  special  decoration.  In  front  of  the  bema  and  at  the 
speaker's  right  was  a  small  circular  or  octagonal  pulpit,  with 
a  spiral  staircase;  which  in  larger  churches  was  located  at  the  junc- 
tion of  the  nave  with  the  transept  so  as  to  bring  the  preacher  nearer 
to  his  hearers ;  every  part  of  which  pulpit  was  enriched  with  studied 
ornament.  In  the  larger  or  Cathedral  Churches  an  octagonal  build- 
ing called  Baptisterion  was  added  in  the  rear,  sometimes  separate  and 
large  enough  to  accommodate  a  considerable  audience ;  the  precursor 
of  the  font  beneath,  or  the  bason  in  front  of  the  platform  of  the 
modern  pulpit.  The  baptismal  font,  as  in  the  Cathedrals  of  Rome, 
Florence  and  Pisa,  was  a  special  object  of  rich  decoration.  Yet  later 
a  bell  tower,  sometimes  separate  from  the  edifice,  with  richly  deco- 
rated balconies  and  bell,  was  also  added.  The  enormous  bells  of 
Paris,  Toulouse,  Milan,  Vienna  and  Moscow,  cast  during  this  period, 
prove  the  grand  conception  and  skilful  execution  in  this  art  to  have 
been  widely  extended  through  Europe. 


831 

The  decoration  of  doors,  windows  and  pavements  in  churches  at 
this  era,  brings  out  both  the  merits  and  defects  of  medieval  art.  The 
general  style  of  Church  decoration  in  the  Middle  Ages  was  some- 
times of  admirable  design,  but  sometimes  unworthily  grotesque ;  a 
feature  most  manifest  at  the  entrance  door.  In  the  rich  adornment 
of  stained  glass,  an  art  said  by  Pliny  to  have  been  known  to  the  Ro- 
mans, as  it  was  to  the  Egyptians,  the  skill  of  the  Middle  Ages  far 
surpassed  that  of  modern  times;  rather,  however,  in  the  lustrous 
transparence  of  colors  than  in  the  conception  and  execution  of  the 
figures  wrought  into  the  glass.  Into  pavements  of  Churches  were 
wrought,  also,  the  mosaics,  borrowed  from  the  Roman,  now  seen  at 
Pompeii ;  whose  consideration  as  panel  paintings  has  been  already 
considered.^  The  themes  of  these  mosaics  in  pavements  are  hinted 
by  St.  Bernard,  the  somewhat  extreme  reformer,  in  his  criticism, 
"Those  passing  over  them  often  spit  in  the  mouth  of  an  angel,  or 
grind  the  face  of  some  saint  with  their  heels;"  an  objection  per- 
haps as  much  to  the  manners  of  the  worshippers  as  to  the  design  of 
the  artist. 

Next  to  architecture,  dress,  especially  of  the  clergy,  both  as  to 
form,  insignia  and  color,  became  a  study  in  decoration.  In  the  sim- 
plest ages  dress  was  not  modified  either  by  the  rich  or  poor  among 
private  Christians  or  their  inspired  teachers  as  we  have  seen;  for 
while  John's  raiment  was  of  coarse  camel's  hair  cloth  with  a  leath- 
ern girdle,  Jesus  wore  a  tunic  of  the  costliest  fabric,  woven  without 
seam  from  the  top  throughout,  while  his  other  raiment  was  worth 
dividing ;  Paul  wore  a  coarse  Roman  overcoat ;  and  in  the  Chris- 
tian assemblies  rich  men  appeared  with  gold  rings  and  the  poor  in 
cheap  raiment,  while  women  wore  braided  hair  and  jewelry.  At  a 
later  period  the  ascetic  tendency  prevailed,  some  of  Roman  patrician 
birth  laying  aside  the  gay  toga  to  which  their  rank  entitled  them  for 
the  plain  pallium  or  short  cloak  of  the  humbler  class,  while  in  the 
East  for  a  time  white  was  adopted  as  a  costume  indicative  of  purity ; 
which  ideas,  though  revived  by  certain  classes  of  religionists  to  this 
day,  met  in  that  early  age  with  the  reprobation  of  the  intelligent ; 
Tertullian  saying,  "  We  are  no  Brahmins ;  We  are  no  Hindoo  fa- 
keers ;  We  are  no  eremites  or  hermits,  who  flee  from  life." 

In  the  dress  of  ecclesiastics,  however,  there  was  an  early  and  per- 
manent regard  paid  to  propriety ;  as  in  the  black,  still  retained  as 
an  official  clerical  dress,  in  which  both  form  and  color  are  considered ; 


See  Book  V.,  ch.  vi.  Sect.  3. 


832  ART   CRITICISM. 

while  the  sj)irit  of  the  Middle  Ages  added  extravagances  of  form 
and  color  as  well  as  of  insigna.  As  a  head-dress,  the  turret-shaped 
cap,  peculiar  to  Persia,  worn  also  by  the  Jewish  high-priest,  was  in- 
troduced ;  illustrated  in  the  bishop's  mitre  and  the  cap  of  the  mod- 
ern Jesuits;  often  richly  adorned  with  embroidery,  jewels  and  pure 
colors.  As  the  official  dress  for  the  person,  the  stole  or  robe  of  the 
Roman  Emperor  in  his  character  of  Pontifex  Maximus,  was,  as 
Gregory  of  Nazianzen  records  adopted;  to  which  was  afterwards 
added  the  ephod  and  even  the  breast-plate  of  the  Jewish  high-priest. 
As  appropriate  colors,  white  was  selected  for  the  dress  of  apostles  and 
martyrs,  indicating  purity;  red  and  blue  for  Jesus  and  his  mother, 
indicating  royalty  and  celestial  dignity;  while  the  purple  of  imperial 
Rome  was  afterwards  added  as  indicating  ecclesiastical  authority. 
As  insignia  the  superior  clergy  wore  the  ring,  indicating  at  once 
sacred  espousals  and  authority  as  primates ;  they  bore  the  crozier,  or 
cross-tipped  baton,  bespeaking  at  once  an  Eastern  shepherd's  watch- 
care,  and  an  Eastern  prince's  dignity ;  while  afterwards  the  cross  was 
sewed  and  broidered  upon  the  neck  or  breast,  emblematic  of  special 
consecration,  and  as  such  worn  in  red  upon  the  coats  of  all  the  cru- 
saders. In  the  early  days  of  Roman  imperial  persecution  the  cus- 
tom of  making,  or  wearing  the  sign  of  the  cross  had  arisen ;  Origen, 
as  we  read,  when  compelled  to  hold  palm-branches  in  honor  of  the 
idol  at  the  temple  of  Scrap  is  in  Alexandria,  signing  himself  by  pass- 
ing his  hand  constantly  in  the  form  of  the  cross  over  his  forehead 
and  breast ;  while  images  and  pictures  of  the  cross  were  stamped 
with  India  ink  on  concealed  portions  of  the  person,  as  in  late  days 
among  the  followers  of  Xavier  in  China ;  or  were  sewed  into  boys' 
caps  or  belts,  or  worn  with  strings  or  chains  of  silver  and  even  of 
gold  about  the  neck. 

The  civic  and  military  decoration  styled  "heraldry"  from  herald, 
and  "  blazonry "  from  hlasen,  both  meaning  to  proclaim  or  announce 
aloud,  refers  to  the  methods  of  indicating  by  insignia  the  nationality, 
community  and  family  of  knights  when  completely  cased  in  armor 
so  that  they  were  unknown.  Though  known  as  early  as  the  age  of 
Henry  I.  of  England,  it  became  especially  in  vogue  during  the  Cru- 
sades, and  was  perfected  as  a  system  afterwards.  The  field  of  ar- 
morial bearings  is  a  shield  or  escutcheon ;  above  which  was  a  crest ; 
below  a  scroll  for  a  motto ;  and  at  the  sides,  and  around,  the  colors 
adopted.  The  escutcheon  was  divided  into  nine  compartments ;  three 
horizontal  at  top  called  the  dexter,  middle  and  sinister  chiefs;  three 
at  bottom  called  dexter,  middle  and  sinister  bases ;  and  three  per- 


MODERN  MATERIAL  AND  HANDICRAFT  IN  DECORATION.    833 

pendicular  uniting  them,  called  honor,  fess  and  nombril  points ;  the 
dexter  being  at  the  left  of  the  beholder  and  the  honor  at  top.  The 
field  again  is  divided  by  diagonal  bands;  called,  chief,  pale,  bend, 
bend  sinister,  fess,  bar,  chevron,  cross,  and  saltire.  There  are  eight 
curved  or  bent  lines  dividing  the  field;  the  engraved,  inverted, 
wavy,  embattled,  nebuly,  raguly,  indented  and  dancette.  Nine 
colors  are  introduced ;  or  or  gold,  gule  or  red,  azure  or  blue,  sahle  or 
black,  vert  or  green,  purpure  or  purple,  tenny  or  orange,  sanguine  or 
crimson,  and  murrey  or  brown-red.  Finally,  various  figures,  as 
crosses,  shells,  birds,  beasts,  dragons,  stars,  flowers,  &c.,  called 
charges,  are  inserted.     This  study  alone  demands  a  volume. 

Sect.  5.  Modern  Changes  in  Material  used  in  Constructive   Art  ; 
modifying  the  form  and  style  of  ornamental  work. 

Most  of  the  material  anciently  used  in  architecture  and  sculpture, 
as  well  as  in  decorative  art,  is  now  employed ;  while  modern  science, 
especially  in  the  department  of  chemical  analysis  and  modern  in- 
vention, superior  to  the  ancient  in  its  tests,  has  been  able  to  suggest 
new  substances  and  new  methods  of  employing  them. 

Wood,  brick  and  stone  in  building,  and  clay,  marble  and  bronze 
in  sculpture  have  been  little  improved ;  for  casts  of  ornamental  brick 
and  stucco,  carving  in  cedar  and  oak,  and  casting  in  brass  are  not 
superior  in  modern  to  those  of  the  ancient  times.  Iron,  however, 
for  building  is  a  modern  suggestion ;  which,  when  used  in  domes  and 
facades  or  fronts,  requires  special  study  to  comprehend  the  law  of  its 
expansion  and  contraction ;  but  which  in  casting  allows,  as  is  now  seen 
in  the  foundries  of  Nuremburg,  Germany,  any  sculptural  form  or 
architectural  style,  to  which  its  texture  and  color  may  be  adapted. 
The  modern  Parian,  a  composition  neither  of  earthy  nor  porcelain, 
but  of  marble  texture,  susceptible  nevertheless  of  clay  or  plaster-like 
moulding  and  casting,  may  open  the  way  to  improved  sculpture ; 
though  in  this  department,  unless  it  be  in  improved  alloys  of  the 
metals,  probably  the  ancients  cannot  be  surpassed.  Methods  of 
coloring,  taught  by  modern  chemistry,  certainly  have  sought  and 
still  must  lead  to  valuable  hints.  Thus  the  moire  antique,  or  ancient 
water-tint,  suggested  to  a  French  chemist  after  Sir  David  Brewster 
had  invented  the  kaleidoscope,  giving,  through  the  action  of  acids 
with  various  pigments  on  metallic  plates,  the  wavy  forms  of  frost  on 
window-glass  with  the  rainbow  hues  of  the  kaleidoscope,  is  founded 
on  a  principle  which  may  yet  lead  to  the  copying  of  colors  in  pho- 
tography. 

70*  5E 


834  ART  CRITICISM. 


Sect.  6,  Modern   Improvements   and  Deterioration  in  Handicraft  ; 
influencing  the  finish  of  decorative  details. 

The  hand  of  man,  like  his  intellect,  is,  in  the  same  race,  of  sub- 
stantially the  same  native  skill  in  all  ages ;  modified  as  to  improve- 
ment or  deterioration  by  circumstances  of  education  and  culture. 
Several  causes  in  modern  times  have  led  to  both  these  opposite 
results. 

The  introduction  of  modern  machinery,  turning  out  not  only  such 
regular  work  as  the  runnels  of  a  balustrade,  and  that  either  in  wood 
or  marble,  and  of  such  irregular  forms  as  a  shoe-last,  must  certainly 
give  an  exactness  of  form  to  objects  to  which  it  has  been  applied 
such  as  was  absolutely  unattainable  by  the  human  hand.  At  the 
same  time  neglect  of  handicraft,  because  of  this  easier  method,  tends  to 
a  degeneracy  in  forms  whose  execution  must  still  be  entrusted  to  the 
skill  of  the  carver  and  chiseller.  The  oak  carving  of  to-day  is  far 
inferior,  ordinarily,  to  that  of  former  ages. 

The  aid  of  improved  chemical  agents  enables  the  modern  workman 
to  copy  and  improve  upon  the  hoary  lessons  of  Asiatics  taught  among 
them  from  father  to  son.  Thus  when  Cennini  grappled  with  the  dif- 
ficulties in  the  art  of  Damaskeening,  a  specimen  of  which  had  come 
to  him  through  the  Venetian  traders,  the  improved  knowledge  of 
chemical  agents,  which  at  last  culminated  in  a  Galvani  came  to 
his  aid;  and  in  Western  Europe  this  art  has  since  surpassed  the  Ori- 
ental original.  In  porcelain  and  glass  staining,  however,  experiment 
has  not  attained  to  the  chemical  law ;  and  thus  these  arts  are  yet 
behind  their  Asiatic  types. 

Sect.  7.  Modern   Methods  of   Locomotion  ;  varying  the  form,  color 

AND   decoration   OF  VEHICLES   FOR   LAND  CARRIAGE   AND  OF  VESSELS   FOR 
MARINE   TRANSPORTATION. 

Man  is  a  being  whose  active  mind  will  not  allow  the  rest  which 
even  the  necessity  for  animal  exercise  allows.  Made  for  the  use  of 
other  than  self-locomotive  energy,  he  compels  animal  and  even  phys- 
ical agents  around  him,  as  wind,  water  and  steam,  to  minister  to  him 
their  motion.  All  the  animal  and  physical  powers  which  seen  me- 
chanical effects  reveal,  including  all  those  mentioned  except  steam, 
magnetic  electricity  and  heat,  perhaps  yet  to  be  applied,  were  known 
and  employed  by  the  ancients.  The  decorations  of  horses,  camels, 
elephants  and  reindeer,  of  saddles  and  howdahs,  halters  and  bridles, 
of  sledges,  wagons  and  chariots  with  their  harness  and  other  trappings, 
may  not  perhaps  find  artists  to  surpass  the  ancients. 


MODERN  MODES  OF  LOCOMOTION  AND  ENGINES  IN  WAR.      835 

The  introduction  of  steam  on  land  has  made  land  carriages  to  be- 
come traveling  mansions.  Conveniences  for  eating  and  sleeping, 
lounging  and  recreating,  open  a  peculiar  field  for  decoration.  The 
car  takes  the  straight  line  of  a  dwelling-house  instead  of  the 
curve  of  the  old  rocking  stage-coach ;  its  interior  calls  for  pictured 
walls  imitating  frescoes  and  panel  paintings;  while  its  furniture  has 
opened  an  extended  field  for  new  styles  and  patterns.  Such  deco- 
rations must  be  controlled  by  the  double  idea  of  traveling  equipage 
and  of  house-furniture. 

The  use  of  steam  as  a  propelling  power  on  inland  waters  and  on  the 
ocean,  has  quite  transformed  both  the  exterior  and  interior  of  passen- 
ger-vessels, calling  for  new  styles  of  decoration.  The  tall  cylindrical 
sheet-iron  smoke-stacks,  taking  the  place  of  the  delicately  tapering 
masts  and  cordage,  the  huge  ungainly  side-wheels,  usurping  the  office 
of  the  gracefully  bending  sails,  which  make  the  monster  of  the  deep 
seem  a  reptile  with  paddles  splashing  in  the  grosser  element  rather 
than  a  bird  with  wings  sweeping  through  ether,  call  for  a  study  such 
as  taxed  the  ablest  artists  of  Greece  when  even  Protogenes  found  re- 
munerative employ  as  a  ship  decorator.  The  inner  saloons,  especially 
of  American  river-boats,  rivalling  far  any  palace  apartment  the  world 
has  ever  seen,  with  length  most  disproportionate  to  its  narrow  breadth 
and  low  ceiling,  requires  a  special  tact  in  order  to  secure  proportion 
at  the  hands  of  the  decorator.  On  the  sea  as  on  the  land  steam- 
locomotion  has  quite  revolutionized  carriage  decoration. 

Sect.  8.  Modeen  Engines  of  Destruction  in  Wab  ;  eevolutionizing  the 

STYLE    OP    decorating  ARMOR  AND  OFFENSIVE  WEAPONS. 

In  both  its  offices,  as  offensive  and  defensive,  the  use  of  gunpowder 
has  had  the  effect  to  revolutionize  decorative  art  as  applied  to  armor. 
This  agent  has  the  double  effect  to  make  all  defensive  armor  useless, 
and  to  convert  war  from  a  swift  hand-to-hand  skill  in  wielding  a 
spear  or  sword-blade  into  a  trained  practice  of  the  eye  in  the  cool 
direction  of  a  missile. 

The  brazen-armed  hero  of  ancient  and  the  steel-clad  knight  of  the 
medieval  times,  with  helmet,  breast-plate,  coat  of  mail,  shield,  greaves, 
buskin  and  shoes  of  stiff  but  shining  metal,  beauteous  in  its  grace- 
fully curved  forms  but  of  one-hued  lustre,  was  succeeded  by  gayly 
variegated  woolens  and  silks,  with  towering  plumes  to  heighten  the 
stature  and  padded  vests  and  jutting  epaulettes  to  give  breadth  of 
chest.  All  these  again  in  the  progress  of  art  have  been  chastened 
into  the  sober  blue  and  gray  of  close  fitting  jackets,  with  the  scjircely 


836  ART   CRITICISM. 

visible  leaf,  eagle  and  star  on  the  shoulder  indicating  rank ;  until  in- 
deed the  grandest  representatives  of  the  gorgeous  East,  the  Sultan  of 
Turkey  with  his  chief  officers  of  War  as  well  as  of  the  State,  appear 
in  a  simple  close-fitting  skull-cap  of  red  Fez,  and  tight-buttoned 
coat. 

The  offensive  weapons,  consisting  of  cannon,  guns  and  pistols  of 
greater  or  less  calibre,  specially  exposed  in  active  service  to  the  be- 
dizening foulness  of  soot  and  smoke,  have  received  an  order  of  deco- 
ration running  parallel  to  that  of  personal  costume.  In  the  later 
medieval  times,  at  the  first  invention  of  fire-arms,  and  since  that  in 
costly  specimens  for  princely  hands  not  expected  to  soil  by  use  their 
showy  decorations,  pistols,  muskets  and  even  cannon  have  been 
adorned  with  inlaid  and  embossed  ornamentation  equalling  that  be- 
stowed on  Damascus  scimetars;  the  matchlock  muskets  sent  as  pres- 
ents by  the  Imaum  of  Muscat  in  Arabia  as  diplomatic  presents,  and 
even  the  richly  embossed  brass  cannon  of  the  .days  of  Louis  XIV. 
of  France  showing  how  wide  a  field  for  decorative  art  modern  armor 
furnishes. 

Sect.  9.  Modern  views  of  popular  equality  and  of  official  Prerog- 
atives;   GIVING  A  NEW  CHARACTER  TO   THE  INSIGNIA  OF  RANK. 

There  is  an  extreme  to  which  the  spirit  of  religious  asceticism  and 
philosophic  pride  of  independence  may  go  in  simplicity  of  dress; 
illustrated  in  Elijah  the  Old  Testament  prophet  and  John  the  New 
Testament  herald,  as  well  as  in  Diogenes  the  Athenian  cynic.  The 
legitimate  spirit  of  popular  government,  leading  to  the  laying  aside 
of  the  insignia  of  rank,  is  seen  in  every  age ;  alike  among  the  Judges 
of  Israel,  the  Archons  of  Athens,  the  Consuls  of  the  Roman 
Republic  and  the  Presidents  of  modern  Representative  Govern- 
ments. 

In  its  modified  form  this  characteristic  is  illustrated  in  the  limited 
monarchies  of  Europe.  In  medieval  and  even  comparatively  later 
years,  the  officers  of  every  rank,  in  the  civil  as  well  as  military  service, 
appeared  constantly  with  the  insignia,  either  in  dress,  equipage  or 
accessory,  of  their  authority.  Now,  in  the  French  Legislative  Assem- 
bly and  in  the  Lower  House  of  the  English.  Parliament,  though 
important  coordinate  branches  of  Governmeii:.,  only  citizens'  dress 
appears. 

In  Governments  where  other  branches  than  the  Legislative  are 
elective  the  same  absence  of  insignia  is  jusi  to  that  extent  observable. 
Thus  in  the  American  Republic  the  Executive  as  well  as  the  Legis- 


MODERN   INSIGNIA   OF   RANK;    BOOK   ILLUSTRATIONS.      837 

lative  heads  being  elective  have  alike  no  insignia  of  office;  while  the 
Chief  Justices,  not  elective,  wear  still  the  official  robe.  So  the  "  Cit- 
izen Presidents"  of  the  French  Revolution  of  1798,  as  also  Lamar- 
tine  in  1848,  laid  aside,  as  by  a  law  instinctively  recognized,  all 
official  insignia. 

The  question  is  an  open  one,  how  far  this  omission  of  the  badge 
of  office  is  desirable  in  practice,  not  to  say  legitimate  in  theory.  It 
has  recently  been  found  advisable  that  the  police  in  American  cities 
be  designated  by  an  official  dress  and  badge.  It  has  been  found  also 
inexpedient,  if  not  impossible,  to  extend  the  ignoring  of  official  cos- 
tume to  diplomatic  representatives  at  European  Courts  where  long 
established  etiquette  cannot  be  compromised.  Perhaps  true  art  may 
yet  suggest  becoming  emblematic  insignia  suggestive  of  civil  authority 
in  other  departments. 

Sect.  10.  Modern  advances  in  the  methods  of  diffusing  knowledge; 
Tending  to  unlimited  multiplication  and  improvement  in  picture 
illustration. 

In  all  ages  and  among  all  classes  of  men  the  eye  has  been  found 
to  be  a  special  instructor  of  the  mind.  At  a  distance  where  written 
language  is  unknown,  the  savage's  rude  picture  conveys  his  message; 
in  all  nations  without  revelation  images  of  deities  have  been  silent 
instructors;  and  one  of  the  pleas  for  pictures  in  Christian  churches 
has  been  their  aid  as  spiritual  preachers.  It  is  to  be  remembered, 
however,  that  increased  intelligence  makes  picture  teaching  inadequate 
and  even  deceptive,  and  therefore  on  many  themes  unworthy;  that 
when  the  mind  through  instruction  addressed  by  a  present  teacher  to 
the  ear,  or  by  an  absent  teacher  through  the  printed  page,  has  gained 
the  power  of  forming  conceptions  of  things,  as  well  as  of  sentiments, 
without  pictures  addressed  to  the  eye,  it  has  made  a  noble  advance. 

In  modern  as  in  ancient  times  the  pictures  of  material  objects  may 
especially  instruct  through  the  eye.  The  ancient  Egyptians  accom- 
panied their  long  lines  of  hieroglyphic  records,  themselves  made  up 
of  small  pictures,  with  extended  carvings  and  paintings  illustrative 
of  their  themes.  The  monks  of  the  Middle  Ages  decorated  initial 
letters  in  missals  and  other  religious  books  with  limnings  of  Scripture 
incidents  to  illustra^-  Christian  truth.  From  the  time  of  revived 
natural  science,  after  Bacon,  books  on  material  themes,  especially  on , 
Natural  Science,  have  been  illustrated  by  drawings.  The  pure  ma- 
thematics must  be,  and  the  higher  applied  Mathematics,  as  Mechanics 
and  even  Astronomy  may  be,  though  very  inadequately,  illustrated 


838  ART  CRITICISM. 

by  diagrams;  but,  in  all  this  department,  if  the  pupil  is  not  drawn 
away  from  the  book,  and  trained  to  form  his  conceptions  of  mathe- 
matical figures  and  of  the  mechanism  of  the  heavens  independently 
of  its  diagrams,  the  mind  has  been  led  into  error  rather  than  into 
truth.  So  in  the  Fine  Arts,  as  the  artist  may  be  at  first  a  copyist  either 
of  a  teacher's  patterns  or  of  any  object  in  Nature,  but  must  soon  learn 
to  conceive  with  no  model  before  the  eye,  so  the  amateur,  who  studies 
art  for  the  purpose  of  criticism,  may  be  hindered  instead  of  aided  in 
his  conceptions  by  the  imperfect  drawings  of  the  text-book.  Still  in 
the  department  of  history,  natural,  civil  and  religious,  as  in  that  of 
science,  and  in  the  field  of  symbolism  secular  and  Christian,  book 
illustrations  may  be  as  useful  as  they  are  common  in  their  aid  of  the 
student's  conception. 

Sect.  11.  Modern  refinements  in  METAPHYSicAii,  Moral  and  Theolog- 
ical Science;  originating  modified  principles  of  design  and  of  de- 
vices representative  of  spiritual  truth. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  on  the  mind  of  the  thorough  scholar  of  the 
past  and  careful  observer  of  modern  European  Society,  that  from 
Greece  and  Russia  on  the  East,  throughout  Europe  to  the  British  Isles 
on  the  West,  there  is  a  steady  present  progress  in  all  that  makes  up 
civilization.  This  is  apparent  in  the  great  metaphysical  writers  of 
Germany,  France  and  Scotland  ;  in  the  zest  for  nice  moral  distinctions 
seen  among  the  youth  of  modern  Greek,  English  and  American  Uni- 
versities ;  and  in  the  progress  of  spiritual  ideas  and  yearning  for  per- 
sonal investigation  of  religious  truth  prevailing  from  Constantinople 
to  Paris,  and  among  the  learned  as  w'ell  as  the  uneducated  of  England 
and  America.  While  thus  metaphysical  and  religious  opinions  are 
assuming,  like  those  in  natural  science  and  philosophy,  more  of  the 
unity  which  common  study  necessarily  begets,  the  republic  of  letters 
has  citizens  in  every  nation  won  to  it,  and  the  community  of  art  have 
diminishing  restrictions  upon  their  ever  fraternal  intercourse. 

True  study  of  man's  mental  nature,  of  his  moral  obligations  and 
of  his  religious  aspirings  cannot  have  any  other  influence  than  to 
nurture,  develope  and  elevate  man's  spiritual  being.  The  progress 
of  decorative  art  in  this  point  of  view  is  eminently  progressive.  The 
old  forms  of  personal  adornment,  of  civic  insignia,  of  funereal  me- 
morials and  of  religious  symbolism,  becoming  unsatisfying  from 
their  grossness,  seek  a  more  refined  style  of  art.  While  the  Sublime 
Porte  manifest  this  improving  power  at  the  antipodes,  the  multiplex 
population  of  America,  with  adherents  in  religion  to  English,  Ger- 


MODERN  FUNERAL  MONUMENTS  UNDER  CHRISTIAN  TRUTH.  839 

man  and  Roman  standards,  are  studying  anew  every  department  of 
religious  as  of  civic  decoration.  Such  a  condition  of  Society  can- 
not but  call  forth  at  last  a  harmony  in  some  high  order  of  art  con- 
ception. 

Sect.  12.  The  Prevalence  of   Spiritual  views  of  the  future  life; 
influencing  the  style  and  the  accessories  of  funeral  monuments. 

Much  of  man's  devotion  to  art  ever  has  shown  and  ever  will  show 
itself  in  funeral  monuments ;  which  speak  at  once,  in  pleasant  mem- 
ory of  the  past  of  the  deceased,  and  in  lively  hope  of  his  future.  The 
Egyptian  kings  carried  this  sentiment  at  first  to  an  extreme;  building 
pyramidal  abodes,  as  much  more  costly  than  their  palaces,  as  the  body's 
rest  in  the  one  was  to  be  longer  than  in  the  other ;  while  during  all 
their  history,  Egyptian  royal  tombs  were  as  expensive  as  their  tem- 
ples. In  its  early  history,  German,  English  and  American  Sculp- 
ture has  been  chiefly  confined  to  funeral  monuments ;  to  which  also 
if  must  be  permanently  devoted. 

The  marked  distinction  between  modern  Christian  and  ancient 
Egyptian,  Hebrew  and  even  Grecian  and  Roman  types  for  funeral 
monuments,  is  to  be  traced  to  the  distinct  philosophy  of  each  as  to 
the  power  and  province  of  death.  The  spirit  of  the  ancients  was 
based  on  the  idea  that  matter  is  eternal ;  in  its  nature  possessed  by  in- 
dwelling evil ;  as  uncreated  beyond  the  power  of  the  Spiritual  Ruler 
and  Redeemer  to  transform  and  purify;  and  thence  forever  shut  up 
to  the  lament  which  "says  to  Corruption,  'Thou  art  my  father,'  and 
to  the  worm  *  Thou  art  my  mother.' "  The  Spirit  of  the  Orientalist 
is  seen  in  the  Hebrew  patriarch  seeking  to  buy  a  cave  for  a  sepul- 
chre, and  urging,  "that  I  may  bury  my  dead  out  of  my  sight."  The 
Egyptians  locked  up  the  dead  in  solid  pyramids,  and  tombs  close- 
shut  and  hidden;  the  Greeks  and  Romans  consumed  the  dead  body 
that  nothing  might  remain  but  the  ashes ;  and  even  Jesus  was  laid 
in  a  cave,  and  a  stone  rolled  to  the  entrance.  The  funeral  monu- 
ments of  the  East  and  of  the  ancients  were  in  correspondence;  in 
Hebrew  and  Arabian  burying-grounds,  flat  stones  being  laid  prone 
on  the  grave ;  the  Egyptian  and  patriarchal  being  enclosed  caves ; 
and  the  Grecian  and  Roman  having  urns  for  ashes. 

The  Christian  idea  is  based  on  the  truth  revealed  in  Divine  Reve- 
lation, and  in  Christ's  personal  resurrection:  that  material  things 
"now  appearing"  to  the  eye,  were  "made  of  that  which  before  Creation 
had  no  actual  existence;"  that  matter  whether  in  the  heavenly  bodies, 
in  earth,  or  in  man's  frame  was  made  from  nothing  by  God's  word ; 


840  AET  CRITICISM. 

that  in-  itself  neither  matter  nor  spirit  is  evil,  or  possessed  by  its 
Spirit ;  that  though  Divine  AVisdom  has  allowed  to  the  Spirit  of  evil 
the  title  "  Prince  of  the  power  of  the  air"  as  well  as  "Prince  of  this 
world,"  in  due  time  the  Divine  Power  will  bruise  Satan,  or  the  Accuser, 
under  man's  feet ;  and  that  after  death  "both  soul  and  body"  may  be 
redeemed.  The  spirit  of  this  Eevelation,  confirmed  in  Christ's  Res- 
urrection, led  Jesus  and  Paul  to  call  death  "  sleep ;"  it  prompted  the 
pleasant  emblems  of  the  early  Christians  on  their  tombs ;  it  is  kept 
alive  in  the  funeral  rites  of  Oriental  Christians,  as  well  as  of  Muham- 
medans  whose  prophet  in  the  Koran  borrow^ed  the  Christian  idea, 
who  carry  the  dead  body  laid  out  in  state  in  an  open  decorated  coffin 
through  the  streets,  and  then  leave  it  with  the  least  possible  covering  in 
the  tomb  ;  and  this  permanent  deep  sentiment  of  life  beyond  the  tomb, 
shows  itself  in  numberless  varied  devices,  such  as  the  dove  bearing 
the  rose-bud  to  heaven,  the  worm  breaking  the  chrysalis  and  soaring 
as  a  butterfly,  that  throng  modern  Christian  burial  places. 

The  consideration  of  funereal  monuments  under  the  Christian 
Revelation  is  a  fitting  close  to  this  treatise  on  the  Fine  Arts  and 
their  criticism.  Monuments  to  the  dead  demand  from  all  the 
arts.  Drawing,  Sculpture,  Architecture,  Landscape  Gardening  and 
Decorative  Art  their  highest  eflbrts.  It  is  the  field  for  Decorative 
Art,  last  in  order,  speaking  of  man's  final  end ;  it  is  the  most  exalted, 
looking  to  his  higher  life ;  and  it  is  exhaustless,  drawing  emblems 
from  plants,  animal  and  angelic  beings,  from  the  philosophy  and  poe- 
try of  all  ages  and  nations.  Above  all  it  embodies  the  highest  con- 
ceptions of  the  True,  the  Beautiful  and  the  Good  this  side  the  grave ; 
and  drawing  its  life  from  inspired  penmen,  beginning  with  Job  the 
patriarch,  and  ending  with  John,  Christ's  beloved  apostle,  it  aspires 
to  the  perfect  Right  in  the  world  beyond  the  tomb. 


THE  END  ^«sCiyoE.itf!l^ 


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